Francis Donald Nemechek was convicted of the murders of five people in western Kansas: two young women and a 3-year-old boy in December 1974, and two young women in the summer of 1976. A jury in Salina, where the trial had been moved because of heavy local publicity, found him guilty on five counts of first-degree murder after rejecting his plea of insanity. He was sentenced in March 1977 to five consecutive life terms, and the Kansas Supreme Court upheld the verdicts on April 1, 1978.
The case against him rested chiefly on his own words. In its 1978 opinion the state's highest court called his confession to the five crimes "the most damning evidence" against him. His lawyers did not try to show that someone else had killed the victims. They argued instead that he had been insane when he did it, and the jury did not accept that.
His life sentences have allowed for parole hearings. After a hearing in July 2017 the Kansas Prisoner Review Board denied him parole, and he was not to be eligible again until 2027.
Little is known of Nemechek's life before his arrest. The Kansas Supreme Court opinion does not give his age, his work or his family background; he was 66 in April 2017 and 67 that August.
One part of his personal life did come into the trial. According to the Supreme Court's summary of the defense case, his lawyers argued that he killed the four women out of an insane hatred of his former wife, believing in his mind that he was killing her. The court described this as the defense theory; it did not find it to be true, and the jury rejected the insanity defense that it supported. Nemechek himself said that he had been "depressed" and that he had lapses of memory. The court called those remarks self-serving.
On December 13, 1974, two young women and a small boy had car trouble on Interstate 70 near Ogallah, in western Kansas. Their names were Sheryl Lynn Young, Diane Lynn Lovette and Guy William Young, Sheryl's son, who was 3. A 2017 Eagle Radio report gave Sheryl and Guy Young's home as Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Diane Lovette's as Fort Madison, Iowa. Where they were headed is not known.
Nemechek picked the three of them up near Ogallah. He took them to Graham County. There the two women were shot with a shotgun, and the boy was left behind and died of exposure, according to the Kansas Supreme Court. Their bodies were found a month later, on January 13, 1975.
What investigators learned about the case in 1975, and whether Nemechek was questioned about it before his arrest in 1976, remains unknown. After that arrest he confessed to these three deaths along with the two killings of 1976.
Little else about the three victims was reported. Sheryl Young and Diane Lovette were young women; the boy was a toddler. Beyond their names, their hometowns and the dates of their deaths, little of their lives is on record.
On January 1, 1976, a little more than a year after the Ogallah killings, someone fired a rifle at a passing car on the interstate. Nemechek was arrested for that shooting. The Kansas Supreme Court, describing the incident as it came up at his murder trial, said only that he had "allegedly" fired at the car; the outcome of that case is not described in the opinion.
That earlier arrest mattered later. Because of it, the sheriff of Trego County had Nemechek's fingerprint card on file. The opinion records that the sheriff had the card in hand on the day the body of Paula Fabrizius was found in August 1976.
At the murder trial, the defense wanted to cross-examine the sheriff about the sniping case and the fingerprint card. The trial judge excluded that line of questioning as irrelevant. On appeal, Nemechek argued that the shooting fit the defense theory of his illness, but the Supreme Court found nothing in the record to connect the two. For the shooting to support the claim that he struck out at women he confused with his former wife, the court said, it would have had to be an attack on a woman he took to be her, and no such facts appeared in the record. His lawyers had also failed to make a proper offer of what the sheriff's testimony would have shown. Without that, the court said, it could not find that the trial judge had abused his discretion.
On June 30, 1976, Carla Baker, a college student, was abducted while she was riding her bicycle near Hays. She was not seen alive again.
Her disappearance went unexplained through the summer. Her remains were recovered on September 21, 1976, in Trego County, after Nemechek, by then in custody for another killing, told police where to look. It was his information, the Kansas Supreme Court recorded, that led investigators to her.
She was a college student; her age and hometown have not been reported.
Paula Fabrizius was 16. In the summer of 1976 she worked as a park rangerette at Cedar Bluff State Park. The August 2017 Eagle Radio report gave her hometown as WaKeeney.
On August 21, 1976, she was abducted from her post at the park. Her body was found the next day in Gove County.
Nemechek was arrested on August 24, 1976. The Kansas Supreme Court opinion does not set out the full investigation, but it does record one link: the fingerprint card the Trego County sheriff held from the sniping arrest earlier that year.
After his arrest Nemechek confessed. His confession covered all five deaths: the two women and the boy in Graham County in 1974, Carla Baker, and Paula Fabrizius. It was in his statements to police that investigators learned where to find Carla Baker's remains.
The Supreme Court opinion does not describe how the confession was taken or exactly when he signed it. None of the four points he later raised on appeal challenged the confession.
Five counts of first-degree murder were brought against him under K.S.A. 21-3401, the Kansas statute on murder in the first degree. Because of what the Supreme Court called widespread local publicity in western Kansas, the trial was moved east to Salina.
The confession was the center of the prosecution's case. The state, the Supreme Court said, introduced extensive evidence connecting Nemechek to the crimes, with the confession as the most damning part of it.
The defense was insanity, judged in Kansas under the M'Naghten rule. Nemechek's lawyers called two psychiatrists and several lay witnesses. Their theory, as the Supreme Court summarized it, was that he had killed the women because of an insane hatred of his former wife, and that he had believed he was killing her.
Three psychiatric witnesses concluded that Nemechek had been faking badly on a number of psychological tests and might have been trying to appear sicker than he really was.
Several rulings during the trial went against the defense. At the close of the state's evidence, Nemechek's lawyers moved for a judgment of acquittal on the ground of insanity. They argued that his plea, and what had been said in opening statements, had raised the question of his sanity, and that the state therefore had to offer psychiatric evidence of his sanity in its own case before the defense presented anything. The judge denied the motion and later instructed the jury on the presumption that a defendant is sane and on how evidence of insanity could overcome it.
The defense also wanted to use a polygraph examination. The aim was to show, from changes in his heartbeat, breathing and skin response during questioning, that he really did not remember committing the crimes and so must have been insane. The trial judge kept the evidence out.
The jury found him guilty on all five counts of first-degree murder. In March 1977 he was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences.
Nemechek appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court. His lawyer on appeal was Gene F. Anderson of Hays. The state was represented by David J. Harding, the Ellis County attorney, who argued the case, with Attorney General Curt T. Schneider on the brief.
He raised four points, and the court rejected each of them in an opinion filed April 1, 1978, in State v. Nemechek, 223 Kan. 766, 576 P.2d 682.
First, he argued that the judge should have acquitted him at the close of the state's case. The court disagreed. In Kansas a defendant is presumed sane, and that presumption carries the state's case until some evidence raises a reasonable doubt about sanity. A plea of not guilty by reason of insanity is not evidence, and neither are opening statements, so neither one could rebut the presumption. Because the evidence did not compel an acquittal, the judge was right to send the question to the jury with instructions on the presumption.
Second, he asked the court to drop the M'Naghten rule in favor of the American Law Institute (A.L.I.) test. The court called the argument without merit, citing its recent decision in State v. Smith, 223 Kan. 203 (1977), which had kept M'Naghten in place.
Third, he challenged the ruling that kept out the sheriff's testimony about the January 1976 sniping and the fingerprint card. The court held that on this record the shooting had no logical connection to the murders and that the defense had not made an adequate offer of what the testimony would show.
Fourth, he challenged the exclusion of the polygraph evidence. The court pointed to its long-standing rule that polygraph results, and an examiner's observations, are not admissible without a stipulation by both sides, because they are too speculative. Using the physiological readings to show a lack of memory, rather than truthfulness, did not change that.
The judgment was affirmed. With that decision, the five convictions became final.
Nemechek has been held at the Lansing Correctional Facility since his sentencing, according to the 2017 Eagle Radio reports.
His life sentences carried the possibility of parole, and in 2017 his case came up again before the Kansas Prisoner Review Board. In April 2017 the office of the Trego County attorney announced that his hearing was set for July. Before the hearing the board held public comment sessions at which the victims' families and friends, and anyone else, could speak: in Derby on June 14, in Topeka on June 23 and in Kansas City, Kansas, on June 26. Written comments were due by May 19.
The board denied parole after the July 2017 hearing, the Trego County attorney's office said in August 2017. Under the decision he would not be eligible for parole again for another 10 years, until 2027.
In August 2017, Nemechek remained at Lansing serving his five life sentences, with his next parole eligibility set for 2027.
Several parts of the case remain unsettled.
The January 1, 1976, shooting on Interstate 70 was described by the Kansas Supreme Court only as something he "allegedly" did. The opinion does not say whether that case was ever tried or how it ended.
The ages of Sheryl Young, Diane Lovette and Carla Baker have not been reported.
Finally, no details are on record of any parole hearing before 2017, beyond the fact that he remained in prison.
December 13, 1974: Sheryl Lynn Young, Diane Lynn Lovette and Guy William Young, 3, are picked up near Ogallah on Interstate 70 after car trouble; the two women are shot and the boy dies of exposure in Graham County.
January 13, 1975: Their bodies are found.
January 1, 1976: A rifle is fired at a passing car on the interstate; Nemechek is arrested for it, and the Trego County sheriff keeps his fingerprint card.
June 30, 1976: Carla Baker, a college student, is abducted while riding her bicycle near Hays.
August 21, 1976: Paula Fabrizius, 16, a rangerette at Cedar Bluff State Park, is abducted from her post.
August 22, 1976: Her body is found in Gove County.
August 24, 1976: Nemechek is arrested.
September 21, 1976: Carla Baker's remains are recovered in Trego County after he tells police where to look.
1977: A jury in Salina, where the trial was moved because of local publicity, finds him guilty of five counts of first-degree murder; in March he is sentenced to five consecutive life terms.
April 1, 1978: The Kansas Supreme Court affirms (State v. Nemechek, 223 Kan. 766).
April 2017: The Trego County attorney's office announces a July parole hearing; public comment sessions follow in June.
August 2017: Parole is denied; he is not eligible again until 2027.