BEATRICE – A Gage County jury began deliberations Wednesday after lawyers painted competing scenarios about the last hours of Tyler Thomas' life.

The prosecution alleges that whatever happened at the Peru boat dock on Dec. 3, 2010, it convinced Joshua Keadle that he could never let her return to campus.

The defense says the phone records and WiFi hotspots support Keadle’s version of what happened and say Thomas was alive when he left her along the Missouri River.

Warner said one of the most important pieces of circumstantial evidence is that Thomas was never found.

 Warner: “Because people who die naturally, they commit suicide or just die natural,  can’t hide themselves after they are dead. The fact that you can’t find a body and you’ve been unsuccessful for 10 years is very strong evidence of a criminal act being responsible.

"Because the killer motive, if he wants to successfully get away with it, and he can successfully hide the body, is evidence of a crime. That is what happened in this case."

Defense Attorney Matt McDonald said state witness Corey Pfeifer is a meth user that may have understood there was reward money for information about Thomas.

Warner said Pfeifer testified that he spoke to Keadle about what happened that night.

Warner: “Mr. Keadle was confident that we were never going to find her in January of 2011 when he was in jail with Corey Pfeifer. His comment, they are never going to find her. He knew where she was at and he was confident at that time we were never going to find her. And he was right.”

McDonald said Keadle went down to the river in the early morning hours because he thought Thomas was alive and could still be found.

McDonald: “They told Josh in that interview they were tracking his cell phone, so what did he do? He told them here’s where I went. He says he went back down there, I looked to the boat ramp. She’s not there. He said that was freaking him out.

“He said he drove that trail north towards that campsite . He said he’s yelling for her. He had his headlights on and he’s looking for her.

 
“They ask him what happened when you didn’t find her. After he goes through everything. And what’s he tell them? Think about this.

"He said I went to the cemetery. I drove down there to look for her down there and I drove back and turned around and I didn’t see her.

“Why is that important? If he killed her, why did he go looking in the cemetery for her.”

McDonald: "He said he went looking in the cemetery because Jade Gordon told him that they had not yet looked at the river or the cemetery.”

The attorneys also argued about who authored text messages that came from Thomas’ phone.

Warner: “We have a phone that is similar to the phone she had and it required some manipulation. It’s not just touching some letters. She had to make capital letters, she had to make some punctuation and her grammar is pretty darn good, if not perfect. I wonder if that’s consistent with a drunk girl, who is as intoxicated as people are saying she is, authoring that text.”

Warner said Keadle is responsible for her death.

Warner: “Tyler Thomas wasn’t up for sex with Mr. Keadle. She would have never voluntarily had sexual intercourse with this man. When she was out at that river, completely under his control, his influence and her life was in his hands, she lost.

“He made the decision to take her out there. He didn’t go out there to smoke. Like I said, there are two choices a man can have when he sees a vulnerable, drunk woman. He can do the right thing or he can do the wrong thing. We both know both of those things can happen. Mr. Keadle chose the wrong thing.

 

As a result, Tyler Thomas is dead. We’ve never seen or heard from her again. And he killed her. He planned to kill her because he had to kill her because she wasn’t going to keep her mouth shut. She wasn’t going to be an easy mark. We’ve never seen her again. Now, that’s evidence of murder without a body.

McDonald told the jury that the state’s theory that Keadle abducted Thomas does not fit the timeline and said Keadle’s account “has the ring of truth.”