Le Mars, Iowa — A man who has admitted to killing his mother in July, 2014 at the rural Akron home he shared with his parents has been sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Forty-six-year-old Jonathon Neunaber appeared before Circuit Court Judge Steven Andreasen to receive his sentence. Neunaber had originally pled not guilty to a charge of 1st Degree Murder in the death of his eighty-year-old mother, Esther Neunaber, but entered into a plea agreement late last month in which he pled guilty to 2nd Degree Murder, a Class B Felony, and Willful Injury, a Class C Felony.
In the plea agreement, Neunaber agreed to be sentenced to a term not to exceed fifty years for the murder charge and a term not to exceed ten years on the willful injury charge for a consecutive term not to exceed sixty years in prison. Neunaber was sentenced to the 60 years on Monday — that’s 50 years on the Second Degree Murder charge and ten years on the Willful Injury charge, to be served consecutively. He will have to serve a mandatory 70 percent of that time and is not eligible for bond appeal.
During the February 29th Plea Hearing, Neunaber told the court that after his father died of natural causes he used a steel pipe to beat his mother to death because he, “wasn’t prepared to be the man of the house.” He said he then took pills in a failed suicide attempt.
Out of town relatives, who were coming to visit, discovered the bodies of 83-year old Donald, and 80-year old Esther Neunaber in July, 2014. Neunaber was arrested the day after his parents’ bodies were discovered after being stopped for a traffic violation in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. He has been in custody since that time.
