Joubert goes on trial today

AUGUSTA — John J. Joubert, the former airman and Eagle Scout condemned to death in Nebraska for the murders of two boys, goes on trial Monday in his home state of Maine for the killing of an 11-year-old boy in 1982.

Joubert, 27, who will be tried in Superior Court in Wiscasset, stands accused of strangling and stabbing Richard Stetson, who was last seen when he went jogging along a boulevard in Portland.

Joubert’s death sentence in Nebraska will not be affected by the outcome of his trial in Maine, said Maine Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese.

Marchese said earlier this year that Stetson’s family had a right to see the case resolved.

“It’s about time it’s coming to a head,” said Edward Stetson, the slain boy’s father.

Stetson said Thursday the trial comes as a relief after years of waiting for justice.

Maine authorities had sought Joubert’s extradition since 1986. Joubert himself “did request to be brought here and tried,” said Joubert’s attorney, Liisa Hamilton.

“Anyone charged with a crime has a right to a trial,” Hamilton said. “I don’t pretend to know all of his reasons.”

Many of the court documents in the case have been impounded. The trial was moved from Portland to Wiscasset because of pretrial publicity.

Until January when he was brought to Maine, Joubert was on Nebraska’s death row for the abductions and killings of Danny Joe Eberle, 13, and Christopher Paul Walden, 12, both of Sarpy County. Both boys had been stabbed repeatedly.

Joubert had been serving in the military at Offutt Air Force Base when the two boys were slain in 1983. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced in 1984 to death in Nebraska’s electric chair. Joubert’s execution date is Dec. 7.

An appeal of his conviction has been rejected by the Nebraska Supreme Court.

While lawyers were reluctant before the Maine trial to discuss Joubert’s personal background, Nebraska court records and published interviews with people he knew paint a portrait of an intelligent man who had a tortured childhood.

Joubert was raised in a broken home in Portland by his mother. He was frequently taunted and rejected by other children during his youth.

He became active in Boy Scouts and achieved the Eagle rank in 1981. With that position, other boys seemed to treat Joubert with respect, said Pat Calvert, the father of a fellow scout, in an interview published earlier this year. Others remembered Joubert as a good student.

But things were different in school. Chris Fournier, Joubert’s classmate at Cheverus Catholic high school in Portland, told the Maine Sunday Telegram that other students picked on the diminutive Joubert.

Joubert left Portland for the Air Force a short time after the Stetson killing. He served in Texas before being transferred to the Offutt base.