{"id":686,"date":"2023-07-06T22:21:54","date_gmt":"2023-07-06T22:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/?p=686"},"modified":"2023-07-06T22:21:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T22:21:55","slug":"iowa-teen-jailed-for-killing-spanish-teacher-over-bad-grade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/2023\/07\/06\/iowa-teen-jailed-for-killing-spanish-teacher-over-bad-grade\/","title":{"rendered":"Iowa teen jailed for killing Spanish teacher over bad grade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A teenager in the US state of Iowa who beat his teacher to death with a baseball bat over a bad grade has been sentenced to life in prison.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willard Miller, 17, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in April for his role in the 2 November 2021 killing of Nohema Graber, a Spanish teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Miller and co-defendant Jeremy Goodale, now 18, attacked Ms Graber, 66, after she marked down Miller’s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aged 16 at the time of the murder, both were charged as adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goodale’s sentencing is scheduled for August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, Miller was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole only after at least 35 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was also ordered to pay at least $150,000 (\u00a3117,000) in restitution to the victim’s family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before delivering his sentence, Judge Shawn Showers rejected defence arguments that Miller was too young at the time to understand the gravity of his actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Evil does not have a birthday,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Family members of Ms Graber told the court they did not believe Miller was remorseful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several relatives mentioned that the murder led to the early death last month of Ms Graber’s husband, Paul. He was buried a day before Thursday’s sentencing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miller apologised to the community and turned to address Ms Graber’s relatives seated behind him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I am sincerely sorry for the distress I have caused you and the devastation I have caused your family,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pleading with the judge to forego the maximum sentence, Miller said: “I don’t want to be institutionalised so long that I forget who I am and where I come from.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors said the evidence showed both Miller and Goodale had bludgeoned Ms Graber with a bat during the attack in Fairfield, a town of fewer than 10,000 people that lies 100 miles (160km) south-east of the state capitol, Des Moines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day after the attack, police found the mother-of-three’s body hidden under a tarpaulin, wheelbarrow and railway sleepers in a local park where she used to walk after school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goodale blamed Miller for initiating the plan to kill Ms Graber and said they had both struck her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a police interview, Miller described frustrations with the way Ms Graber taught Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said his marks in her class were lowering his Grade Point Average, an important score during applications for US colleges and scholarships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miller met Ms Graber at Fairfield High School on the day of the murder to discuss his poor grade in her class. Goodale was also a student there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms Graber, a Mexican-born Spanish teacher, had been employed at Fairfield High School since 2012. She was part of the town’s small but growing Latino community.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Nohema Graber, 66, was prominent in the Spanish-speaking community<\/strong><\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Source: BBC<\/sub><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A teenager in the US state of Iowa who beat his teacher to death with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg.webp",976,549,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg-300x169.webp",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg-768x432.webp",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg.webp",640,360,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg.webp",976,549,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg.webp",976,549,false],"shareaholic-thumbnail":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg-640x360.webp",640,360,true],"chromenews-featured":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg.webp",976,549,false],"chromenews-large":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg-825x549.webp",825,549,true],"chromenews-medium":["https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/130312919_screenshot2023-07-06120218.jpg-590x410.webp",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["Babia Mubaric"]},"category_info":"General News<\/a>","tag_info":"General News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689,"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions\/689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmediagh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}