JUNE
On
June 1, 1856, J.N. Covey of Buffalo Township near Independence in Buchanan County was ambushed, killed, and buried on the prairie by a neighbor, Rock Jewell, who owed him money. Jewell was arrested on circumstantial evidence and eyewitness testimony, but murder was not provable because Covey’s body could not be located.
Click here to read the story in “West of Coffin’s Grove.”
location of Independence, Iowa
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On
May 31, 1925, 64-year-old coal mine watchman Carl Axel Deer was struck repeatedly with an axe in his tent home at Thistle Mine #4 near Cincinnati, Iowa, in Appanoose County. Deer, who was living under the name “Carl Johnson,” died of his wounds at a Centerville hospital on
June 3.
Click here to read “The Big Swede.”
location of Cincinnati, Iowa
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On
June 5, 1910, 63-year-old farmer James Hardy, his wife Mary Emery Hardy, 57, and their 29-year-old physically handicapped son Earl were brutally bludgeoned to death with a gas pipe at their farm near Van Cleve in Marshall County. Suspicion and motive — acquisition of the farm — pointed to another son, Ray Hardy, as the killer. But authorities and the community could never accept that Ray was capable of such slaughter and, although arrested, he was never tried.
Click here to read “Family Annihilation.”
Hardy Plot in Colfax, Iowa
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On
June 6, 1880, travelers through the Loess Hills near Pacific Junction in Mills County found a body rolled up in a quilt, tied with cord, and carelessly buried under two feet of loose dirt and leaves. The slashed, battered, and decomposing corpse was identified as 60-year-old Iowan Nancy Duncan. Her son Bill Duncan and his companion Alex Kilts were arrested for murder but swore the victim died of natural causes in Nebraska and that they were bringing the body back for burial in Glenwood, Iowa, when the stench overcame them and they buried her in a shallow grave only four miles from the cemetery.
Click here to read “Walking Corpse.”
location of Pacific Junction
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On
June 7, 1896, itinerant farmhand Willis Elmer Dudrey, 22, was stealing a ride on a railroad car so he could return with his wages to his family in Macon, Illinois. Dudrey was shot dead and robbed by tramps just as the train pulled into the Webster City depot in Hamilton County.
Click here to read “Riding the Blinds.”
location of Webster City, Iowa
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During the early morning of Monday,
June 10, 1912, Sara Moore, 39, and her 43-year-old husband Josiah B. “Joe” Moore as well as their four children — Herman, 11, Mary Katherine, 10, Arthur Boyd, 7, and Paul Vernon, 5 — and the children’s friends Lena and Ina Stillinger, ages 11 and 8, were slaughtered with an axe as they slept in the Moore home in the small Montgomery County town of Villisca in southwestern Iowa. This brutal crime, Iowa’s most famous, has generated a cottage industry of mystery tours and overnight stays in the house; town festivals; and books and films detailing theories and possible suspects.
Click here to read “Slay Utterly: Villisca Axe Murders 1912.”
Villisca Axe Murder House
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In the early hours of
June 11, 1970, 18-year-old Paula Jean Oberbroeckling left her Cedar Rapids apartment on an unknown errand and disappeared. Her decomposed and bound body was found on an incline near a local roadway on November 29, 1970.
Click here to read “Foul Play: Murder of Paula Oberbroeckling 1970.” For an in-depth study of the case, visit
whathappenedtopaula.com. Established by noted author Susan Taylor Chehak, the website documents and investigates the tragic case and is the definitive source for all information on the unsolved homicide.
Paula Oberbroeckling
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On
June 13, 1896, Jacob O. Neibert, a 53-year-old Muscatine Police Department Night Officer and Civil War veteran, was shot and killed by tramps at the Hershey Lumber Company as he patrolled near the Mississippi River. Despite the rounding up of multiple suspects, no one was ever charged with the murder.
Click here to read “Lumberyard Tramps: Murder of Officer Jacob Neibert 1896.”
location of Muscatine, Iowa
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On
June 13, 1933, 38-year-old Ames resident Frederick Milton “Fred” Hollingsworth was ambushed on the Lincoln Highway four miles east of town and killed with a double-barreled shotgun as he drove home from a VFW meeting in Nevada. In his pocket was a blood-soaked journal naming a suspect, a man who was arrested but never tried for the murder.
Click here to read “The Secret Diary.”
Fred Hollingsworth
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On June 16, 1869, 32-year-old John Smith Ross was shot in the back and thrown into the wheelhouse of his mill along the Boone River six miles south of Webster City in Hamilton County. A nephew was tried for the murder and found not guilty. Click here to read “Miller’s Toll.”
location of Webster City, Iowa
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On
June 21, 1941, 58-year-old railroad employee Henry Christensen was ambushed and shot as he exited his car at his Council Bluffs home. His ex-wife was acquitted of the crime and no one else was ever charged.
Click here to read “Inside the Garage.”
location of Council Bluffs, Iowa
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On
June 21, 1997, Traci Evenson, a 22-year-old student and deli worker, was beaten to death in her second-floor Cedar Rapids apartment. Evidence strongly pointed to a man — a family member — who was killed in a car accident before he could be charged.
Click here to read “The Dead Suspect.”
Traci Evenson
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On the night of
June 23, 1898, 29-year-old physician Dr. William Swisher was gunned down in the main thoroughfare of Woodburn, Iowa. Suspects ranged from jealous husbands of patients and spurned lovers of his fiancée to a shadowy and sinister person from his past life in West Virginia.
Click here to read “Shot Down in the Street.”
William Swisher’s tombstone
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On
June 23, 1925, a murdered infant was found where Perry Creek empties into the Missouri River in Sioux City. Police speculated that the infant — bound at the wrists and ankles and wrapped in pages from the Sioux City
Journal — was thrown off the Combination Bridge. It was one of several babies murdered in the city that year.
Click here to read “Slaughter of Innocents.”
location of Sioux City, Iowa
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On
June 25, 1905, 33-year-old Calhoun County farmer Josiah Pratt died after suffering for weeks from agonizing symptoms. His wife Jennie — who openly displayed her romantic attraction to the farm’s hired hand — was charged with administering arsenic to her husband but was released from custody after a hung jury could not decide her quilt.
Click here to read “The Interrupted Funeral Procession.”
Josiah Pratt
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On
June 26, 1929, George Hardy, 69, was beaten and stabbed to death in his wayside store five miles southwest of Parnell in Iowa County. Hardy, a miser and recluse, was believed by many to have vast amounts of money hidden in the walls of the establishment, a legend that may have attracted robbers.
Click here to read “At the Crossroads Store.”
George Hardy’s tombstone
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On
June 27, 1917, 23-year-old Cuthbert, South Dakota, teacher Thecla Merle Gerken was shot to death on a Sioux City street while returning from an ice cream parlor with a friend she was visiting.
Click here to read “‘True Disciple of Pollyanna.’”
Thecla Gerken
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On
June 28, 1902, Marshalltown resident Maude Lambert and her pet were found lying on a bed dead from poison.
Click here to read “A Woman and Her Dog.”
location of Marshalltown, Iowa
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On
June 30, 1975, the body of 20-year-old cosmetology student Connie J. Craft was found floating in the Albion Gravel Pit six-and-a-half miles northwest of Cresco. The night before, Connie attended the Howard County Fair and was last seen at 12:30 a.m. sitting on the steps of the Old Armory across the street from the police station. Rumors swirled around town that someone with money or position had gotten away with murder.
Click here to read “Cold Deep Waters.”
Connie Craft
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