Neal Zumberge

Once again I have come across a neighbor dispute case. As I have said several times recently, these case intrigue me. You never know who your neighbors are and it seems so many of these types of cases start out small and the escalate quickly. Another interesting thing about these types of cases it that for the most part they involve the men. A few, like this case, bring the women into the case but so many of them revolve around the men getting angry over things and neither one wants to back down. They tend to want to one up them or start confrontations. This almost always makes things worse. This case is a little different in the fact that it appears that children were brought into the mix too.

On May 5, 2014 Jennifer Cleven and seen Jacob Zumberge while she was out and she called the police. The week before Jennifer and her long time boyfriend, Todd Stevens had had a confrontation with the twenty-four year old Jacob in which it was alleged that Jacob had threatened the couple, telling them he was going to kill them and burn their home down. He had then proceeded to push Todd. By the time the police had arrived Jacob was gone. There was a warrant issued for his arrest. This is why Jennifer called the police when she saw him that evening. This time Jacob was still there and he was arrested and charged with making terrorism threats and assault.

When Jennifer returned to the home she shared with Todd, Jacob's mother, Paula came outside and started a confrontation with Jennifer, angry at Jacob's arrest. While the two women were outside arguing the men came out, but they (or at least Jennifer and Todd) only knew about one of them, Todd. Todd came outside to see what the chaos was about between the two women. For his part Paula's husband, Neal, had grabbed a semi-automatic twelve gauge shotgun filled with buckshot. As the confrontation continued Neal climbed out a basement window of the home and stood on the side of his house, out of sight. Before long shots were fired. Todd would be hit with eight pellets. He suffered wounds to the head, chest, abdomen and his upper and lower extremities. Jennifer was also hit twice in the abdomen. Jennifer made her way to the house and while there was still shooting going on she cowered in the corner while she called 911.

So, what led to this? Most believe that it centered around the fact that Neal believed, although I cannot say it was proven, that he developed Lyme Disease and that he had contracted it through deer ticks. He blamed Jennifer and Todd because they would feed the deer that wandered near their New Brighton Minnesota home. But it seems that tensions had built up long before that.

The Zumberge's moved into their home in 1997. By all indications Jennifer and Todd already lived there. Neal and Paula had moved with their four kids to the area from northeast Minnesota, partly for the better schools. If my math is correct when the Zumberge's moved to the home Jacob was about seven years old. It was said that Jacob became very good friends with Jennifer's son and he went with them on several family outings. It was said that the adults were not what you would say close but they were cordial with each other and no problems seemed to exist. Then, when Jacob was about twelve years old Paula told him that he could not spend time over at Jennifer and Todd's home anymore allegedly because of Todd's drinking. This is when things really started to go bad between the families. And yes, feeding the deer was just one of the issues. The Zumberge's would allegedly place signs (although I am unsure what they said) in their yard antagonizing Jennifer and Todd. But, in fairness, by all accounts the antagonizing went both ways. Threats were made, restraining orders were filed and the police were called repeatedly over the next several years. Jennifer received her restraining order against the family in April of 2013 when she began finding deer parts, dead squirrels and deer carcasses on their property. Jennifer and Todd would also install surveillance cameras but it is unclear what they ever captured, including the night of the shooting.

It appears that later, while the Zumberge's would describe Todd Stevens as a “drunk and a bully” but other neighbors described him differently according to the prosecutor, although they were not specific. They had stated that at some point Neal had circulated a letter in the neighborhood stating that he and his dog got Lyme Disease and blamed Jennifer and Todd.

While Jennifer had called 911 on that May night in 2014, so did Neal... twice. He would never admit that he was the shooter, at least in the first call but only that Todd had been shot. In fact, he would not even tell them his name. When they asked he simply said “You'll find out.” In the second call to 911 he repeatedly kept saying that his wife Paula was not involved and simply said “I just ha enough.” He agreed that he would surrender but not to anyone in the New Brighton police department. It is likely that Neal's biggest problem with the local police department surrounded the arrest of Jacob earlier in the evening. But, he also probably felt like Jennifer, who would later say she felt as if the police and the law had let her down in protecting them. In fairness police officers would later testify that many times that one of the households called and they responded the allegations would be unfounded, or it was something that was not prosecutable.

When police arrived on this night though things were different. Todd Stevens would die in his yard at the scene of the shooting. Jennifer, despite being wounded also, would survive. The family dog had even been shot in the foot. Neal would be arrested and allegedly he told investigators “They should give me a medal for this.” Paula was no where to be found. Neighbors would claim that while they had not seen or heard what was said during the argument that evening they had seen her drive away just after. Jennifer would claim that while Neal was shooting in their direction Paula was “egging” him on. To investigators Jennifer said that Paula had said “shoot, shoot, shoot, keep shooting.” This would be important later. Because Paula would be charged with aiding and abetting. She had four charges against her related to the She would go to trial in August of 2014 but had opted for a bench trial, meaning there would not be a jury and only a judge would decide her fate. The judge acquitted Paula saying in part that he felt that Jennifer's testimony was inconsistent. While she had stated that Paula had said what I mentioned above to the investigators, she would say at trial she said “Shoot 'em, shoot 'em.” This seemed to be the only inconsistent statement that I found attributed to her an in my opinion to call it that is unfair. I feel as if the trauma of the event at the time was not accounted for, nor do I feel that the statements were necessarily inconsistent in their meaning. Yes, the words may have been a little different but in my opinion they were not different enough to say they were inconsistent. The prosecutors had alleged that Paula had conspired with Neal to lure Jennifer and Todd out of their home so that he could shoot them. Too be fair to Paula I am unsure that this was anything more than a theory on the prosecutors part when it came to the idea that she had lured them out. Personally I believe she was probably waiting on Jennifer to return home after hearing that Jacob had been arrested and she went out to confront her because she was angry. Whether she knew her husband was going to shoot at them, I do not know. But, I have no reason to doubt that she egged him on, despite the only surviving witness to hear her was Jennifer.

There was something else that seemed odd to me about this case. While Neal was facing his own charges of murder and attempted murder, initially he was defended by different attorney's than those who would defend him at his trial. One of his trial lawyers would be Gary Wolf. Wolf also represented Paula in her trial. I attempted to do a search to see if this could be a conflict of interest. Keep in mind that even if this does constitute a conflict of interest depending on the level or the confidence of those involved it could be waived. There would be other issues later regarding Gary Wolf but I will get to those later.

Neal would go on trial one year later in August of 2015. The prosecutors argued that Neal was a “cold blooded” killer who ambushed Jennifer Cleven and Todd Stevens. They alleged that he purposely pulled the trigger four times aiming for the couple. They stated that those four trigger pulls had amounted to thirty-two pellets being shot. The defense would claim that Neal had shot in self defense, or in defense of his wife. Neal would take the stand in his own defense. Paula and two of their children would also testify for the defense.

While the defense would say that Todd was often in his yard with a handgun, the prosecution would prove that he was not armed on the night of the shooting. While the defense could not argue that on that particular night he was not armed they would claim that a black cell phone case that he held on his waist looked to be a weapon to Neal. The defense and their witnesses would also say that Todd often drank to the point of intoxication was apparently countered to a great extent by the prosecution witnesses. For his part Neal would testify at the trial that he could read lips due to the fact that he had a brother who was deaf and that he had read Todd's lips and he was threatening Paula. He would claim that he shot once but that the gun “just kept firing.” He would also claim that he had only done so after seeing Todd reach for what he thought was his gun.

When all of the evidence was in the jury took two hours to deliberate before returning their verdicts. All of my research prior to the trial stated that he was facing second degree charges but the jury convicted him on first degree murder charges. He was also convicted of second degree murder with intent and attempted second degree murder with intent. His sentencing was scheduled for the following month but Neal did not let that time go by without some drama.

Just before his sentencing Neal attempted to fire his attorney's, William Orth and Gary Wolf. Both men apparently had suffered from cancer while Neal awaited trial. Neal had given his approval for the trial to be delayed in order for the men to seek treatment. After his conviction Neal would claim that their diagnosis' had left them forgetful and made them ineffective at his trial. He would also claim that he had lied during his trial and promise to “tell the truth” at his sentencing.

On the day of his sentencing the first order of business was dealing with the fact that he wanted to fire his lawyers. The judge advised him that in essence firing his attorney at this point was senseless and he was welcome to do so after his sentencing, with a whole lot less issues. And, he could argue ineffective counsel in an appeal. There would be victim impact statements but Neal would have the right to speak to the court, and speak he did.

Before the judge announced his sentence Neal stood up and stated that he had lied on the stand during his trial at the behest of his lawyers. To be fair the lawyers have denied this claim. Neal said that first off he had lied about the fact of reading lips. He did not know how to and did not read Todd's lips to know he was threatening his wife. But he did attempt to counter that with saying he could read “body language.” At the trial he had stated he had raise the gun and it just went off. Now he was saying that it went off on the first shot but that he had fired the other three. He claimed that he did not mean to shoot Jennifer at all, that he intentionally shot once to Todd and the last two were at the dog that he called “vicious.”

He would apologize for his actions the night of the shooting. Whether this apology was sincere or not did not matter to Jennifer. She's said she will never forgive him. Then again, it is difficult to determine if it was sincere. If you remember, after his arrest he was bragging that he deserved a medal. He willingly, regardless if he was coerced or not, got on the stand and spun a story that he said was now a lie. None of this really mattered however since the sentence for first degree murder was an automatic life sentence. He would also receive a fifteen year sentence for the attempted murder that is to be served consecutively to the life sentence. This means that when he has served his time for his life sentence he still has to serve the other sentence.

Paula no longer lives on the street in which this all occurred. The house was sold to pay legal fees. Some of my research indicated that Jennifer may have had to move also. She had said she was having issues paying the mortgage alone. The Zumberge's have said that the media portrayed them unfairly. Maybe they did. That tends to happen as information trickles out to the media after a crime has been committed. Imagine that in the very beginning all citizens heard was that one neighbor had shot another and likely that his wife had “egged” him on in doing so. The fact of the matter is those small details are seemingly true. In my opinion they have little to complain about, it could have been way worse. Just last week I blogged about a case in which a fourteen year old boy was buried and thought to be a killer when in fact he was not. Now, that is real injustice.