Nuxoll dies while serving life sentence

Patrick J. Nuxoll, who was serving a life sentence for the 2015 murder of David Cramer in Lewiston, died in a southern Idaho prison Tuesday afternoon.

His sister, Connie Nuxoll, confirmed that Nuxoll had been diagnosed with terminal cancer in November. He was 59 at the time of his death. Nez Perce County District Judge Jeff Brudie recently denied Nuxoll’s motion for a new trial, but he was set to resume his appeal after that setback.

Connie Nuxoll maintained that her brother did not kill Cramer, and expressed regret that he wouldn’t get the chance to prove his innocence.

“It might take 10 years, but my goal is to clear my brother’s name and show that, just like many others, there’s injustices in the court system,” she said by phone from the Boise area, where she has been for the last two months to be near her brother during his illness. “He should have never been in there. He was the most giving, kind man I’ve ever met.”

A Latah County jury convicted Nuxoll of first-degree murder in October 2018 for the stabbing and beating death of Cramer, who had more than 200 distinct injuries when he was discovered dead in a chair in Nuxoll’s Lewiston Orchards home. The case was tried in Moscow after an unbiased jury could not be found in Lewiston.

Nuxoll appealed his guilty verdict in 2019, but that action was on hold pending the outcome of the motion for a new trial. His attorney, Rick Cuddihy, of Lewiston, said Wednesday that he and the state appellate public defender assigned to the case were ready to resume the appeal, but any further action would be moot because of his client’s death.

Cuddihy said he was saddened to lose a client he believed was innocent.

“I spent a lot of time with him,” he said. “It’s been an ongoing client-attorney relationship, and we felt strongly about Patrick’s claims and his defenses.”

In his motion for a new trial, Cuddihy argued that a deputy sheriff who was a witness for the prosecution should have disclosed that he was the subject of a state investigation for tax fraud at the time of the trial. Cuddihy told Brudie that if he had known that fact, he could have easily cast doubt on that testimony. Brudie disagreed, however, finding that it would be unreasonable for the prosecution to have known about an investigation being conducted by another agency.

Connie Nuxoll said it was her brother’s kindness that got him into the trouble that ultimately put him in prison for the rest of his life. Cramer came to Nuxoll’s home seeking refuge after being physically assaulted by his brother, she said, but investigators ignored evidence that other people were in the home.

“I gave them names of people I knew were involved, and they denied even the possibility that it was someone else,” she said.

Cuddihy presented the theory at trial that Cramer’s brother could have committed the killing, but a witness testified that the brother was home for that entire night.

Connie Nuxoll praised the staff at the Idaho State Correctional Center in Kuna for their compassion during her brother’s illness, and their willingness to allow in-person visits. She was able to be with him when he died, she said.

She and Nuxoll’s attorneys had been working on securing Nuxoll’s release on compassionate grounds, but the fact that he was serving a life sentence complicated that request. They had just been informed that their request would be considered when Nuxoll died.

“Because of the red tape, he couldn’t hang on long enough,” Connie Nuxoll said.

Mills may be contacted at jmills@lmtribune.com or at (208) 310-1901, ext. 2266.