Murder Victim
Unknown Infants
Cause of Deaths: Various
Motives: Infanticide
Murder Scenes and Dates
City Garbage Dump
Early 1925
Rail Yard
March 16, 1925
Missouri River At Perry Creek
June 23, 1925
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By Nancy Bowers
Written October 2014
location of Sioux City, Iowa
The year 1925 was a violent and bloody one for Sioux City. Unsolved robberies and murders filled the pages of the police blotter.
Not only did six adult homicides go unsolved, there were also multiple unresolved murders of babies.
On March 16, an infant was found in a boxcar at the Sioux City Rail Yard. It had been cut and slashed on the neck and both wrists.
On June 23, another baby was found where Perry Creek empties into the Missouri River. 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.
And there were others. The Le Mars Globe Post reported:
“Two or three infants have been found on the city dump, presumably hauled there by the garbage collectors. Police have not found any clews [sic] or identified the babes.”
The unsolved homicides of these infants mirrored those of adults in the city for which there were no answers. The public believed police inefficiency was rampant — from corruption, under-staffing, and lack of training.
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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
- ☛ “Many Crimes Unsolved In Sioux City,” Sioux City Journal, August 23, 1925.
- ☛ “Sioux City Police Scored As Rankly Inefficient,” Le Mars Globe Post, August 27, 1925, pp. 1, 11.