Nebraska Supreme Court upholds woman's murder conviction, life sentence in killing and dismemberment of Tinder date
The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the murder conviction and life sentence of a woman in the 2017 death and dismemberment of a Nebraska hardware store clerk.
Bailey Boswell, 30, was convicted in 2020 of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and improper disposal of human remains in the death of 24-year-old Sydney Loofe. Boswell's co-defendant and boyfriend at the time of the killing, 58-year-old Aubrey Trail, was convicted of the same charges in 2019 and sentenced to death in 2021.
Prosecutors said Boswell and Trail had been planning to kill someone before Boswell met Loofe on the dating app Tinder. Boswell made plans for a date with Loofe, a cashier at a Menards store in Lincoln, to lure her to the apartment where she was strangled.
The FBI and other law enforcement spent three weeks searching for Loofe before her dismembered remains were found in December 2017. Loofe's body was found cut into 14 pieces and left in garbage bags in ditches along rural roads in southeastern Nebraska.
Loofe was still alive when Trail and Boswell were caught on store surveillance video buying the tools that police think they used to dismember her, prosecutors said in court documents.
In her appeal, Boswell challenged the admission of evidence by prosecutors in her trial, including photographs of Loofe's dismembered body, arguing the gruesome photos served only to turn the jury against her. Boswell also objected to the testimony of several women who said Trail and Boswell had talked of occult fantasies and had expressed a desire to sexually torture and kill women.
During Boswell's sentencing hearing, Doug Warner, the assistant attorney general, pointed to a photo of Loofe's detached arm, with a tattoo that read "Everything will be wonderful someday," CBS affiliate KMTV reported. Warner said some of the knife marks around the tattoo had nothing to do with the dismemberment.
Warner cited the "apparent relishment of the murder by the defendant, needless mutilation of the victim, senselessness of the crime and helplessness of the victim."
Boswell's defense attorney argued at her trial that she was forced by Trail to go along with the killing and dismemberment of Loofe.
Justice Stephanie Stacy wrote for the high court's unanimous ruling Friday that "there is no merit to any of Boswell's assigned errors regarding the trial court's evidentiary rulings."
Shortly after Loofe's disappearance, Boswell and Trail initially posted a Facebook video in which they maintained their innocence, KMTV reported. Boswell said in the video she and Loofe did drugs at her house before she dropped Loofe off at a friend's house. Boswell said they had planned to go to a casino that weekend, but she hadn't heard from Loofe since.
The video was a deleted a few hours after it was posted to the "Finding Sydney Loofe" Facebook page.