Le Mars, Iowa — A sentencing date has been set for the man who has admitted to killing his mother in July, 2014 at the rural Akron home he shared with his parents.
Forty-six-year-old Jonathon Neunaber will appear before Circuit Court Judge Steven Andreasen at 1:15 pm, Monday March 28th 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.
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.
