Man convicted in 1998 Klickitat triple murders seeks re-sentencing

Billy Jean Neal Jr. confessed to investigators in 2001 that the initial confrontation in Olmos and Gomez's apartment revolved around a recent drug deal done by Neal Jr. for Olmos’ drug operation, in which Olmos believed he was getting ripped off. He said he believed his father intended to kill Olmos as Neal Sr. started to stab him amid the confrontation, later killing him as he fled the apartment. He said the deaths of Gomez and Mendoza, which he and his father both participated in, were premeditated with the intention of leaving no witnesses to provide information about what happened to Olmos.

Court records show the plea deal spared the men the death penalty, which at the time was the only alternative recourse available within the state’s criminal statute.

Neal Jr., who was 19 years old at the time of the commission of the crimes, is currently serving the two concurrent life sentences without parole at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla for his aggravated murder convictions, and an additional 344 months for murder in the first degree. Court records show Neal Sr. died in June 2005 while incarcerated at the Monroe Correctional Complex in Snohomish County at the age of 50.

Recent changes in state law have allowed the younger Neal to argue for a lighter sentence before a judge.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court established in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles under the age of 18 violated their constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishments due to a child’s “diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change,” which was later codified by state lawmakers in 2014. And just last year, for the first time in U.S. history, the Washington Supreme Court extended that protection to defendants up to the age of 20 through a petition filed by Kurtis Monschke and Dwayne Bartholomew, two men convicted of aggravated murder when they were 19 and 20.

Under the Monschke ruling, courts in Washington must now consider whether a defendant’s youthful qualities mitigated their culpability for a crime if they are facing mandatory sentences of life without parole, and if they were under 21 at the time of the commission of the crime.

“Modern social science, (court) precedent, and a long history of arbitrary line drawing have all shown that no clear line exists between childhood and adulthood,” Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud noted in the majority opinion. “Just as courts must exercise discretion before sentencing a 17-year-old to die in prison, so must they exercise the same discretion when sentencing an 18-, 19-, or 20-year-old.”

The ruling required Pierce County Superior Court to hold re-sentencing hearings for Monschke and Bartholomew, and it opened the door for other convicts in similar positions as the two petitioners to request the same consideration.

Neal, who is now 43, may be eligible for a lighter sentence on his two aggravated murder charges, based on the Monschke ruling.

In June of 2021, citing the Monschke ruling, Neal asked the court to hold a hearing to reconsider his life sentences, which was later granted. Superior Court Judge Randall Krog will preside over the hearing, scheduled Nov. 21 at 1:30 p.m. at the Klickitat County Superior Courthouse in Goldendale.

An expert witness, Christen A. Carson, Ph.D., has agreed to testify at the hearing. Carson, a forensic psychologist who currently serves as president of the Washington State Psychological Association, is expected to provide expert testimony on adolescent brain development and its application to cases involving young people.

Klickitat County Prosecuting Attorney David Quesnel, whose office will argue on behalf of the state, declined to comment on the position they will take at the hearing. Neal’s legal counsel, Christopher Lanz, a public defender in Klickitat and Skamania counties, said he should have an opportunity to argue for a release date, but declined to say what the specific request for an alternative sentence will be.

Because Neal's life sentences are occurring concurrently, meaning that he is serving them at the same time, there is a plausible chance he could be released within his lifetime depending on the outcome of the hearing. The Daily Herald, a news publication in Everett, reported earlier this year on multiple re-sentencing cases through Snohomish County Superior Court involving convicts who were between the ages of 18-20 at the time of the crime, noting that some received sentences as low as 27 years on an aggravated murder charge with credit for time served.

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Neal is the latest of three current inmates within Washington’s corrections system from Klickitat and Skamania counties to seek a reconsideration of their life without parole sentences due to the state’s recent change in outlook on youthful offenders. The two other convicts initiated hearings based on the Miller decision due to the fact that they were minors at the time.

Jeremiah Gilbert, who was 15 when he shot and killed 35-year-old Robert David Gresham and 26-year-old Loren Evans near Centerville in 1992, was re-sentenced for his aggravated first-degree murder charge in September 2019 from life without parole to 25 years to life, which he had completed by the date of the hearing; he is now serving a combined sentence of 45 years to life on his convictions of first-degree murder, burglary, robbery, theft, and second-degree assault.

Sean Stevenson, a descendant of a Gorge pioneer who, in 1987 at the age of 16, killed his mother and stepfather, Margaret and James Butler, and killed and raped his sister, Amy Stevenson, was convicted on one charge of aggravated murder and two charges of first-degree murder following a jury trial.

Stevenson returned to Skamania County Superior Court last month following a successful appeal on an earlier re-sentencing hearing that culminated in no changes to his life sentence.

On Oct. 13, Stevenson's sentence of life without parole was reduced to 40 years to life, which he will serve consecutive to two concurrent sentences of 320 months for the two murder charges, and consecutive to a sentence of 140 months for charges of escape, robbery, and theft which he caught when he escaped from prison in 1988.