1876
Yutan was originally called Clear Creek and was platted in 1876 when a railroad was extended there.
about 0:05:58The story
Sandra 'Sandy' Schnabel was born on 18 February 1959 in Central City, Nebraska and raised in Hordeville. A sister had died at six months old the year before she was born. They married in 1986 and settled in Yutan, Nebraska, around 1987, when she took a job in the Yutan school district teaching business, typing and photography and coaching volleyball. She won a Class C1 state championship in 1992 and went to seven state tournaments, with a coaching record of 173 wins and 35 losses over twelve years. The couple had three children, Trevor in 1989, Courtney in 1992 and Sarah in 1995. Sandy sang as a soloist in the choir at the Mead Covenant Church and worked with its youth programmes.
Friday 21 May 1999 was the last day of school before the summer. A 13-year-old babysat the three children while Sandy cleared out her office. He said she left the house at ten o'clock and he went to bed. Trevor, then about ten, was woken by a painful scream from downstairs and found his mother in the brown recliner in the living room, not talking or moving. His father sent him back to bed. Later the boy crept down again and, through a crack in the front door, saw his mother slumped in a chair outside.
At half past one on the morning of 22 May, two nineteen-year-olds, Jason McFadden and Scott Mum, were driving home from a rodeo when they saw smoke and fire from the gravel road. They had to hold him back from the flames. The 1992 Caravan was jammed against a storage shed and both were burning. Firefighters found Sandy's body under the left rear wheel of the van, tangled in barbed wire and burned so badly that dental records were needed to identify her.
The van had left Saunders County Road 1, crossed a ditch, at least an eighth of a mile of sprouting cornfield and two barbed wire fences before hitting the shed. A horse in the field was badly cut by the wire. There were two overlapping sets of tyre tracks, no damaged fuel lines and no drag s. The autopsy found a fractured skull, broken ribs and bruising on her torso, but she died of burning. Within two days the children were interviewed on tape. Sarah, three and a half, said she had seen her mother with a bloody nose, that her father had carried the brown chair outside in the dark, and that he had mopped something up with a bucket and rag. A search of the house found blood spatter on walls, ceilings and furniture in three rooms and on the John Deere Gator, along with clear attempts to clean it. More than 300 spots of blood were counted. The brown recliner the children described was gone, although recent photographs showed it in the living room; it was later found miles away in a farmer's field, covered in Sandy's blood, together with rags carrying her blood and bleach. Six months earlier he had taken out a $200,000 life insurance policy on his wife.
The funeral was held in the school gym, with more than a thousand mourners, flags at half staff and thirty current and former volleyball players in red and white.
The defence suggested she became tangled in barbed wire and the van rolled over her, or that she crashed it deliberately to force the purchase of a new van.
His next hearing was set for November 2025.