Patrick Schroeder appears at the Johnson County Courthouse in Tecumseh in June 2018, where a three-judge panel announced his death penalty for the 2017 murder of his cellmate, Terry Berry. Schroeder died in prison in August 2022. His death was ruled a suicide.
TECUMSEH — Among the files at the Johnson County District Court Clerk's office are two newly filed, thickly bound books detailing the deaths of seven men, all inmates at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution.
Five of the seven had killed, convicted of murder or motor vehicle homicide.
Two of them — Arthur Gales Jr. and Patrick Schroeder — had been on Nebraska's death row.Â
The grand jury, which met Jan. 13 to review in-custody deaths in the county since 2021, found no criminal wrongdoing, though in some cases asked questions. If the outcome may have been different if one inmate had been brought to the hospital sooner? If another who killed himself had been on suicide watch? Whether there were cameras in the hall outside another's cell?
In Nebraska, whenever a person dies in custody, a grand jury is called to look at the circumstances and determine whether any criminal wrongdoing occurred.
But in 2016, in response to renewed focus on deaths in police custody, the Legislature changed the law and required grand jury reports and transcripts of the proceedings to be filed with the court.
On Jan. 13, Johnson County Attorney Ben Beethe presented the evidence to the grand jury in District Judge Rick Schreiner's courtroom.
The Journal Star read the trial transcripts filed March 20 and reviewed the exhibits put before the 16 jurors to get a glimpse of what happened behind the razor wire fences at the prison just outside of Tecumseh in the deaths of Arthur Gales Jr., John Zalme, Frank Hardy, Michael C. Becker, Robert Mahler, Kevin Miller and Patrick Schroeder.
Here's a recap of the evidence in each.
Arthur Gales Jr., 55
On April 3, 2021, an inmate porter in Gales' room at the Skilled Nursing Facility heard a gurgling sound from Gales, then noticed he wasn't breathing, according to Nebraska State Patrol Investigator Jason Jones. He said the previous year, Gales had his arm amputated in an effort to stop bone cancer from spreading. But it had spread to his lungs and into his brain. He had signed a do-not-resuscitate order.
Gales was sentenced to death for the murder of two children, 13-year-old Latara Chandler and 7-year-old Tramar Chandler, plus 50 years for the attempted murder of their mother in Omaha in 2001.
Patrick Schroeder, 45
Early Aug. 29, 2022, a corporal doing hourly checks of inmates on death row found Schroeder suspended from a bedsheet tied to his bunk bed and called the emergency response team, according to State Patrol Investigator Pedram Nabegh. An hour earlier, Schroeder had been sitting up, awake. Nabegh said they took him to the prison's medical facility, where he was declared deceased. On a table near the bed they found a sheet of paper propped up with a suicide note, saying he was "Tired." "I'm going to die in prison so since there's no way around that I'm going out on my terms and my time," he wrote.
Pedram confirmed what inmates had told the Journal Star in September, that Schroeder had used a razor blade to cut his wrist on Aug. 12, then buzzed in on the intercom to alert staff. The next day he denied trying to kill himself, saying he'd used K2 and when he came to saw he was bleeding. Two days later, he was taken off overnight checks every 15 minutes.
Schroeder was 11 years into a life sentence for the killing of 75-year-old Pawnee City farmer Kenny Albers when on April 15, 2017, he strangled his cellmate, Terry Berry, because Berry wouldn't stop talking. Schroeder pleaded guilty to the crime and didn't fight the death sentence.
John Zalme, 74
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Early July 7, 2021, a prison corporal doing normal cell checks looked through the window for signs of life and didn't see Zalme's chest rising, State Patrol Investigator Amanda DeFreece said. The corporal woke up Zalme's cellmate and asked him to check on him, and he said Zalme was cold to the touch. The guard called for an emergency response, and he was moved to Skilled Nursing, but the automated external defibrillator indicated not to shock. DeFreece said the cellmate had no defensive wounds, and an autopsy later determined he died of a heart attack.
Zalme was serving time for stabbing a fellow inmate in 1975 and stabbing three penitentiary guards in 1981. In 1997, he killed an inmate by beating him and then starting him on fire. At the time, Zalme was serving his time in Oregon. Most recently, he was charged with assault in the May 2015 riot in Tecumseh.
Kevin Miller, 41
On Aug. 25, 2022, Miller died at the Johnson County Hospital while waiting transfer to a higher level of care for a blood clot in his lungs. A day earlier, he complained to nursing staff at the prison that he'd been short of breath for several days, and they sent him to the ER. Dr. Benjamin Biehl said Miller was diagnosed with the blood clot and put on oxygen and blood thinners. At the hospital, he collapsed onto the bed. "He rose up and took a gasp of air and then collapsed again," Investigator Nabegh said. Miller had colon cancer and was determined to have died of natural causes.
Miller was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for the murder of his wife, Kelsey, and hiding her body in a storage facility in Lincoln.
Frank Hardy, 68
On Dec. 1, 2021, an inmate porter in Skilled Nursing, where Hardy was housed, noticed that Hardy did not appear to be breathing, according to Nebraska State Patrol Investigator Henry Dimitroff. He said the 68-year-old had been suffering from leukemia and had signed a DNR order. The grand jury found no signs of foul play and determined he died of natural causes.
Hardy was serving time on charges of sexual assault of a child.
Michael C. Becker, 25
Early Dec. 7, 2021, a corporal discovered Becker hanging, a bedsheet tied to the upper bunk of his cell, and called for emergency responders, State Patrol Investigator Justin Podany said. Becker was taken to the prison's ER, where he was pronounced dead. He had been housed alone in the Special Management Unit cell, where a search turned up an unsent suicide note to his dad.
He was serving time for armed robbery but a week from sentencing in federal court on a child porn charge. Podany said Becker didn't want to be a sex offender in prison and likely had seen firsthand how they were treated.
Robert Mahler, 65
On July 6, 2022, Mahler collapsed while mopping the gallery of Housing Unit 1A, according to Podany. He said no one was around Mahler at the time, but the incident was spotted on prison surveillance video. He was taken to the Johnson County Hospital, but life-saving measures failed. Dr. Jeremy Berg determined Mahler died of a heart attack.
Mahler was serving time for motor vehicle homicide for a September 2011 crash that killed two Wayne State College students — Alexis "Lexi" Calfee, 19, of Bennet and Christopher Oberg, 20, of Mapleton, Iowa, — near Emerson.
Patrick Schroeder appears at the Johnson County Courthouse in Tecumseh in June 2018, where a three-judge panel announced his death penalty for the 2017 murder of his cellmate, Terry Berry. Schroeder died in prison in August 2022. His death was ruled a suicide.