A depiction of Fred Hollingsworth that hung in the VFW Post

In spite of lurid details, a midnight exhumation, and a reward offered by Iowa Governor Clyde L. Herring, the June 13, 1933 murder of 38-year-old Fred Milton Hollingsworth has been forgotten in the community.

However, during the summer of 1933, the town thought of little else.

Hollingsworth was ambushed late at night on the Lincoln Highway while returning to Ames from Nevada, Iowa, after a VFW meeting. His car was forced off the road and he was shot in the face with a double-barreled shotgun.

Hazel Hollingsworth

In his pocket was a diary naming the person who was responsible if he died: his next door neighbor, 31-year-old Cecil Olson, who was rumored to be on “overly-friendly” terms with Hollingsworth’s wife, Hazel.

Hollingsworth was buried in grand style with a long parade of VFW friends marching to the Ames City Cemetery, but he was unceremoniously and secretly dug up a few nights later to determine the bore of the gun that killed him.

Cecil Olson was arrested, but a grand jury — after testimony that included the display of a pair of women’s “bloomers” — failed to indict him and the charges were dropped. No one else was sought for the murder.

The parties involved moved out of the community and the incident faded from memory. The house Fred Hollingsworth lived in is gone. The service station he owned was replaced by a convenience store. All that’s left to remind Ames of the murder is his tombstone in the Ames Cemetery.

Fred Hollingsworth's grave, Ames City Cemetery

If you have information on the unsolved murder of Fred Hollingsworth, contact the Story County Sheriff’s Office.