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Boone County in Iowa
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Arnold Sansgaard
Homicide
Arnold Sansgaard
59 YOA
Story City, IA
Jurisdiction: Boone County
Case # 8403531
July 15, 1984
Case summary by Nancy Bowers
In mid-July 1984, his family members noticed that 59-year-old Arnold Sansgaard’s vehicle was not at his home on Rural Route 1 in Boone County a mile west of Story City. However, they were not concerned because they assumed he was on a trip.
 Courtesy photo, Ogden Reporter
Sketch released of suspect in Arnold Sansgaard homicide
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In the early morning hours of Monday, July 16, a patrol officer spotted an erratically driven car and pulled it over 15 miles north of Center City, Minnesota, in Chisago County. The driver identified himself as Arnold Sansgaard and provided a birth date of October 12, 1947. He offered a checkbook as proof of his identity.
The driver — in his mid-to-late 30s — stood 6-foot-2 and weighed 170 pounds. He was clean-shaven, had medium-length dark brown hair, and wore glasses. He spoke slowly with a southern accent and appeared to the officer to have a mental condition or to be under the influence of medication or drugs.
When the officer inquired about severe burn scars on the man’s right arm, forearm, and neck, he was told they were from a flamethrower incident in Vietnam. The driver said he had been a patient at Veterans Administration hospitals in Madison, Wisconsin, and other locations and that he was currently a VA outpatient being treated for a nervous condition.
A routine check of the car’s registration turned up nothing — because Sansgaard’s car was not known to be missing — and the driver was let go with a warning.
On Sunday July 22, 1984, the body of Arnold Sansgaard was found in the living room of his farm home. An autopsy showed he died from two shallow stab wounds to the right side of his chest, probably about July 14 or 15.
 Alternative sketch of suspect
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On Monday, July 23, Sansgaard’s car was found abandoned in the parking lot of a Catholic church in Effingham, in south-central Illinois; it was first spotted there the day before.
Sansgaard’s car was known to have traveled 241 miles from Boone County, Iowa, to a location north of Minneapolis (where there is a large VA Hospital) and from there nearly 600 miles southeast to an Illinois city where there is a VA outpatient clinic. It’s possible the driver was seeking treatment or medication at these VA locations or was familiar with them.
Arnold Sansgaard was an Army veteran of WWII and may have met his killer at a VA facility.
Despite the detailed description of the driver and his distinctive features, he has never been located and the murder of Arnold Sansgaard has gone cold.
Arnold Sansgaard was born in 1925 in Hamilton County, Iowa, to Della Hovde and Hans Sverdrup Sansgaard, first generation Norwegian-Americans. He had a brother, Robert, and a sister, Arlene Sansgaard Hall Holts. Sansgaard is buried in the Roland Cemetery.
If you have any information about the unsolved murder of Arnold Sansgaard, contact the Boone County Sheriff’s Office or the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation Cold Case Unit.
Sources and References:
Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation
“Issue a Sketch of Man Sought for Questioning,” Ogden Reporter, August 1, 1984.
“Search on for man seen driving dead Iowan’s car,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 26, 1984.
“Stabbing victim was murdered,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 24, 1984.
“Suspect description released,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 28, 1984.
Page last updated: July 18, 2010
