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LINCOLN — Eighteen years after John Joubert was executed for the kidnap-murders of two Sarpy County boys, a judge was asked Friday to publicly release two drawings Joubert made while in prison.

Mark Pettit, a former Omaha broadcaster who wrote about Joubert’s killings, said he wants to see the drawings so he can provide the final chapter to the 1983 slayings, which spread terror across the metropolitan area until Joubert’s arrest in January 1984.

“As a journalist, you don’t like to leave any stone unturned. I feel like this is the only stone unturned,” Pettit said.

He said he would consider using the drawings — which were described as “simplistic” and “sadistic” images of torture and stabbings of two boys — in a new edition of his book, “A Need to Kill.”

Pettit said he also would turn them over to forensic psychologists and law enforcement so they could get a further glimpse into the mind of a serial killer.

“He was sending a message that he’d kill more people if he got out of prison,” Pettit testified Friday. “Joubert left a road map, and we should be able to see it.”