OMAHA – A Topeka man told a former platoon mate he killed his Omaha ex-girlfriend after they argued, a Douglas County sheriff’s deputy testified Monday.
“I killed her,” Deputy Neal Klein Aldrick Scott told a former US military comrade while staying at a hotel in Cancun, Mexico, just a day after allegedly burying Cari Allen’s body near an abandoned barn in Kansas.
Scott’s cell phone data, his Snapchat location and his Chevy Equinox’s OnStar account, as well as video surveillance, helped detectives piece together his trip from Topeka to Omaha and back after he fatally shot 43-year-old Allen in the chest. in his northwest Omaha home Nov. 20.
Scott will be tried on charges of first-degree murder, use of a firearm to commit a felony and tampering with evidence, a judge ruled Monday.
Investigators had first requested a warrant for Scott’s arrest on kidnapping charges before Allen’s frozen body was found in a shallow grave at an abandoned farmhouse on Dec. 21.
Authorities were able to figure out the location of Allen’s body because they received OnStar data from Scott’s SUV that day, mapping its previous locations.
Klein said that on Saturday, Nov. 19, Scott left Topeka at about 7:30 p.m., around the same time Allen went to The Good Life Bar near 180th and Pacific Streets with a date he’d just had dinner with. Scott had called Allen repeatedly, up to four times in an hour, which prompted Allen to turn off the phone, Klein said.
Scott and Allen dated for about a year but ended the relationship two weeks earlier, her friend told police.
Scott then arrived at The Good Life Bar at about 10:15 p.m., but Klein said detectives weren’t sure he had gotten into the business. Scott left after about 10 minutes and made his way to Allen’s home near 168th and Blondo Street.
Klein said he believes Scott entered Allen’s home through his garage because he knew the code, and that Scott waited until Allen got home at around 11:30 p.m.
When detectives went to Allen’s home the next day, because her ex-husband and son reported her missing, they found a single bullet hole that went through Allen’s bedroom door, two walls and was penetrated his son’s bedroom door, Klein said. The holes had just been filled, Klein said.
An autopsy determined that Allen was shot once in the chest and the bullet exited her back. Scott then wrapped a “combat bandage” — an elastic bandage with a large cotton ball to stem the bleeding — around Allen’s wounds and placed his body in trash bags, Klein said.
Investigators believe Scott used Allen’s sedan to transport his body from his home to where Scott’s SUV was parked in a nearby construction neighborhood. The trunk lining from Allen’s car was missing, and the trunk of Scott’s SUV showed obvious traces of blood, Klein said. The vehicle has not yet been tested for DNA.
Scott then drove his SUV back to his Topeka home, arriving at 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 20. About four hours later, he spent about 70 minutes on the abandoned farm property, according to data from OnStar.
Scott purchased airline tickets that day to depart Kansas City International Airport the next day, flying to Houston and then Cancun, Klein said. Officials found his SUV in an airport garage and found a loaded Sig Sauer P320 9mm semi-automatic pistol in a pistol case in the spare tire well.
Klein testified that on November 22, despite having just flown to Cancun, Scott purchased tickets to Fiji via Los Angeles the following day, so Klein and another detective went to Los Angeles to try and wiretap Scott. But Scott never got on that plane, Klein said.
Eventually Scott showed up in Belize, where he was taken into custody on December 6th.
Authorities confiscated one of Scott’s three phones and believe the other two were abandoned in Houston and Cancun.
On that phone, Scott searched the Internet asking if he could be arrested or if police could confront him in Belize, Klein said. Scott also googled his name and Allen’s name.
The most dangerous cities in Nebraska
Dangerous cities in Nebraska
Find out how your hometown ranks among the most dangerous cities in Nebraska. Ratings were determined based on the number of violent crimes per 1,000 people in cities of at least 10,000 population, classifying violent crimes as homicide, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Numbers are for 2019, the most recent year for which the FBI provides data.
6. Southern Sioux Town
With 30 violent crimes in 2019 and a population of 12,771 (the smallest on our list), the city in northeastern Nebraska had 2.35 violent crimes per 1,000 people.
Photo: An RV park in South Sioux City on the Missouri River.
4. North Plate
With a population of 23,705 and 89 violent crimes, the city had a rate of 3.75 per 1,000.
Photo: Union Pacific train engines line up outside a service building in North Platte.
3. Lincoln
The Star City had a population of 291,128 with 1,115 violent crimes, a rate of 3.83 per 1,000.
Photo: Lincoln Police investigate a shooting near the intersection of 14th and E streets in August 2019.
2. Big Island
With a population of 51,821 and 236 violent crimes, the largest of the Tri Cities had a rate of 4.55 per 1,000 people in 2019.
Photo: Grand Island Police and State Patrol personnel investigate after a body was found in a Grand Island backyard in August 2020.
1.Omaha
In 2019, the state’s largest city with 470,481 people had 2,833 violent crimes for a rate of 6.13 per 1,000.
Photo: Omaha Police and University Police guard the entrance to the Nebraska Medicine Emergency Department after an Omaha Police officer was shot and killed at Westroads Mall in March 2021.
A note on numbers
With eight violent crimes in 2019, Boys Town topped the state at 13.82 per 1,000 people, which is a misleading statistic because it had only 579 residents in 2019.
Photo: the statue at the entrance to Boys Town. It doesn’t take much to skew the numbers.
