This page provides a chronological list by current calendar month of historical unsolved Iowa murders.
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APRIL
On
April 1, 1897, 51-year-old Sarah Ann “Sally” Kirker of Guernsey in Poweshiek County died an agonizing death with terrible stomach pains after taking medicine administered by her husband John.
Click here to read the story of an abusive husband who escaped the justice system in a way that seemed to result from Karma in “A Spoonful of Medicine Makes the Poison Go Down.”
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Thomas Tolbert, a 28-year-old farmer was bludgeoned to death on
April 3, 1877 as he slept at his farm where he lived alone on the Southwestern Road two miles west of Eldon in Wapello County.
Click here to read “Dead in Bed.”
location of Eldon, Iowa
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On
April 4, 1847, 39-year-old Nathaniel Carnagy was bludgeoned to death with a weapon made from a wooden sled by James Reed, who was never convicted of the murder. This case was the first known murder in Linn County, Iowa.
Click here to read “’Old Feud Fueled by Drink.'”
Location of Marion, Iowa
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On
April 4, 1905, 16-year-old Meskwaki Tribe Member Ma-Sha-Che (“Nelly Davenport”) was bludgeoned to death with a piece of wood near Montour inTama County. Her body was not found for 10 days.
Click here to read how tribal fear of the White justice system complicated the search for her killer in “’Belle of the Tribe.'”
location of Montour, Iowa
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On
April 4, 1949, Claud Miller, 64, and his 61-year-old wife Anna were shot to death in the basement of their Camp Dodge home in Polk County. Was their son Frank guilty of their murders or was his theory of a dropped and malfunctioning shotgun a plausible explanation for the double homicide?
Click here to read about the Millers’ deaths in “The Defective Shotgun.”
photo by Neal Bowers
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On
April 6, 1968, the nearly-nude body of 25-year-old secretary and single mother Geraldine Maggert was found by hiking Boy Scouts at Coralville Lake in Johnson County. She disappeared from Cedar Rapids in Linn County on
March 22, 1968 after apparently preparing for a trip.
Click here to read Geraldine’s story in “Destination Unknown.”
Geraldine Maggert
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In a double homicide on
April 8, 1953, 14-year-old junior high student Beverly Brenneman was stabbed and strangled and Ruby Ciler, a 51-year-old homemaker, was bludgeoned and suffocated at the Ciler farm on the Lower Muscatine Road one mile southeast of Iowa City in Johnson County. The primary suspect killed himself three days later.
Click here to read “Brutal Killer.”
Beverly Brenneman
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On
April 10, 1935, the body of farmer and WWI veteran Sherman Casper, 36, was found floating in the Missouri River in Thurston County, Nebraska. He was murdered in Sioux City and thrown into the river there.
Click here to read his story in “In the Big Muddy.”
photo by Jayne Palmer
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On
March 12, 1918, 22-year-old Des Moines Police Officer George Mattern died of gunshot wounds he sustained on August 8, 1917, when he was shot while pursuing a suspect.
Click here to read the story of this peace officer killed in the line of duty in “At Closing Time.”
Des Moines Police photo
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On
April 12, 1965, Janice Marie Snow disappeared after shopping for Easter clothes with her girlfriends in downtown Des Moines. Her body, riddled with stab wounds, was found on
April 15, 1965 on the southwest side of the city.
Click here to read “’A Real Nice Girl.'”
Janice Marie Snow
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On
April 13, 1902, siblings Lena, 15, and Tommy Peterson, 13, were beaten to death while walking home from church in Highland Park north of Des Moines.
Click here to read the horrific and complicated story of the double homicide and the astounding accusation by the children’s mother, who believed they were killed by a family member in “After Church.”
Tommy and Lena Peterson
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On
April 15, 1882, Robert Stubbs — 36-year-old mill owner and Polk City Mayor — was shot to death in a home invasion.
Click here to read the tragic and violent story in “Death Comes to the Mayor.”
Robert Stubbs
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On
April 15, 1954, the body of house painter Charles “Charlie” Sanders was found under a Des Moines River bridge in Des Moines. He had been beaten and robbed. C
lick here to read his story in “Under the Court Avenue Bridge.”
Charlie Sanders
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On
April 17, 1917, an unknown man was found shot in the heart and head in a tool shed at the Sheldon Depot in O’Brien County. The homicide had the chief indicators of an organized crime hit. C
lick here to read the story in “In the Head and Heart.”
Location of Sheldon, Iowa
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On
April 17, 1967, the slashed body of waitress and Go-Go dancer Judith Corbin, 17, was found in a room in Des Moines’s Chamberlin Hotel.
Click here to read about the dramatic escape attempt by a suspect who was tried and found not guilty of her murder in “Death at the Chamberlain.”
Judy Corbin, aged 13
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Wesley “Wes” Wilson, a 36-year-old African-American coal miner was shot at the Samuel Moffin boarding house by fellow miner William Brooks following a dancehall quarrel over a woman in Colon near Oskaloosa in Mahaska County. Wilson died on the evening of
April 22, 1894, after surviving for nearly 24 hours. Brooks, who protested his innocence, was captured but escaped from jail and was never brought to trial, despite a reward offered by the Governor.
Click here to read “Furiously Angry.”
Colon was located near Oskaloosa in Mahaska County
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On
April 22, 1898, a passerby found the body of a newborn infant under the Sixth Avenue Bridge over the Des Moines River. It had been beaten to death.
Click here to read the story in “Below the Melan Arch Bridge.”
Melan Arch Bridge
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On
April 26, 1879, Deborah Simmons, 69-year-old owner of the New York Hotel in Waterloo, was beaten to death with a sad iron while her husband slept beside her unaware.
Click here to read how the evidence pointed to a member of the dysfunctional and raucous Simmons family in “’A Vaudeville of Troubles.'”
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On
April 27, 1898, Henry V. Duffy, a 32-year-old dry goods merchant and Captain in the Iowa National Guard, was shot in his Waukon store in what looked a case of revenge for his having “ruined” a young local woman who bore his child.
Click here to read “Two Guns, Two Policies, One Woman.”
location of Waukon, Iowa
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On
April 28, 1876, 51-year-old Winneshiek County farm wife Lovina Kneeskern died of poisoning while another woman her husband considered his “real wife” looked on.
Click here to read the tragic story of a woman who was mistreated and likely murdered in the cruelest way in “The ‘Menial Drudge.'”
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On
April 29, 1949, 74-year-old Fremont County farmer Alonzo Lyman Rhode died of poisoning. His was the second in a series of deaths and poison-induced illnesses to strike his family. Did the evidence point to a family member who was eager to wipe out everyone who stood between him and his inheritance?
Click here to read “The Poisoned Family: Rhode-Elefson Murders 1948-1949.”
Alonzo Rhode
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On
April 29, 1962, 25-year-old secretary and party girl Ramona Jean Cox was raped and brutally stabbed with a linoleum knife in her Woodland Avenue apartment in Des Moines.
Click here to read about the sensational slaying, which received nationwide tabloid attention in “’Cold-Blooded Sadistic Type.'”
Ramona Cox
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On
April 30, 1852, 29-year-old farmer Andrew M. Brown was shot and killed in South Fork Township Near Maquoketa in Jackson County during a dispute over land.
Click here to read about land ownership in the early days of Iowa and how intricacies of the laws governing it likely allowed the suspect in the Brown case to get away with murder in “Dying For Land.”
photo by Ken Wright
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On April 30, 1959, the animal-ravaged skeletal remains of 17-year-old store clerk and amateur actress Marlene “Mickey” Padfield were found between Marion and Lisbon in Linn County. She was last seen at Cedar Rapids’s Cozy Inn on February 19 talking to a wealthy and privileged young man who promised her an acting job.
Click here to read the story of a girl whose dreams were as big as her heart in “The Aspiring Actress.”
Marlene “Mickey” Padfield
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In late April of 1866, the body of an unknown man, who was in his mid-to-late 30s and had been axed to death, was found near Apple Grove in Beaver Township of Polk County. His Union Army Cavalry overcoat and other clothing indicated he was a former Civil War soldier; initials in the coat suggested he was Stephen D. Cooper, a stone mason by trade who was leading a wagon train of emigrants across the state of Iowa. Click here to read “Death Going West.”
Beaver Township is
in southeast Polk County.
