Investigators find a key piece of evidence that sends the case in a surprising direction. This episode originally published on February 24, 2025.
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It was pretty impressive, all things considered, the investigation, that is, into the murders of Wayne and Sharman Stock. The people of Murdoch, Nebraska, had been deeply shaken, and quite understandably so, if the Stocks weren't safe in the sanctity of their own bedroom, then who in Murdoch was safe?
And so, when the Cass County Sheriff's Office announced, just two weeks after the murders, that one of the most shocking crimes in this part of Nebraska in decades had been solved... Well, you can hardly blame them for calling in the press and taking a victory lap.
I think there's some relief at the same time some hurt.
And of course, just about everyone was shocked that the culprits would turn out to be who they were. But there it was, Wayne and Charmin Sock's own nephew, 28-year-old Matt Livers, that actually told the whole ugly story, confessed to shotgunning his own aunt and uncle.
I was already fired up, and yes, I have a grudge to settle.
And if his 21-year-old cousin Nick Sampson had managed to resist the confessional urge, well, that wouldn't be unexpected, would it? But Matt had fingered him, and that was that. And now that itch in the back uncertainty, the fear that vicious killers were on the loose, had been put to rest.
Meanwhile, said Cass County Sheriff Bill Brueggemann, they could get on with the legal stuff, button up the case.
People ask, is this a closure on the case? It's not. I think it's another chapter, a turn in the page. There's still a lot of work to be done.
But the message was clear. Everybody could relax. And nobody was thinking of Voltaire just then. Ridiculous thought. Why in heaven's name would they? It was so far off and long ago when that famous French philosopher scribbled in his notebook... While doubt is not an agreeable condition, certainty is an absurd one. Or as somebody in Murdoch might have said, don't count your chickens.
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