1881
Emerson was laid out in 1881 to be a railroad junction.
about 0:05:35The story
Emerson, Nebraska, is a farming town of 854 people in the far north-east of the state, spread across Dixon, Dakota and Thurston counties and about 35 minutes from Sioux City, Iowa. It was laid out in 1881 as a junction of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha railways, was first called Kennesaw Junction, and took its present name from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Craig Donald Kubik, known as Boomer, was born on 2 December 1973 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and grew up around Emerson. He learned to weld as a small boy, graduated from Emerson Hubbard High School in 1992, built and repaired horse-racing equipment for a manufacturing company, did steel and cement work, worked at ethanol plants and played the piano. By 2016 he was living in a trailer in Emerson with his young son and seeing Jacqueline Marr.
That evening Jacqueline left Kubik at home with his son. Kubik sent her a text at about 10.30 p.m. and then stopped replying.
The next morning Jacqueline took her own child to school, then drove to Kubik's trailer and arrived at about nine. Kubik's five-year-old son was standing alone on the deck. Near the Dodge she saw air compressors, boots, a flashlight and a puddle of blood with what looked like drag marks. She took the boy to school, where he told his teacher that his father was dead and that 'black cat killed him', and mentioned blood on the boots and flashlight, a gun and an air compressor. The principal called the police for a welfare check. A Dakota County sheriff's deputy met Jacqueline and Kubik's father at the house and was shown the blood and the surveillance footage. Officers found blood in the grass behind the Dodge, two air compressors, a lawn mower and a single boot. They could not ping Kubik's phone.
There officers found a silver Chevrolet Impala with a broken window, blood on the rear bumper and boot lid, and plates registered to the red Dodge. Beside a recently used burn barrel were ashes, what appeared to be human flesh, a red gas can, a spray bottle with blood on it and a bloody knife. A warrant was obtained for the trunk, and inside were a severed arm and a severed leg. DNA from the Impala, Kubik's home, the farm and the bloodied clothing all matched Kubik.
On 5 November 2016, about four miles from the farm, officers found the rest of him in a creek and culvert: his head and torso, organs, intestines and the other arm and leg. He had been shot once behind the left ear at almost point-blank range with a small-calibre gun and dismembered after death. The bullet was too damaged to identify the calibre and the gun was never found.
He was declared competent, then incompetent again, and in 2020 was allowed to represent himself with counsel assisting.