Dead In a Corn Field: Murder of David Conners 1895

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By Nancy Bowers
Written August 2017

In the early fall of 1895, David “Dave” Conners, a wealthy bachelor farmer who lived alone near Lenox in Adams County, suddenly went missing. He was last seen on September 10.

Becoming quite concerned for Conners’s welfare after a week passed, neighbors and friends formed a search party to explore the area surrounding his farm in hopes of locating him.

After two days of tramping and looking, searchers found Dave Conners’s dead body lying in one of his own corn fields.

Wounds over his right eye and in his shoulder appeared to have been caused by gunshots. No weapon was found, leading authorities to conclude Conners was murdered by an unknown party or parties.

The Hull Index noted that Dave Conner lived in “well-to-do circumstances”; however, he did not appear to have been robbed.

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Please note: Use of information from this article should credit Nancy Bowers as the author and Iowa Unsolved Murders: Historic Cases as the source.

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References

• ☛ Conners Found Dead in His Cornfield,” Hull Index, October 4, 1895, p. 7.
• ☛ Connors [sic] Found Dead in His Cornfield,” Cedar Falls Weekly Gazette, October 4, 1895, p. 3.
• ☛ “Dead in a Corn Field,” Cedar Rapids Weekly Gazette, September 26, 1895, p. 4.
• ☛ “Iowa News,” Washington Evening Journal, September 20, 1895, p. 1.
• ☛ “Iowa News Condensed,” Ames Intelligencer, September 26, 1895, p. 14.
• ☛ “Murdered In A Corn Field,” Marion Sentinel, September 26, 1895, p. 2.
• ☛ “News Of The State,” Burlington Hawk-Eye, September 20, 1895, p. 1.
• ☛ “Was Murdered in a Corn Field,” Iowa State Register (Des Moines), September 27, 1895, p. 5.