Jane Devin

FINAL THOUGHTS 

It has been a very difficult and emotional challenge to write this series on Armstrong’s murder.  While many have offered support and inspiring words of encouragement, there is nothing that can take away the heaviness my heart feels as I set aside this unfinished story — except perhaps the arrest of the actual and proven killer.  Time and distance will not relieve my frustration, but I hope it will do something to renew my faith and restore my optimism.

There are many things I learned and heard about this case that I never published.   Not just the exact details of the murder itself, which I agreed should not be made public until after an arrest, but other things that needed to be investigated and verified by additional sources.  I regret that I did not have the resources or the free time to do that.   

I regret, too, that I could not do more for Troy Voichoskie and his family.  Having spoken with both of his sisters on the phone, and having met Voichoskie, his youngest son, and his mother in person, I do not believe he is a man capable of murder.  I spent hours speaking with Voichoskie, both on the day we met and later over the phone, and he has never failed to be honest — even when the answers were not complimentary to him. 

I watched as Troy carried his toddler, handed him crayons, and cut up food for his plate.  I saw the smiles exchanged between son and father, even as the father was busy speaking with me.  There was a real and deep bond there — a bond that  sociopaths are incapable of forming and that cannot be faked.   

Yes, he smoked pot and drank too much, mixed prescription drugs with his beer, and can barely recall what he had for dinner last night even now that he’s sober, but that doesn’t make him a murderer.  Voichoskie is, by nature, a laid-back type of guy — a “type-B” personality, more prone to anxiety than anger and more likely, due to the love he feels for his mother, sisters and wife, to attempt acts of valor where it regards women.   He may engage friends to beat the guy who was beating the woman, but I do not believe he would physically harm a woman, much less kill her.   He has no history of violence, and he had no motive to hurt or murder Terry Armstrong, a woman he barely knew. 

I have made reports to various law enforcement agencies with what I believe is important information.  I have also sent out beacon calls to others in the media, hoping that they will pick up where I had to leave off.  Will they?  I don’t know.  The news is often powered by advertisement and audience, leaving many stories, even most stories, untold and unexplored.  That’s why this site began last March — as a small counterweight to other media — to tell the “more to the story” that others often don’t. 

I am disappointed in the Nebraska media for not doing their best to bring Terry’s story to the public in the very beginning, when it would have counted most.   Not just because I feel Terry deserved coverage, but because the failure to provide coverage may be, in part, the reason that a sick and dangerous killer walks free today.

The story of Terry Armstrong never made headline news.  She wasn’t a pregnant wife, or a pretty college student, or the relative of someone who had some pull.  She was just a woman, innocent at the core, badgered by more problems than any one person should ever have to handle.  

I felt honored to write about her, and humbled.  I look at Terry’s life, and speak to people who knew her, and read the reports. . .and I realize that for my all personal strength, I have never been as strong as she was, and I’ve never had to be.  The burdens she shouldered, and the problems she kept hidden from the world, must have taken an enormous amount of courage and strength. 

She was not — Terry was not — a failure.  We failed her.  Society, law enforcement, the media, those people in Norfolk who watched her struggle and never sought to find her help or contact her family.  Her “friends” that didn’t want to get involved.  People that were fearful of being shamed or who didn’t want to be bothered. People who were afraid, period.  The court system that didn’t check to see if Randall was following the stipulations of his bond.  The law enforcement agencies that failed to release appropriate and timely information, and who still keep rehashing old information from unreliable witnesses instead of trying to find something new and tangible.  The newspapers with illogical policies, the reporters who didn’t push. . . 

We all failed her, but we are not to blame for her murder, and no amount of guilt we may feel will bring her back to life.  We can only take whatever lessons we learned and do our best to heed them in the future.

The lessons I learned will never be forgotten.  Some of them were not good lessons, and I hope to never repeat them.  Others, like there really are some people who care, and that I am fortunate enough to know them, are lessons I gladly take to heart and would spend a lifetime relearning if I could. 

A WHITEWASH AND LOST OPPORTUNITIES 

There’s a problem with this picture of Terry Armstrong, and it’s not in the hopeful smile or bright, sparkling eyes. It’s that the picture was taken in 1987, seventeen years before Armstrong’s death.

It’s a picture of happier, healthier days when Armstrong, recently recovered from a terrible driving accident that left her badly burned, was still with her second husband and living a life far removed from the one she lived in 2004 in Norfolk, Nebraska.

People that knew Armstrong in Norfolk did not recognize her by this picture, and were surprised to learn that it was, in fact, her. “Uh-huh,” one said, “she didn’t look like that at all.”

The first newspaper story about Armstrong’s murder appeared in the Norfolk Daily News on September 1, 2004 two days after her body was discovered. News of the crime was delayed, according to the paper, due to difficulties in contacting Armstrong’s out-of-state family members.

In that article was a grainy and tiny photo of Armstrong, which may have been from her driver’s license or possibly a mug shot. That photo, which people would no doubt recognize as belonging to Armstrong, made its first and last appearance September 1st.

According to an earlier conversation I had with one of Terry’s family members, it was Madison County’s victim advocate Joanie Brugger who found the Olan Mills picture among Armstrong’s belongings and provided it to media outlets. Brugger did this, according to the family member, because she thought the picture the paper had printed was unflattering and the studio shot was prettier – more in line with how the family would want to remember their loved one.

It was the Olan Mills picture that made its way to later television and newspaper coverage. The picture that those in Norfolk who knew Terry did not recognize.

The family may have been saved from a so-called unflattering photo, but at the same time the chances that someone might recognize the victim – and possibly provide information to law enforcement on her whereabouts the night before and the morning of her murder – was irretrievably lost.

Law enforcement officials failed to release pictures of their “persons of interest” after Armstrong’s murder. They failed to release a description of the truck she was last seen in, or the location where the driver of that truck said he dropped her off.

The editor of the Norfolk Daily News, Kent Warneke, told me that it’s against the paper’s policy to publish photos of persons of interests so as “not to cast aspersions.” Yet they publish their names – which only their friends, families, employers and acquaintances would recognize.

It’s okay to cast aspersions, according to NDN’s logic, among those most intimately familiar with the POI’s, but out of bounds to show pictures that might provide valuable tips in a murder case.

Exceptions are made, Warneke said, if law enforcement requests. The Madison County Sheriff’s department did not make such a request.

During the course of covering this story, I paid a visit to the Sheriff’s website and found pictures of those who had failed to appear in court. One picture was of a man who had been arrested for failure to license his dog. Yet when I asked Sheriff Vern Hjorth and Investigator Jon Downey for mugshots of the people involved in this case – mugshots which are normally part of the public record – my request was flatly denied.

The Sheriff’s department also failed to adequately warn the public of danger, or to engage the public in the investigation. They failed to get the warrants they should have gotten, and they failed to learn about the victim or her background.

Journalists and reporters failed to push, writing and televising stories that read more like brief press releases.  Coverage was sparse, insufficient, and failed to spark public interest.

Armstong’s alcohol use and exhibited schizophrenic symptoms never made it to the news. One of the reporters I contacted said, “We didn’t delve into Ms. Armstrong’s troubles partly because those who knew her didn’t want to talk about it after she’d been killed and partly because there didn’t seem to be anything to be gained from it. It likely would have been taken as beating up on the victim. And we had been led to believe police thought the killer was either Randall or Voichoskie.”

So, in the name of sympathy for the family, or misguided sensitivity, not only was the public shown a picture of the victim they would not have recognized, there was a purposeful whitewash thrown over Armstrong’s entire life.  The reasons given defy logic.  Armstrong was dead — there was no reality about her life that could hurt or harm her anymore.  And it is quite possible to write the truth about someone’s life, even hard truths, without blame and without “beating up” the victim. 

People pass by each other everyday without incident or recollection. However, they are likely to recall, even in some detail, those things that strike them as unusual. A woman who may have been talking to herself, who may not have had a steady gait, and whose behavior was out of the ordinary would likely be someone people would remember.

No one in the larger public was given that opportunity, and it is forever lost.

A 9/2/04 story on KTIV-TV said “While DNA tests are expected back within the next 24 hours, Madison County authorities are not expecting an arrest until next week.” A couple of weeks later, on 9/16/04, a Norfolk Daily News reporter wrote, “DNA tests have prosecutors closer to filing charges in the death of Terry Armstrong”.

But the DNA didn’t match as investigators had hoped, and close doesn’t count — not in life and especially not in murder.

A COWARDLY KILLER

I am aware of what Terry Armstrong endured on the morning of August 30, 2004 before death mercifully arrived. I have read the report detailing her extensive injuries and I know how hard she fought to live.

Yes, it was a life that was enormously challenged, and full of pain and confusion at the time, but it was her life — and for Armstrong, optimism and hope were never fully lost, no matter how harsh her circumstances. Hope dwelled, with God and angels and all beautiful things, in her perpetually naive and childlike spirit.

It may be that those surrounding Terry Armstrong in her final months of life did not see that spirit, at least not in its fullest and finest bloom. It may be that they saw a woman who was barely scraping by. One who was kicked and beaten, living a life of peril, who appeared foggy and who often seemed disconnected from the world around her.

Several people were repelled by Armstrong’s odd behavior in those last months. Most were unaware that Terry was schizophrenic, not only because she did not make it known but because, according to family members, Terry had previously managed to control her symptoms for long stretches of time.

At this point, nobody knows who Armstrong’s killer was or how she met him. What I do know that he is the worst kind of coward. I believe that evidence suggests he struck the vulnerable, petite Armstrong from behind first, while she was standing, which may account for the blood found on the soles of her shoes. It’s the act of the weakest kind of coward to strike from behind. To disable a smaller and unarmed victim, and to watch her fall with horror in her eyes.

I imagine he stood over his victim then, feeling superior, as most sociopaths do, without conscience or regard for any life other than their own. They don’t need a reason to kill, but thrive on creating their own twisted justifications.

Early in this story, an official in Madison County told me he thought the murder of Terry Armstrong seemed like a revenge killing. Others believe there was a sexual component, because the victim was found partially disrobed. There are rumors, as there are in many unsolved cases, that cannot be substantiated, and there are facts that have not yet been publicly disclosed.

Three years later, the case remains unsolved. A dangerous sociopath remains free to kill again, leaving several people continuing to ask why. Others, it seems, have given up asking. They are willing to treat Armstrong’s death as an anomaly – a wrong place-wrong time, couldn’t-happen-to-them type of crime. They point out that the victim was in a “high-risk” category, as if they know for a fact that this played a role in her death, or as if that’s proper justification for any crime, much less one as brutally savage as her murder.

Armstrong was nearly decapitated. Cut and stabbed multiple times, with her body left exposed in the tall grass on the side of a road. Perhaps the killer wanted her found quickly, so he could revel that much sooner in media reports on the case. Maybe as morning approached he worried that others might see him, so he quickly fled the scene. We can only speculate on what the killer may have been thinking.

Less hypothetical is what other people surrounding this murder case did after Armstrong’s murder. That story will follow.