South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Ex-deputy killed unarmed son-in-law
Jury to decide if shooting murder or self-defense
The retired sheriff’s deputy shot and killed his unarmed sonin-law following years of bad blood between them.
Was career cop Carlton Nebergall Jr. seeking vengeance when he put a bullet in the head of his grandchildren’s father, convicted felon Jacob Lodge? Or did Nebergall feel threatened before justifiably pulling the trigger?
This will be up to a Palm Beach County jury to decide. Prosecutors are seeking a first-degree murder conviction for the
63-year-old Nebergall, who is claiming self-defense in the Feb.
19, 2018, death of Lodge, 36. They say Nebergall, .38-caliber revolver in his hand, charged at Lodge near the driveway of his Loxahatchee home.
“The state’s position based on the facts of this case is that the defendant is the initial aggressor,” Assistant State Attorney Lauren Godden said. “So even in a selfdefense, he is the initial aggressor who comes outside and does a warning shot … when his daughter is still outside.”
Lodge had stopped by Nebergall’s home to drop off clothing for his two young children. The kids were staying there with Nebergall’s daughter, Lodge’s estranged wife, according to an arrest report.
Katrina Nebergall has said she briefly went back inside the home to check on her children, then came back out to find her father at the end of the driveway, gun in his hand, and Lodge bleeding from his forehead, court records show.
But defense attorney Michael Salnick says Carl Nebergall had ample reason to fear the man, including the facts that Lodge was 25 years younger and 70 pounds heavier, but 2 inches shorter.
“Jacob Lodge weighed
351 pounds,” the lawyer said in a recent pre-trial hearing. Nebergall was listed as
6-foot-2 and 280 pounds at the time of his arrest.
History of ill will
Physical characteristics aside, the two men clearly had been at odds.
“If Carl Nebergall were to testify in this case, I think you’re going to hear about a history with Jacob Lodge … what happened with Jacob Lodge, that Jacob Lodge was married to his daughter, there were problems,” Salnick said.
Some of the back story emerges from court files:
In 2017, Lodge pleaded guilty to two counts of pawning Nebergall’s rings and tools as his own the previous year. He was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to have no contact with his fatherin-law.
Nebergall “had a reasonable belief and fear that Mr. Lodge was capable of hurting him or worse,” Salnick wrote to the court. “Mr. Lodge was supposed to stay away … from his residence.”
Katrina Nebergall had filed for divorce from Lodge about six weeks earlier, records show. She told investigators that just before the shooting she was talking to Lodge for a few minutes beside his car, and said that he was “not upset, aggressive, loud or belligerent.”
That’s when Carl Nebergall came outside and began walking toward the couple with a gun and cursing loudly and demanding that Lodge leave.
“Really?” asked Lodge, according to the account later provided by his wife. “You’re going to threaten me with a gun?”
Katrina Nebergall said she then asked her dad to return to the home and Lodge to go. She said her husband was starting to drive off when her dad fired a shot in the air. She told deputies she then ran inside the house.
On a recording of a neighbor’s 911 call, the daughter was heard saying Nebergall “did this on purpose.”
But the prosecution and defense have agreed none of the emergency calls from neighbors that night will be played for the jury. Still, Katrina Nebergall is expected to testify as a key witness for the state.
Immediately after the shooting, Carlton Nebergall vanished. A sheriff’s helicopter and deputies on the ground spotted him trying to hide under a neighbor’s car and under bushes on his property. Investigators said they found the gun Nebergall used to kill Lodge.
“There was no indication that the victim had a weapon or was threatening Carlton before the shooting,” a detective wrote, calling the shooting “malicious and unprovoked.”
“During the investigation, it was learned that, Carlton disliked Jacob, during the entire relationship between Katrina and Jacob,” the arrest report states. The Lodges were married in 2013, records show.
Career deputy’s record
That was one year after Carl Nebergall left the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, capping a 27-year career with the agency, mostly on road patrol.
Records show he received a “good conduct medal” in 2010 for a quarter-century of “exemplary conduct, efficiency and fidelity.” He also was reprimanded a few times over his behavior during traffic stops, according to disciplinary files.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Garten, who worked with Nebergall, has written a letter to the court vouching that Nebergall “is not a threat to anyone.”
“Carl will stand trial and let the facts speak for him,” Garten noted.
Nebergall previously worked as a Lantana police officer for four years, after serving in the U.S. Army.
Prosecutor Godden has asked Circuit Judge Jeffrey Dana Gillen to order that Nebergall’s age and history of wearing a badge not come up during his trial.
“Those are just things to curry favor from the jury,” she said. But Salnick, the defense lawyer, argued that Nebergall’s background is important in the context of the case.
“The fact that he was a police officer, the fact that he acted the way he did under the circumstances which he found himself … with his police officer training, I think will become relevant,” Salnick said.
He explained jurors can decide if it makes Nebergall more, or less, responsible for the shooting.
“They can consider, you were a cop, you should have known better, you shouldn’t have shot him,” Salnick said. “They could say, you were a cop, you acted accordingly. It cuts both ways.”
The judge has not yet ruled on the issue.
Nebergall’s lawyer also asked the court to take note of Lodge’s criminal history, which also includes three arrests on battery charges and two arrests on burglary counts.
Lodge served eight months in a state prison in 2004 for a burglary conviction, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
Darren Shull, a lawyer who represented Lodge in a different case two years ago, has told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that Lodge has “no history of violence.”
Father and son trials
Jury selection for Nebergall begins Monday. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole, if found guilty as charged.
Coincidentally, one of Nebergall’s sons is also a former Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputy awaiting trial on a serious charge.
Jason Nebergall, 41, is accused of trying to rape a 26-year-old woman while on duty in 2016.
Last year — less than six months after his dad’s arrest — Nebergall was sentenced to eight years in prison for convictions of attempted sexual battery while in possession of a weapon and misdemeanor battery for touching the woman’s breasts.
But one month ago, an appeals court threw out the punishment and ordered a retrial. Jason Nebergall has been on house arrest.
Salnick represents the son, too, and says he’s looking forward to working “to clear his name.”