Cattle Producer Pleads Guilty to Two Counts of Murder

Garland “Joey” Nelson, a Missouri feedlot operator accused of killing two Wisconsin brothers, entered guilty pleas in the past week to two counts of first-degree murder.

The Caldwell County Prosecuting Attorney’s office in northwest Missouri said Nelson, 28, of Braymer, admitted to shooting 34-year-old Nick and 24-year-old Justin Diemel, Wisconsin cattle producers, on July 21, 2019 at Nelson’s family farm. The brothers had traveled from their Navarino, Wisconsin homes to the Nelson farm to confront Joey Nelson about a $215,000 bad check he had sent as payment for cattle Nelson was feeding for the Diemels.

Nelson admitted during last Friday’s hearing that he shot the two men, placed their bodies in barrels and burned them. He dumped the remains of one in a pile of cow manure, and the other in a mineral supplement bucket that was located in November 2020 inside a trailer sold to a man in Nebraska.

Although the possibility of the death penalty had previously been mentioned, a Missouri circuit judge sentenced Nelson to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. A number of other charges were dropped.

On Tuesday, Nelson also changed his plea in federal court to admit guilt on fraud and firearms charges. He will be sentenced for those federal crimes in March 2023.

It won’t be the first time Nelson serves time. Nine years ago, he sold some cattle without notifying FSA, a requirement when livestock is tied to farm loans. Nelson was interviewed by Market to Market nine months before the Diemels were killed for an unrelated story about what it was like to serve time in prison for an agricultural crime. He had spent 13 months at Leavenworth Camp in 2017 and ’18 as a result of that first fraud case.