LISA MARIE KIMMELL - 18 yo - (3/1988) / Convicted: Dale Wayne Eaton - Cheyenne, WY - Billings, MT

Real Name: Lisa Marie Kimmell
Nicknames: Lil Miss
Location: Denver, Colorado to Billings, Montana
Date: March 25, 1988


Details: Lisa Marie Kimmell was a eighteen-year-old girl who worked as a manager at a fast food restaurant. On March 25, 1988, she left her home in Denver, Colorado to go visit her boyfriend Ed Jaroch in Cody, Wyoming, and planned to afterward go to Billings, Montana, to visit her parents. However, she never arrived in Cody, and Ed called several highway patrols. He found that she was stopped briefly for speeding while en route, but no one is sure just what happened to her next. On April 2, 1988, mechanic Greg Bradford was walking along the North Platte River when he found Lisa's body floating in the river near Casper, Wyoming. Autopsy revealed she had been beaten, bound and raped before she had been murdered. She had been stabbed six times. On a bridge a quarter mile away, authorities found Lisa's blood and believed that she was murdered early on March 26 based on eyewitness accounts.

Surprisingly, Lisa, her car, and an unidentified man were seen hundreds of times after the time Lisa was believed to have been killed; the most reliable sightings came on March 26 and 27. One was in Casper, just twenty miles from where her body found, and the other two were in Buffalo. The Casper sighting occurred on the 27, when Diana Houston noticed the personalized "Li'l Miss" license plate on a car, and she saw someone with blonde hair and wearing a yellow sweater. Then, Donna Kirkpatrick reported the day before that she saw Lisa pulling out in front of her, saw the license plate, and then saw Lisa with a pink sweater driving. Two hours after Donna saw Lisa, another eyewitness also saw her in Buffalo, but this time an unknown man was with her. The cashier saw Lisa's license plate, then saw Lisa and a small man. Authorities have several troubling questions in this case, including how could Lisa have been seen after she was supposedly killed, or why did she not signal for help, and finally where is her car. Her black 1988 Honda CR-X with the license plate, "Li'l Miss," has not yet been found.

Suspects: The authorities cleared the officer who had stopped Kimmell as well as one other man who had committed suicide. DNA cleared the suicide victim post-mortem. The only other piece of evidence was an envelope with a short letter left at Lisa's grave on October 13, 1988. That note was signed "Stringfellow Hawke," a fictional character from the TV Series, Airwolf.

Extra Notes: This segment originally aired on the March 15, 1989 episode of Unsolved Mysteries . Lisa's mother, Shelia Kimmell, published the book, The Murder of Lil Miss on the murder of her daughter. This case was also featured on Cold Case Files on A&E.

Results: Solved. In 2002, DNA testing on the envelope linked it to Dale Wayne Eaton, who was by then serving a sentence in prison for an unrelated crime. Lisa's vehicle was found buried on his property.

Eaton was convicted of her murder and given the death penalty. He is a possible suspect in the "Great Basin Murders" a series of unsolved murders throughout the Pacific Northwest. He is also a possible suspect in the disappearance of Amy Wroe Bechtel.

http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Lisa_Marie_Kimmell

Lisa Marie Kimmell was from Billings, MT headed to her boyfriends house in March of 1988, when something went awry. For eight ( days, Lisa was missing, before a fisherman located her lifeless body floating in a nearby stream. Autopsy results would show that Lisa had been sexually assaulted and murded by an unknown assailant.

Lisa had been pulled over by a police officer shortly before her disappearance for speeding, but the police officer was cleared of any connection to Lisa's disappearance and death. This left many unanswered questions to authorities and to Lisa's family, because not only was Lisa murdered, her CRX was still missing without a trace.

Mysteriously, a note would appear on Lisa's grave approximately one year and four days after Lisa disappeared. The poilce felt there was a link between the letter and the killer, but had nothing to go on. The letter was kept on file. Some 14 years later, a random DNA retest from the rape kit taken from Lisa Kimmell's autopsy was reviewed again, and there was a hit from the database. The DNA match would come from a man already incarcerated for illegal gun posession. The man's name was Dale Wayne Eaton. He was later charged with Lisa's murder, however the story does not end there.

A former neighbor of Dale Eaton was questioned and she told police that she observed Eaton digging a large hole in his yard around the time Lisa Kimmell disappeared. The neighbor reported that Eaton had told her husband that he was attempting to dig a well. Police began to dig up Eaton's yard shortly after obtaining this information. This is where Lisa's CRX was finally found.

Dale Wayne Eaton was convicted on the DNA results and handwriting samples on the letter he left on Kimmell's grave. He was sentenced to death 14 years after Lisa was found in the Platt River. Although justice was found for Lisa, there is still no closure for her family who still loves and misses her each day. Lisa is gone, but she has never been forgotten.



This is an example photograph of the black Honda CRX owned by Lisa Kimmell with Montana license plates LILMISS, that was missing for 14 years.

The government bridge, that overlooks the North Platte River, where Lisa Marie's body was found in 1988


Lisa Marie Kimmell's Grave Stone

http://www.geocities.ws/forlisakimmell/thedisappearanceoflisa.html

Dale Wayne Eaton lawyers ask federal judge to overturn death sentence


December 31, 2013 7:00 am  •  By BEN NEARY The Associated Press


Dale Wayne Eaton
Enlarge Photo

CHEYENNE — Lawyers for Wyoming’s lone death row inmate have filed a massive court brief asking a federal judge to overturn his death sentence.

Inmate Dale Wayne Eaton, 68, is challenging the constitutionality of the death sentence he received in 2004 for the rape and murder of 18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmell of Billings, Mont. The Wyoming Supreme Court already has upheld Eaton’s conviction, but the federal court has put the execution on hold.

Eaton’s lawyers filed the 300-page brief with U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson of Cheyenne last week. The brief echoes testimony from a court hearing this summer at which many of Eaton’s relatives and acquaintances testified.

Eaton’s current lawyers don’t dispute that he killed Kimmell in 1988. But they claim he didn’t get an adequate defense at trial.

In challenging Eaton’s death sentence, his current legal team has hammered on their claim that his trial lawyers didn’t do a constitutionally adequate job of investigating his life, mental health and family history to draw out mitigating evidence that might have convinced even a single juror that his life was worth saving.

Kimmell disappeared while driving across Wyoming and her body was later found in the North Platte River. In 2002, DNA testing linked Eaton to the murder while he was in prison on unrelated charges.

At the time of Kimmel’s murder, Eaton was living by himself in a rundown compound in Moneta, west of Casper. Authorities have said he kept Kimmell captive there for several days and raped her before killing her and burying her car on the property.

Eaton’s current legal team consists of Cheyenne lawyer Terry Harris and Missouri lawyers Sean O’Brien and Lindsay J. Runnels. Harris declined comment Monday on the brief or the status of Eaton’s case.

Harris and O’Brien successfully challenged the death sentence of James Harlow, an inmate at the Penitentiary of Wyoming who had been convicted of involvement with the death of a correctional officer. A federal judge overturned Harlow’s death sentence in 2008.

The bulk of Eaton’s latest federal brief levels criticism at lead trial lawyer Wyatt Skaggs of Laramie. Skaggs declined comment Monday, saying he can’t comment on a pending case.

Eaton’s team wrote in the brief that Skaggs’ approach to the defense of capital murder charges is, “so fundamentally flawed that the jury that sentenced Mr. Eaton to die heard virtually nothing of his life circumstances and mental illness that led to his impoverished isolation at the time of his crime.”

The brief charges that Skaggs’ tried to save money for the Public Defender’s Office by hiring a single person to serve both as investigator for the defense and as a mitigation specialist, meaning a person who would interview Eaton’s family and others to try to present a complete picture of his life and personality.

The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office represents the state against Eaton’s appeal. Deputy Attorney General David Delicath said Monday that the state will file a response brief in early February. Delicath declined comment on Eaton’s latest brief.

Once Eaton and the state finish this final round of briefing, the case apparently could be ready for Johnson to make a decision on Eaton’s request to overturn his death penalty. However, the public court record isn’t clear about the status of recent defense claims that Eaton may suffer from mental illness or mental disability that could preclude his execution.

Johnson previously approved a defense request for more medical testing of Eaton after his lawyers said that his IQ might be low enough that he could be covered by a federal ban against executing people with intellectual disabilities. Nothing in the public court file indicates whether the testing has been completed.


http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/dale-wayne-eaton-lawyers-ask-federal-judge-to-overturn-death/article_551df127-0a3d-5824-afd3-3dfdbd7ce115.html

Apparently if you wait long enough on this new blog, the pictures will show up.

twinkletoes wrote:Apparently if you wait long enough on this new blog, the pictures will show up.

          

It irritates me no end when a murderer cries for his "constitutional rights".  Apparently they don't think too much about the rights of their victims.  And another thing, "mitigating circumstances" for beating, raping, holding prisoner and murdering a young girl?  I'm sorry that anyone has to be poor or alone or even not be the brightest bulb, but that does not excuse morally wrong behavior; oh, I keep forgetting that we're getting where "character doesn't count"(back from the Clinton days), no moral standards and the constitution is only relevant when convenient for some people.  

(OK, sometimes the emoticons are actually on the side   , but sometimes they are not    - not getting it!

Yes Ladibug and it's the most brutal and vicious monsters who whine and cry the loudest. They showed their victims no mercy. None of their victims got to appeal their death sentences. These disgusting POSs should just be shot. When there is no doubt as to their guilty, they should be shot immediately.