In 1969, at the age of six, his parents divorced; in 1974, he and his sister moved with their mother to an unkempt, dilapidated apartment in Portland, Maine, to start a new chapter.

"My impression was that the mother was cold and extremely manipulative", said Rich Pitre, Joubert's high school band teacher, friend, and mentor.

[1] Though he was, by all accounts, an honor roll student and very driven academically, Joubert was targeted negatively by some of his peers; he would be bullied by bigger boys for seeming meek, shy, or otherwise helpless.

According to his former Spanish teacher, Francesca Bergan, Joubert was "a 'little boy' all through his high school years", adding that "a lot of kids are picked on, but they seem to defend themselves...

I wonder if he thought he deserved that kind of abuse that he would get... the shoving, the names, you know; the teasing.” [2] Joubert sought to compensate for these feelings of isolation by becoming more involved, playing clarinet in the marching band, running on the school track team, as well as joining the Cub Scouts.

It was around this time that his sadistic and homicidal fantasies progressed, to the point where he imagined murdering complete strangers on the streets, or of restraining and gagging those who resisted him.

Having been bullied throughout his youth, Joubert relished the physical and mental power of this dominance, and began to consider casually stabbing or slashing others.

[5] On August 22, 1982, 11-year-old Richard "Ricky" Stetson left home to go jogging on the 3.5 mile long Back Cove Trail in Portland, Maine.

A suspect was arrested for the murder but his teeth did not match the bite mark on Stetson's body, so he was released after one and a half years in custody.

Danny Joe Eberle, 13 years old, disappeared while delivering copies of the Omaha World-Herald on Sunday, September 18, 1983, in Bellevue, Nebraska.

After a three-day search, Eberle's body was discovered in a patch of high grass alongside a gravel road some 4 miles (6 km) from his bicycle.

On December 2, 1983, Christopher Walden, age 12, disappeared in Papillion, Nebraska, approximately 3 miles (5 km) from where Eberle's body had been found.

The car was not tan, but was traced and found to be rented by John Joubert, an enlisted radar technician from Offutt Air Force Base.

A search warrant was issued, and rope consistent with that used to bind Danny Joe Eberle was found in his barracks room.

Robert K. Ressler, the FBI's head profiler at the time, along with Dr. Ann Burgess, had access to the information about the two boys in Nebraska and worked up a hypothetical description which matched Joubert in every regard.

In 1980, Ressler's investigation revealed that Joubert had slashed a nine-year-old boy and a female teacher in her mid-twenties who both "had been cut rather badly, and were lucky to be alive.

And I just ask the families of Danny Eberle and Christopher Walden and Richard Stetson to please try to find some peace and ask the people of Nebraska to forgive me.