Bailey Boswell’s Appeal Denied, Life Sentence Affirmed for 2017 Murder

On Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court denied Bailey Boswell’s appeal for the murder of 24-year-old Sydney Loofe, upholding her conviction.

Boswell was sentenced to life in prison in 2021 for her role in Loofe’s 2017 murder, only months after her co-defendant and lover at the time, Aubrey Trail, was sentenced to death for the same offenses. Boswell was spared the capital penalty, which would have made her the state’s first female death row inmate. In 2017, Trail and Boswell murdered a woman they had just met and dumped her body.

Trail acknowledged to killing Loofe, claiming that he and Boswell lured her to his Wilber flat to recruit her into their criminal lifestyle. Trail claimed Loofe did not react properly and that he killed her because he was scared she would alert others about their actions. Trail previously stated that Loofe was slain as a result of a botched sex act.

Evidence proved that Trail and Boswell planned to assassinate Loofe after meeting her on a dating service. Loofe vanished on the second date, and her body pieces were discovered dispersed throughout the countryside near Wilber, Nebraska.

Boswell’s direct appeal disputed the admission of images of Loofe’s mutilated body, stating that the repeated admissions of horrible photographs were “more prejudicial than probative, and were needlessly cumulative”.

Boswell also claimed that the evidence presented involving witchcraft and sex acts was extraneous and focused on Boswell’s character rather than her deeds, which she claimed was inadmissible in court.

The Nebraska Supreme Court eventually found no mistakes in the trial court’s decisions and upheld Boswell’s conviction and imprisonment.