This website is constantly expanding. New stories of historic Iowa unsolved homicides are frequently added. Click on titles below to read the most recent articles.
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The Apron in the Shack: Murder of Erma (Irma) Caldwell 1924
A Dream of Murder: Mysterious Disappearance of Mr. Thomas 1857
The Broken Clevis: Murder of Samuel Cronk 1867
The Insane Tramp: Murder of Will Sargent 1897
The Irish Carpenter: Murder of William Martin 1885
“Foully Treated”: Murder of Thomas McGary 1892
Dead In a Cornfield: Murder of David Conners 1895
“Furiously Angry”: Murder of Wesley Wilson 1894
The Well Digger: Murder of Peter Hendrickson 1895
“Lilies of Soul-Less Sin”: Murders of Max Noack and Ora Minter 1895
The Frozen Body: Murder of James Edgar “Ed” Knotts 1895
“Sensational and Cold-Blooded Affair”: Murder of Arthur Mead 1903
Bullied and Bantered: Unresolved Murder of Jesse Wilkerson 1869
Lynch Law: Murder of Reuben Proctor 1877
The Brave Girl: Murder of Augusta Kading 1877
Highwaymen: Murders of Andrew and Nancy Casteel 1856
The Poisoned Family: Rhode-Elefson Murders 1948-1949 (new content added)
Death by Politics: Unresolved Murder of Silas McCart 1860
The Burning Shack: Murder of Martin Cummins 1925
65 Cents: Murder of “Smitty” Smith 1924
Too Long at the Fair: Murder of Robert McQuestian 1873
Mistaken Identity: Murder of Peter Ross 1909
Mangled Bodies: Murders of Jack Wilson and Con Matthews 1899
The Dead Bulgarian: Murder of Welio Tsnoff 1910
“A Miserly Life”: Suspicious Death of Gideon Hall 1884
The Wrong Man: Murder of Joseph Hair 1888
Undercover: Murder of Louis H. Dayton 1929
“Violent Excitement”: Murder of Robert Lee Clingan 1883
Gun Battle in the Night: Murder of Virgil Untied 1931
“Love and Absence of Love”: Suspicious Death Of William F. Lewis 1903
“Brutal Killer”: Murders of Beverly Brenneman and Ruby Ciler 1953
The Gun in the Privy: Murder of Louisa Fritzsche 1893
The Poison Strawberry: Murder of Lelia Long 1896
Delirium Tremens: Suspicious Death of Sam Anderson 1901
Gas Light: Suspicious Deaths of Clara & Alfred Mellor, Jr. 1920
Mayhem: Murder of W.A. Davies 1925
Slaughter of Innocents: Sioux City Babies 1925
Dead In Bed: Murder of Thomas Tolbert 1877
“Shot Into Eternity”: Murder of John Legall 1897
Driftwood: Murder of an Unknown Child 1859
What the Medium Saw: Murder of John Pierson 1904
Under the Willows: Murder of John Doe 1904
Pointblank: Unavenged Murder of James Alfrey 1866
The Big Swede: Murder of Carl Axel Deer 1925
Blood in the Barn: Suspicious Death of John L. Rogers 1915
The Cooler: Suspicious Death of David T. Todd 1887
Drinking Bout: Suspicious Death of John F. Brennan 1898
“That Old —“: Murder of John Rohrer 1893
Boxcar Hanging: Murder of Leopold Glatzer 1895
The Battered Corpse: Murder of John Doe 1858
The Fatal Glass of Beer: Murder of George Diggle 1888
Struck Down: Murder of Frank Sandquist 1904
Miller’s Toll: Murder of John Smith Ross 1869
Strictly Strychnine: Murder of John P. Stickles 1876
The White-Spotted Woman: Suspicious Death of Kate Slifer 1903
Corpse in the Pump House: Murder of Mary Gilfillan 1896
“Bones In A Haystack”: Murder of Justus Herwig 1903
Horse Medicine: Murder of James Banda 1904
The Scarred Man: Murder of Arnold Sansgaard 1984
The Money Lender: Murder of Gustav Rechfus 1881
A Spoonful of Medicine Makes the Poison Go Down: Murder of Sarah Kirker 1897
Apparition: Murder of Edward Hughes 1898
Poison Kiss: Murder of Edwin Hodges 1869
Two Coffins: Death of Mary and Murder of Eli T. Coffin 1873
Assassination: Murders of Lizzie and Andrew Brownlie 1874
Unwitnessed: Murder of Washington Irving Crow 1875
Stealing Away: Murder of John Ford 1880
Death in the Rail Yard: Murder of Bill Dayton 1894
The Tramp at Breakfast: Murder of Andrew Hart 1896
Acting Oddly: Murder of Daniel Kelleher 1904
The Beckoning Hand: Murder of Alma Harrison 1905
Coldblooded Desperado: Murder of Officer George W. Wilson 1907
Dark Byway: Murder of Marshal Joseph Kashmetter (Kashmitter) 1911
Who Killed the Corn Canning Czar? Murder of Henry Chavis 1948 (update added)
Brothel Double Homicide: Murders of Willard Woodring and Richard Buchanan 1960 (update added)
The Neighbors: Murder of Hulda Emma Fischer 1975 — Written by David Jindrich
The Dead Suspect: Murder of Traci Ann Evenson 1997