OK - Donald 'Joe' Neff, 61, Poteau, 14 May 2009 - #1

[Deleted member 718]

FWIW, Mr Neff had a business INC.

http://www.manta.com/company/mm3ldqm

 

[Debbie Miller]

FWIW, Mr Neff had a business INC.

http://www.manta.com/company/mm3ldqm

He seems to be the only one listed as a holder in the company.

 

[Wudge]

We are unaware of what the le or osbi thinks. they have not made that clear to us.
yes, it would be normal for him to leave the car keys in the ignition.
had he been in the house after the scuffle we would have found blood in the house.
we were not told what they found anywhere, that info is confidential even to us.
it had rained a lot in days before and after his murder, but sun shining the day of.
we are unaware who seen the red import truck. do not know what vehicle they have.
i request news interviews every month, i have been on the air each time just requesting that people please talk if they know anything and to be careful, since a killer is still walking free. i also went on after the task force was announced.
exactly what info are they obligated to tell me? each time i am told they cannot really get into a certain subject. do they have to tell me everything?
i don't know if they tried to make it look like suicide or what.
i honestly have no idea. i do not really trust anyone now. i don't have a suspect either though. i just think whoever it is, they are sure bold to do this in broad daylight. i have heard a million rumors around town. mafia, drugs, affairs, money, jealousy, all kinds of things but none makes any sense. it still does not seem real at all.
today he has been gone 6 months, rest in peace daddy, i love you.

Thank you for the information.


I agree with one thing you said: do not trust anyone outside the family. And that definitely includes LE. Far too often, people give blind trust to LE only to end up with great misgivings and serious disappointment.

Given that the sun was shining, I agree that whatever took place that day was likely bold, because they certainly would have had the option to do the same thing to your Father under the cover of night. However, he may have had his girlfriend with him at that time, and they might have decided they did not want to deal with her. Hence, the daylight robbery and/or abduction and murder. Be that as it may, boldness points to something I previously mentioned. It's a strong indicator that the person or persons who did this to your Father were not amateurs. In other words, they almost assuredly have prior experience in committing serious criminal acts. So they might well have a record or, at the very least, are known by local LE -- in the usual suspects way.

As regards what LE is required to give you, the answer is: nothing. However, significant time has passed and LE has not solved your Father's murder. You and the family have every right to be skeptical. LE has not performed as expected and, as best I can see, they have kept you (and I assume all family members) in the dark -- treating you like mushrooms.

It sounds to me like information is a one way street in this case. You and family members have given them information so as to aid them, in turn, they seem to have kept basic information from you and the family.

Take this for whatever you think this is worth, but my experience is that strong family involvement is often a great aid in solving crimes. I have a bad feeling that the family is not in the loop, and as time passes, I fear the family is going to feel pretty poor about the way things transpired.

Project yourself into the future, if LE does not solve your Father's murder in a few months, what then? What will the family do? What information will the family have at that time that would really allow for an independent effort?

If you do not force the issue, I think you will end-up finding that you are missing a lot of basic (and highly important) information. I suggest you reread my post where I talked about getting to the boss of the person in charge of the case and trying to get a reporter interested in the case. And do consider hiring an attorney so as to gain basic case information. Most anywhere you go in this nation, you are likely to find LE to be an arrogant organization. But you deserve and have a right to basic information in this case. Unfortunately, you might well need an attorney to assist in obtaining it.

By my measure, after six months, the information should be shared unless LE is hot on the trail. And given that you say they have no leads, this sounds far more like a cold case than a hot case.

Going back to case facts, from what you have told the forum, I would not assume that just because you did not find blood in the house that your Father was not seized at the bar and taken to the house. You need to know how LE determined that a certain amount of money was stolen from the safe. If that is a fact, then you really need to reassess your assumptions.

Based on what you have told me, you simply do not have the information necessary to form reliable premises or assumptions, and that is key to figuring out what transpired. You and the family really need to know or decide if the safe was robbed. If it was, I doubt it was with your Father's body lying dead in their vehicle (waiting to be dumped at the strip mine).

Finally, I believe you need to find out who saw the red truck and personally meet with them to assess for yourself exactly what they saw and when. In addition to OSBI, I suspect the Sherriff has this information (and other basic information as well).

God bless your Father, you and your family.

 

[Deleted member 718]

Did Mr Neff have a life insurance policy? Who were the beneficiaries?

 

[Deleted member 718]

Neff was last seen at about 9 a.m. Thursday in a local store. Prior to that, a female friend of his reported seeing Neff at around 7 a.m., said LeFlore County Sheriff Bruce Curnutt.

Investigators interviewed people who have been banned from the bar, but nothing came up during the interviews that led police to believe someone had held a grudge. Neff has not had to ban anyone from the bar recently, Curnutt said.

Authorities said Neff went to his business around 10:30 a.m. and some type of altercation occurred between 11:20 and 11:40 a.m. that caused quite a bit of blood loss, Brown said.

A good friend of Neff’s arrived at the business just prior to the employee and found the same scene, Brown said.

http://www.swtimes.com/articles/2009/05/16/news/news051609_04.txt

Was the female friend that saw Mr. Neff at 7AM staying at his home, or did they meet somewhere else? If it was his girlfriend and she was staying with him, then she was at the home that morning and did not go to work until close to noon. How was the safe broken into that morning if she was there?

 

[Vegas Bride]

I believe you said his girlfriend had been in the picture for a year. Did he have other girlfriends previously? I'm just wondering if there was an ex who may have felt she was owed something.
Also, when for certain was your father seen by other people other than the girlfriend before he went missing? Could the bar have been staged and he was not attacked there at all? It seems riskier to be doing all of this in broad daylight.

Since this has happened, what has become of the bar? Is it being run by someone else, sold, or closed down?
If the girlfriend worked there before, what is she doing now?
How many other people worked there?

VB

 

[ChasingMoxie]

Was the female friend that saw Mr. Neff at 7AM staying at his home, or did they meet somewhere else? If it was his girlfriend and she was staying with him, then she was at the home that morning and did not go to work until close to noon. How was the safe broken into that morning if she was there?

This is a very interesting question! If the girlfriend was home, how did someone rob the safe?

 

[Deleted member 718]

This is a very interesting question! If the girlfriend was home, how did someone rob the safe?

I wonder what's her alibi. Surely it's not that easy.

 

[Deleted member 718]

The sheriff's office and agents with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation have been conducting their investigation and searching for the body at the crime scene and the area surrounding the bar.
A search warrant was exercised Friday afternoon at Neff's home on Country Club Lane in Poteau.
A family member asked for a deputy Friday afternoon to come to Neff's home because they discovered the safe had been left open and knew that to be unusual.
"We got a search warrant so that we could search the entire house and property," Curnutt said.

http://www.poteaudailynews.com/content/view/141810/

Looks like LE didn't search his property until the day and a half later.

 

[YellowDog]

It cannot be totally established that his girlfriend was not somehow involved, however, she also worked at the bar. She would have known that the bar did not have a safe, only the home. As such, it would not seem to make sense for her to have someone initiate a confrontation with Mr. Nash at the bar. That is, if the safe in the house did, indeed, have money removed from it.

But perhaps the confrontation was unexpected. They may have expected him to go willingly without a fight since they apparently had a gun. Has it been proven that the blood at the bar was Mr. Neff's? Couldn't it have been the assailants that got bloodied instead? Mr. Neff was a big, strong man.

 

[Debbie Miller]

no calls were suspicious, yes I think it a local, probably money, why would they haul his body away? why not leave it there, they never wanted it to be found i guess.

I would believe that someone was buying thier self some time, as mentioned before.

I have a question, did someone say that his body was covered in a sheet?

 

[Debbie Miller]

Curnutt watched as $740 in cash was removed from Neff’s shirt pocket.

"This wasn’t a robbery,” Curnutt said. "This was personal.”

This is very important - the money in his pocket wasn't taken. The house was left in perfect order and only the safe found sitting open. I believe that the safe was to throw off the motive.

 

[MeoW333]

I would take a close look at the girlfriend and a male she may be friends with; possibly an unknown male/
She would have known about the safe, the work hours, everything, especially if she was there that morning when the safe was broken into. She also may have made a copy of the safe key while she had a chance and also took the original.

 

[Soulmagent]

I have a safe and I leave it open all the time. Of course I only have titles to cars and birth certificates in mine but I do leave they door wide open and if somebody wanted to say I kept 10,000 in there after I died for insurance purposes I suppose they could get away with it.
Not saying that is what happened here. Just throwing it out there. He really could have left an empty safe open and done something else with the money.

 

[Roselvr]

The sheriff's office and agents with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation have been conducting their investigation and searching for the body at the crime scene and the area surrounding the bar.
A search warrant was exercised Friday afternoon at Neff's home on Country Club Lane in Poteau.
A family member asked for a deputy Friday afternoon to come to Neff's home because they discovered the safe had been left open and knew that to be unusual.
"We got a search warrant so that we could search the entire house and property," Curnutt said.

http://www.poteaudailynews.com/content/view/141810/

In addition, officials are also looking for an older model Toyota or Nissan red pickup thought to be in connection with the crime.

 

[Wudge]

This is very important - the money in his pocket wasn't taken. The house was left in perfect order and only the safe found sitting open. I believe that the safe was to throw off the motive.

The reason that's important (Sherriff's allegation of 'personal') is because it would cause LE to look for a much different person. Obviously, if the safe was, indeed, robbed, the other option for the person who murdered Mr. Nash would be an armed robber or robbers. A robber's profile versus a revenge or otherwise 'personal' profile are very different. So, as regards the safe being found open in the home, we need to know what LE has settled on and why.

If LE has reliably determined that thousands of dollars were taken from the safe, then that would not likely make the murder 'personal. And if LE did determine that, how was it done?

That's why I have asked for clarification as regards the safe that was found open behind locked doors in Mr. Nash's home. What does LE hold and how did they arrive at their holding. This is critical.

 

[Roselvr]

I would take a close look at the girlfriend and a male she may be friends with; possibly an unknown male/
She would have known about the safe, the work hours, everything, especially if she was there that morning when the safe was broken into. She also may have made a copy of the safe key while she had a chance and also took the original.

I don't know the girlfriend; nor have I seen anything with her in it.
The way I feel; that's usually who is pointed at 1st.

Did anyone go to Joe's house every day?
Did they know for a fact how much cash he kept in there?
Honestly, who knows if the safe was even robbed?
Were his bank accounts looked at?

Is it possible he kept money in the safe at home to close/open the bar every day?
Could have been his routine to bring the cash home, then take it all with him in the morning; drop some at the bank; then go open the bar.

Perhaps he left the safe door open when there wasn't much in it and felt only locking the room door was enough?

I'm curious how much blood was found at the bar and what that blood looked like. Was it a puddle? Was it splatter?
Were there any other marks on Joe's body? All we've read about his the gun shot.

What about the cameras that were at the bar? Were they real?
We had cameras at the gas station, they did not record everything. At one time they just took pictures of each area. There were days my dad didn't record.

I'm thinking that there was no video footage.

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

ok so someone leaves the safe OPEN, then locks the door. Possibly to throw off the trail? the back of the head, I agree, sounds, well, hittish...were there any problems in your town of gangs? how about you said that the 740 was not unusual, that he would loan out money. By all accounts, your father seems like such a caring person. BUT we know that when people need money, they are sometimes not in the best position. We kind of hit on it earlier, but could anyone have been pulling back an IOU out of the safe? Did your dad need a notebook or any paperwork to keep up with what he loaned or was this more small town, a friend needed cash he'd loan and worry about payback later? it just seems so odd that the money was not taken, the house was undisturbed, and the door was locked on the way OUT. Those key's are still somewhere! ugh

 

[YellowDog]

Since the door to the room where the safe was located was locked, but the safe was open, could your father have earlier emptied out the safe and had the money on his person with the idea of taking it to the bank for deposit that day? And, if so, might the girlfriend have known he had the money on him? If that was the case, then I'd say, yes, the murder happened at the bar and the robbery took place at the bar.

 

[IWannaKnow]

Just wondering if Mr. Neff could have been holding something for someone in the safe? From what I've read he seemed to be someone who would do anything for anyone, could someone have asked him to hold something for them and other people got wind of that? I'm thinking something incriminating, not money. And once they decided he knew about it, he had to be removed? That is the only scenario I can come up with that makes any sense.

Poteau, Wister and Red Oak are not that far apart. Large amounts of money mentioned in two of those situations. Has anyone attempted to see if there are any secondary people associated with each of these cases which could tie them together? The timing and circumstances seem very coincidental to me. JMO.