30/03/2022
[This was the first letter sent to in January, 2020 by Werner-Rummer Kunkel, prisoner #17397 at James River Correctional Facility, James River, North Dakota]
To Whom it May Concern:
Gilbert Fassatt and I met while we were in prison together during the early 1980’s.
The last day I saw Gilbert was on August 1,1986. Recognizing him walking on the sidewalk as I drove by, I pulled over and asked him if he needed a ride. He told me he had just gotten out of jail so I invited him to a couple of beers.
At the bar Gilbert had a $20 bill wrapped around a bunch of ones pretending to have a big wad of money. All he had was bout $60 which I won playing dice.
Eventually, Gilbert got so drunk that he started a fight with an employee at the adjacent gas station/convenience store where the employee warned me to get Gilbert out of there or he’d call the cops. Before leaving I bought 3 pints of liquor, threw them in the back seat of the car and used Gilbert’s jean jacket to cover them up.
Gilbert wanted me to drive to Grand Forks but had no money. He had me drive him to his foster parent’s house on the reservation. We were there for over an hour while Gilbert kept asking them for money, who eventually gave him only $5. I was so pi**ed that he was taking so long that I made up the excuse that I had an appointment and insisted several times to Gilbert and his family that we had to get going.
Gilbert wanted me to take him to yet another place on the rez to find money. I said no, drove him back to Devils Lake and dropped him off where he was staying with a couple named Mike Sabin and Lori Christ.
An hour or so later, I picked up a girl and from that point on 11 PM - 12 midnight August 1-2, 1986 I have an indisputable alibi.
On the morning of August 5, 1986 I was arrested for assaulting the very same police officer - Peter Belgrade - who when Fassett’s body would be discovered on August 10th, targeted me from the beginning.
I was interviewed by the police, Peter Belgrade and James Yankton on August 26, 1986. Through the years whenever anyone would ask me if I was involved in Gilbert’s death, or ask what I told the police in 1986 I would explain my August 26, 1986 statement. This twisted “out-of-context” confession crap was used to convict me at my 1995 trial to say I confessed when I did no such thing, ever-to-anyone!
In 1992, when I was trying to get custody of my 2 sons, the mother went to the FBI to say I confessed killing Gilbert to her. This woman used information she learned through gossip as well as having an affair with Gilbert Fassett’s half-brother obtaining information she later used to help the FBI convey to the jury confessions of murder that I never made.
A week before my arrest in 1995 this same woman worked with the FBI to use my children to wear a wire on me, which they’ve hidden to this day! By Lynn Crooks. Additionally, the woman made several false statements thus committing perjury under the direction of Lynn Crooks.
The evening before my trial several of the jailhouse snitches being housed in separate housing areas of the jail were allowed to have secret meetings to compare notes!! Who then testified to say they’d never met or knew each other!!
The vehicle I picked Gilbert up within 1986 burned up in an accident in 1990, in a fire that completely destroyed it. Several years later the FBI found the burnt frame in some junkyard in Minnestoa and without establishing any chain of evidence used this burnt frame that hadn’t been in my possession for 5 ½ years. (CONT.)
The primary investigator of Gilbert Fassatt’s murder while testifying at my trial was under investigation for dealing drugs on the reservation, threatening witnesses, was incredulously implicated himself - James “Junior” Yankton, in the murder of Gilbert Fassett. This damning evidence was hidden to the defense by Lynn Crooks so that he (Lynn Crooks) could use James “Junior” Yankton to establish Gilbert Fassett was not killed on the reservation after Lynn Crooks was denied by a Federal Grand Jury on January 20, 1995 an indictment. In other words Lynn Crooks seats a Federal Grand Jury seeking an indictment. When the Federal Grand Jury denied Lynn Crooks the indictment Lynn Crooks bullied the Ramsey County States Attorney to charge me [and] Crooks gets hired on under the guise of “Assistant State’s Attorney” and tries me anyway!! On January 20, 1995 Lynn Crooks says Gilbert Fassett is killed on the reservation. No indictment. So then uses a crooked rogue BIA police office that Lynn Crook’s was investigating at my trial!! Hiding all of the damning evidence against the investigator who testified against me!!
Please find the attached documents with description of their relevancy.
Thank You,
(Signed) Werner Kunkel
[Sent January, 2020 from the James River Correctional Facility, James River, North Dakota]
[STORY TO BE CONTINUED]
