Jeremy Musall

I have put together over 800 blogs here. Most, although admittedly, not all involve murder. I have read countless appeals in cases and have almost exclusively true crime books for decades. I am in many true crime groups and even “death hag” groups on social media. I hear stories all the time. I read about them; I see pictures; I study them. It takes a lot to surprise when it comes to brutality; it takes even more to have gasp when I am reading about how a crime took place. This is one of those cases.

I often talk about how I come across cases and how they make it to a list I have compiled. Initially I removed the cases from the list when I blogged about them but I found that that hindered me from realizing I may have already done a case. That being said, not every case I have blogged about is on it. I generally have a sub-list started that I add to the bigger list later and when I do that sometimes I will work off that list first and not add them to the larger one. When I do blog about a case, or on the rare occasion in which I have researched the case and discovered there is just not enough information to put together, I highlight it to indicate it has been done or leave a note with it as to why I did not. That list is over 1600 cases long at this point. I do not always know where the cases come from. Sometimes they come from a list of cases I have found on a website online; sometimes I get in a groove where I am watching a true crime series and cases come from there. By the time I do them I do not always know exactly where I heard about the case. I can only assume that I got the name Jeremy Musall for this based on something to do with Indiana crimes, but I cannot say for sure. I am quite surprised that as many times as I thought I went though the list, often one by one, this case has never popped out to me.

The first thing that I came across in my research was an appeal filed by Jeremy Musall in 2013. As I stated earlier, this was a case that while I read about the crimes that Musall committed and the brutality that he placed on his victims I was left gasping out loud. I was surprised to discover that the state did not seek the death penalty despite the fact that the last person executed in the state was Matthew Wrinkles in 2009. I did actually find an article in which the prosecutor in Parke County Indiana very quickly stated that he would not be seeking the death penalty. There was speculation that this was because the last time the county had done so was several years prior and it had cost the county a lot of money and the judge gave the defendant a sentence of life without parole. When specifically asked if this was the reason for not seeking death for Musall the prosecutor failed to answer. As a reader you have often heard me say that I am not necessarily for or against the death penalty. I do believe that in particularly heinous crimes and where there are absolutely no questions as to who committed the crime I do find it an appropriate sentence. In my opinion, this case absolutely deserved to have the death penalty on the table.

In August of 2011 Jeremy Musall was twenty-eight years old. He was divorced, although I cannot say for how long, and he had a son but I cannot tell you how old he was. Musall had a pretty substantial criminal history full of violence. He had several arrests, at least one that resulted to jail time between 2006 and 2011. What I believe happened that resulted in less jail time than he deserved or would have gotten is it seems that each and every time he pleaded guilty to the crimes which likely resulted in a much lower sentence. In one case, in December of 2008 he was sentenced to a year in prison from a charge of “felony battery resulting in serious bodily injury.” By 2011 he had at least four previous charges of battery resulting in bodily injury, a charge of misdemeanor domestic violence, two charges of disorderly conduct, two charges of public intoxication and a charge of resisting law enforcement. It was also found that he repeatedly violated his probation on these charges that led to fourteen additional charges throughout that time. And yet, aside from his crime in 2011 I only found one other time in which he spent time in a state prison and that was from the 2008 battery charge where he was sentenced to a year. It was later said by a victim in his 2011 case “You almost took another man's life a few years ago and they let you out and gave you another chance.”

I know I have rambled, as I tend to do from time to time, before getting to the case before us but I wanted you to have a picture of Jeremy Musall. I wanted you, the reader, to see that the crime Musall committed in 2011 could have possibly been prevented. Officials had many opportunities to incarcerate Musall and prevent what occurred but especially in 2008 when he apparently severely injured another man. Murder is not the only thing that can result in a lengthy prison sentence and that was the last of many crimes before 2011. I could sit here and tell you that officials in the State of Indiana should be held accountable for murder and I am unsure that I am wrong, but as we know, that is not how the legal system works.

In 2008 a woman named Tanya Yeagley began dating a man named Joseph “Joe” Snow. The two would date “off and on” for the next several years and early 2010 they had a daughter together. In mid-2011 it was said that Tanya Yeagley dated Jeremy Musall for a period of three months. It appears as if they had just recently split up and Tanya and Joe got back together. It was not completely clear if on the day of August 12, 2011 if they were officially living together at a mobile home in Rocky Fork Lake in Parke County Indiana but they were together. Tanya would later say that throughout the entire day she received several threatening text messages from Jeremy Musall. It is unclear if she reported them or just simply did as many of us do and ignored them. Later, Musall showed up at the home unannounced. It was said that Tanya wanted to conceal the fact that she and Joe were back together from Musall so when he showed up Joe had gone and hid in a closet until he left. I found nothing that stated what was said or done at this point either between Musall and Tanya or what Tanya or Joe may or may not have reported. I have to presume that while it seems clear they were worried about Musall they had not contacted authorities.

Tanya and Joe had planned to go to one of their mother's homes but it was said that instead they stayed home and went to bed. It was unclear whether this decision was because of Musall or not. Tanya would later say that at some point in the middle of the night she was awaken to find Musall in the bedroom and he had begun to beat Joe Snow. Joe was knocked unconscious for a period of time and during that time Musall had demanded their cell phones. Tanya gave him hers but he did not get Joe's. At some point the badly hurt Joe woke up and tried to escape by crawling through the home. Musall chased him down, catching him in the kitchen. Musall repeatedly punched Joe and began strangling him all while saying “You're gonna fucking die tonight.” This was a phrase that Tanya would later say he said more than a few times, not just to Joe but to her too. After subduing Joe, Musall headed back to the bedroom where he grabbed Tanya by the hair and drug her into the front room while also punching her repeatedly.

While all of this was going on Tanya and Joe's daughter had woken up. She was twenty months old at this time. She was not just crying but she was said to be slipping and sliding in the blood, mainly that belonging to her father. Tanya said Musall repeatedly also threatened the life of their daughter.

Once both Tanya and Joe were in the front room of the home Tanya would say that Musall sat down, lit a cigarette and began drinking a beer. Musall proceeded to put the cigarette out in Joe Snow's eye! He then beat Joe, while Tanya and their daughter watched, with a vacuum cleaner until it broke. He then went into the kitchen and got a knife and began stabbing him. After this he bound Joe with duct tape and the vacuum cleaner cord.

Next he insisted that Tanya take a shower. It was not completely clear whether he took the shower with her. He then raped her first vaginally and then attempted, more than once, to rape her anally. He proceeded to perform cunnilingus on her and forced her to do the same to him. All the while he was taking pictures with his phone.

Tanya was supposed to be at work at 6:00 that morning and when she did not show her phone rang. Musall told her to call them back and tell them she would not be into work that day. She later stated that while she was preparing to do this Musall discovered that Joe had died. Musall removed the tape and vacuum cord and wrapped Joe's body in a quilt. He then placed Joe's body in the trunk of the car he had borrowed to drive to the home, grabbed Joe and Tanya's daughter, telling her that the child was going with him and she was to follow him in her car and if she did not both she and her daughter would die. Tanya asked to get the child's diaper bag and Musall allowed her to do so. When she did she found Joe's phone under the bed, grabbed it and hid it in her clothing. As she was following Musall to the next county over where he planned to basically dump Joe's body, Tanya used Joe's phone and called 911. Authorities responded but not before Musall dumped Joe's body in a cornfield and then got away. Tanya let them know who he was and that he had family in nearby Cloverdale. Shortly authorities found Musall at a family members home and found Tanya daughter unharmed. Some reports stated that it was Musall's mothers home where he was arrested, another said it was his grandmother's home. It is unclear which is correct.

On August 17^th Musall was officially charged. He was charged with murder, felony murder, two counts of burglary causing bodily injury (one for Tanya, one for Joe), felony rape and felony kidnapping. As I stated earlier, the prosecution fairly quickly announced they would not be seeking the death penalty.

Joe's official cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma to the head and strangulation. He had twenty different head and brain injuries. He had several skull fractures, a crushed windpipe and broken ribs. There was evidence of manual and ligature strangulation. Tanya was taken to the hospital and examined. She had multiple bruises and scrapes on her scalp, face and ears. She had swelling, redness and discoloration around her throat area and her arms, legs and back were covered in bruises.

A year later, in August of 2012 Musall went to trial in Rockville Indiana in Parke County. I found little regarding the trial and what may or may not have been presented. I did discover that on August 12^th Musall was sentenced to 165 years. A few of the charges like the two kidnapping charges were to be served concurrently, meaning at the same time... but ultimately he was ordered to serve the 165 year sentence. Prosecutors were asking for 215 years, but really when you get that many years, does it really matter? The judge stated that the aggravating circumstances far outweighed any mitigating circumstances that were presented. He has to serve eighty-four years before he is even eligible for parole in February of 2095. He will be one hundred and twelve years old so he will not be set free.

In 2013 Musall appealed the sentence saying it was “too harsh.” The courts disagreed. In fact, the court was quoted as saying “Musall's offenses are among the worst we have seen.” It was said that his sentence was an “aggravated term.” Now, I can tell you how they come to that conclusion but I am unsure that I know if it made a difference in how much of his time he would have to serve. I suspect that it is very little considering that he is only required to serve three years more than 50% of his sentence before being eligible for parole. What the court meant by the aggravated terms was the fact that Musall did not just shoot and murder Joe Snow... he tortured, strangled and beat him more than was ever needed to kill him. When it came to the rape of Tanya he did much more than “just rape” her... he beat and attempted to strangle her also.

As I was reading through the account of how things happened I was simply appalled. Not only did he torture and murder Joe, he tortured, beat and made Tanya realistically believe she and her daughter were next. Authorities and judges have said they hope that the baby, who slipped in her own father's blood was too young to remember this incident but regardless her entire life was altered on that night! This is one of those cases where I can confidently say he deserves to be UNDER the prison.