Mystery simmers in unsolved 1992 slaying

It's been 23 years since a golfer found the body of Tammy Haas in a ravine along a Nebraska highway, just across the border from Yankton.

It's been 19 years since a Nebraska jury acquitted her boyfriend of manslaughter charges.

And it's been 10 years since Haas' high school friend wrote a fictionalized version of the case, advancing the idea of a cover-up in which some people still believe.

The Haas family and the Yankton community still wait for answers. For the first time since the trial, however, there's a measure of hope. In April, the family hired private detectives, using $24,000 raised through social media.

"Our prayer is that the ones who know what happened to Tammy will have the courage to tell so we may all receive the peace we need by knowing the truth," Tammy's mother, Nancy Haas, wrote in a statement regarding the fundraising effort.

A page on Facebook — "Justice for Tammy Haas" — has grown to 5,200 followers. The social media movement was started without direct involvement of the family but to seek answers on the Haas' behalf.

Raising money is only the latest success story for the group. In April, "Dateline NBC" listed the Haas murder in its "Cold Case Spotlight."

While justice and answers are the goal, the actual result of the efforts is an open question.

The man so many of the social media activists point to as a culprit — Haas' ex-boyfriend Eric Stukel — was tried and acquitted. Double jeopardy would bar a second manslaughter prosecution, even in the event of a confession.

The Nebraska attorney general's office, which prosecuted the case in the late 1990s, says the case is open but that no new information has come since the Facebook page began. The Yankton police chief said his office has fielded calls, but his officers haven't heard anything new, either.

Those issues are sticking points for Mike Stevens, a Yankton legislator and defense lawyer who represented Stukel.

"What's the purpose of having a judicial system if a jury can find a person innocent and we still have these social media things portraying that person as someone who's not?" Stevens asked.

Stukel's mother, Dawn, said she prays for the Haas familyeach day. Even so, the renewal of suspicionhas been troubling.

"We went through all this 20 years ago," Dawn Stukel said. "We go through it every year."

The Stukels don't visit the Facebook page.

Stevens doesn't either, but he hears about the postings.

"I can't tell you how many people approach me about it," Stevens said.

Trial turns on conflicting accounts

What started as a missing persons case in 1992 quickly became a complex and divisive homicide investigation.

Haas was last seen alive Sept. 17. She and Stukel had gone to a party at a farm across the state line in Nebraska. Stukel told police the couple left the party and that Tammy Haas walked to her aunt's from his parents' house.

A golfer found her body days later in a ravine less than two miles from the site of the party.

Her neck was broken, and she had other injuries that led authorities to conclude she had been killed and carried across the highway and into the ravine in the trunk of a vehicle.

Stukel was charged with manslaughter in Cedar County in 1995, days before the statute of limitations was to run out, and faced a jury in 1996. Almost 400 potential witnesses were subpoenaed, according to court records, yet prosecution was difficult.

No confession and no direct evidence connected Stukel, though hair fibers were found in his trunk. He and Haas had been together that night and there was talk of an argument overheard, but no one testified about seeing a murder.

After a lengthy investigation and grand jury, the state's accusation against Stukel was presented as an either/or scenario.

The complaint reads that on either Sept. 17 or Sept. 18, 1992, Stukel "did then and there kill Tamara Haas without malice upon a sudden quarrel, or did then and there unintentionally and without malice cause the death of Tamara Haas while the said Eric D. Stukel was in the commission of an unlawful act…"

Court transcripts from pre-trial hearings have Stevens pressing detectives to say how they suspect Haas was killed — or where.

"From the standpoint of whether or not there's been probable cause that Eric Stukel was involved in it, the best of what can be said is that Eric was the last one apparently to have seen her," Stevens said at the October 1995 hearing, one year before the jury returned a not guilty verdict.

The jury voted to acquit.

Trial results upset community

The trial's result and a nagging sense of justice unserved has lingered.

That became clear late last year, when a discussion within a Yankton-based Facebook page turned to the Haas case. The discussion formed a launch pad for "Justice for Tammy Haas," a separate page founded in January expressly to push for answers.

The Facebook page was the second time the case had returned to the public eye.

Ten years after Stukel's acquittal, a high school friend of Haas' wrote a fictionalized account of what might have happened on the night of her death, again pointing at Stukel. M.C. Merrill based his narrative in "The Homecoming" on court records and built it around actual events. But he maintains it is a work of fiction.

Merrill did not have a hand in the creation of the Facebook page.

"I suppose I laid the foundation, and I've asked people for years to examine the facts," he said. "If I'm wrong, prove me wrong."

The mechanics of the trial itself have been called out as an issue by Merrill and by the Justice for Tammy Haas community. Merrill speculates on his blog that all the subpoenas for all those witnesses — many of whom never were called — were intended to keep Haas' friends outside the courtoom during the trial.

That the crime took place near the Knox and Cedar county line in Nebraska was problematic. The jury sent a question to the judge during their hours of deliberation about whether the crime had to take place in Cedar County for Stukel to be found guilty. The law was clear: It did. And prosecutors couldn't tell the jury where the alleged altercation between Stukel and Haas had taken place.

Even today, even as the Haas case is listed as a cold but open homicide case by the Nebraska attorney general's office, the not guilty verdict stands as a disappointment.

"The prosecutor obviously thought the person was guilty," said Suzanne Gage, spokeswoman for the attorney general. "Under our system, we'd have problems with double jeopardy."

A second trial for murder is unlikely unless a specific set of criteria are met: If the crime was planned in one state and carried out in another, for example, a federal charge might be possible.

Hurdles to justice for Haas

The constitutional protection against double jeopardy, which prevents a defendent from being tried twice on the same charge, looms large over the activists' efforts. They are focused on Stukel, but other hurdles exist.

The Nebraska State Patrol was the lead agency on the Haas case, and it considers the case open. That means the case file and all the investigative work within it is closed to the public. That's a barrier to private investigators.

If someone wanted to review the file, "they could, like anyone, file a Freedom of Information Act request, and our legal division would review it," said Deb Collins, state patrol spokeswoman.

Most of the calls and emails that have come into the Yankton Police Department lately have had "old information," according to chief Brian Paulsen.

"There hasn't been any credible information generated showing the murder occurred in South Dakota," Paulsen wrote in an email.

Other steps that could be taken. No trial transcript is available to review for evidence of improper conduct or questionable decision-making. Cedar County Clerk Janet Wiechelman said the transcripts are on floppy disks in a format most computers now can't recognize. If a program can't be found, the transcript will be made from the original tape.

What a transcript would reveal is unclear, but speculation persists there as well.

Judge Maurice Redmond, who presided over the trial, was rated the worst judge in Nebraska in 2004 by the state Bar Association. Its assessment said he sometimes showed partiality in the courtroom. An article about the complaints was posted on the Justice For Tammy Haas Facebook page and generated a slew of commentary, though none of the complaints dealt directly with the Stukel trial.

The real hope is that someone comes forward with new information, said Daniel DeGroff, a classmate of Tammy Haas' younger brother Paul.

DeGroff set up the fundraising page for the Haas family and turned the money over to them last month.

"Someone needs to come forward to say what they know," DeGroff said.

Paul Haas said his family has quietly supported the page's work and holds out hope.

"I'm not one for expectations, but I think momentum is growing as more people take an interest in the case and more are active in finding the truth, so I do have hope that the truth will eventually come out," he wrote in an email in April. "Possibly more hope than I've ever had."

The Stukels hope for closure, too.

Dawn Stukel said the years of speculation about her son's involvement have taken their toll. "There's no way I doubt his innocence," she said.

"I'm sorry that a woman's life was taken, and it's tragic," she said. "But I stand by my son, and I believe in him. I hope and pray they find out what happened, because something did happen."

John Hult is the Reader's Watchdog for Argus Leader Media. You can call him at 605-331-2301 or 605-370-8617. You can tweet him @ArgusJHultor find him on Facebook atwww.Facebook.com/ArgusReadersWatchdog.

Notable cold cases in South Dakota

Anna Mae Aquash: John Graham was convicted in 2010 of the murder of Aquash, an American Indian movement activist raped and killed in 1975. CLOSED

Ray Robinson: This civil rights activist was killed two years before Aquash, shortly after he arrived in South Dakota to help AIM. Attorney General Marty Jackley has said his office is pursuing the case. OPEN

David Rose: The body of this 25-year-old Sturgis man was found, beaten with a rock in 1982 in Deadwood. Fingerprints were matched to Fred Bates of Quincy, Ill. CLOSED

Rachael Cyriacks: This 30-year-old Woonsocket woman was last seen Nov. 13, 2013. Sanborn County officials have reached out for help from the public on multiple occasions, and a Facebook page called Help find Rachael Cyriacks tracks leads. OPEN

Pamela Jackson and Cheryl Miller: The Vermillion teens went missing on the way to a party at a gravel pit in 1971. Originally thought to have run away, a convicted rapist named David Lykken was indicted for their murder based on a faulty jailhouse confession. Their remains were found last year in a 1960 Studebaker found in a creek near the gravel pit. CLOSED

LaDonna, Patrick and Brian Mathis: LaDonna Mathis and two of her sons, 4-year-old Brian and 2-year-old Patrick, were shot dead in their beds in 1981. John Mathis, LaDonna's husband, was tried and found not guilty of murder in 1982. OPEN