Stolen gun, pickup cause break in cold case
The recovery of a stolen gun and a stolen pickup were central to cracking a nearly six-year-old murder in far northwest Oklahoma.
“Today ... we have scored a win,” said Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Director Ricky Adams at a Thursday news conference.
The case involved Charles Cecil Neiman, 77, and his wife, who had stopped at the Loaf `N Jug convenience store in Boise City in June 2013 when they were approached by a man who had jumped out from the passenger side of a stolen dark-colored pickup. Nieman was fatally shot after the man demanded his wallet.
On Feb. 6, OSBI agents arrested Zachery Lee Wilson, 28, and Timothy Erish Dees, 24, in Mobile, Alabama, in connection to the killing. On Feb. 8, Jeremy Hugh Scott, 33, was arrested in Colorado.
Adams said a break in the case came in December after an agent assigned to the cold case reran shell casings from the scene through a ballistics database. A match was found from a stolen gun seized in Denver.
Authorities said the gun was stolen from a Port Allen, Louisiana, police chief's vehicle at his home days before the killing. A few houses down, a charcoal gray pickup was stolen from a home, according to a Cimarron County court affidavit.
In surveillance video from the Boise City shooting, investigators said the same pickup could be seen. The stolen pickup was recovered in Brighton, Colorado, on June 26, 2013, according to the affidavit.
Agents were able to track down the stolen gun, and an OSBI criminalist reported it to be the same gun that fired the shell casings at the homicide scene.
Following up on the stolen pickup, agents determined Wilson had traded the pickup to a Colorado man for methamphetamine.
On Feb. 6, Wilson told investigators he was present when Nieman was killed and that Dees had gotten out of the pickup. Wilson heard two gun shots, according to the affidavit.
Adams said Nieman was killed in what he called a drug-fueled crime spree involving Wilson, Dees and Scott, who are all charged with first-degree murder in Cimarron County District Court.
Nieman's family said they were grateful for the work of OSBI agents and others.
“We hope that what has happened in our father's case will give hope to other victims and families of cold cases,” the family said in a statement Thursday.