Researching unsolved homicides is a cheerless process by definition. As I pore over Iowa cases going back as far as 1893, what is even more saddening is the sameness amongst victims, killers, and motives.
Greed, jealousy, alcohol, love triangles, fratricide, anger, lust, and insanity wove through the dismal fabric of murder 120 years ago as they still do today.
And yet much has changed. Most obvious is how we get our information. As we receive minute-by-minute breaking news on our cell phones and laptops, it’s difficult to recall that large-city newspapers once printed several daily editions that readers eagerly waited for.
And other things are different as well.
Discreet exterior photos of murder scenes have replaced graphic interior pictures showing blood stains and chalk outlines of bodies and, even sometimes, shroud-draped victims.
Words like “berserk,” “bloody-thirsty,” “Negro,” and “gory” no longer shout from headlines to incense the public and, in some cases, incite lynching attempts.
Nor is the word “divorcee” used in accounts of crimes against women who had once been married, as though that fact were somehow relevant to the crime, even when it was known not to be.
Dorothy Coon was murdered in late August of 1960
“Clues Scarce in Slaying of D.M. Divorcee.”
That was the headline in the Cedar Rapids Gazette above the story reporting 36-year-old Des Moines resident Dorothy Coon’s 1960 murder. And every other newspaper covering the homicide mentioned she was divorced.
In the fifty years since Dorothy’s murder, divorce is no longer regarded as a social stigma or an index to character.
But in 1960, the media felt it was permissible to use a word which then was weighted with the suggestion of misconduct on the victim’s part, seeming to imply she deserved to be murdered or had brought it own herself.
The facts of her death are stark.
On Thursday evening, August 27, 1960, Dorothy Coon waited until her teenage children Nancy, 19, and Dennis, 17, were asleep.
The house at 2017 61st Street in Des Moines where Dorothy Coon was raising her children (photo courtesy of Google Street View)
She put on a dark green dress and white shoes and left the house she shared with them at 2017 61st Street.
Dorothy disappeared around midnight. Heavy rains during the next few days seemed to wash away all traces of her.
On Monday, August 29, a farmer mowing weeds found her body in a county road ditch 12 miles north of Chariton in Lucas County — 47 miles from her home. Her purse was discarded along the road a mile from her body.
An autopsy showed Dorothy was dead for several days, and throat bruises and broken neck bones suggested strangulation.
As with contemporary homicides, authorities had to rule out spousal involvement. Dorothy’s ex-husband Richard, whom she divorced in 1950 and who was living in Albia and running a business there, was interviewed and proved to have an alibi for the time of Dorothy’s death.
Dorothy held a job in the business office of a Des Moines department store and raised her two children on her own.
Instead of the headline she was afforded in 1960, today we might read: “Hard-working Single Mom Murdered.”
As times passes, news communication modes and language are modified.
Unfortunately, the gloomy facts of murder seem never to change.
Julie Bell Davis
As part of the ongoing “Cold Case Thursdays” series, WHO-TV Channel 13′s Aaron Brilbeck will report tonight on the unsolved August 1997 Julie Bell Davis slaying.
Davis, a 33-year-old Marion, Iowa, mother of two, was found August 28, 1997, in the Skyline Display’s satellite office in east downtown Des Moines where she worked. Her throat had been slashed and she had been stabbed multiple times in the chest.
Brilbeck’s story includes an interview with former Des Moines Police Department detective Craig Hamilton, one of the lead detectives who worked Davis’ case. Hamilton retired from the DMPD in 2007.
At the time of her death, Davis had just posted one of her best months ever in selling trade-show displays through her company’s Cedar Rapids and Des Moines offices. The office where she was slain was in a new business park between the state Department of Economic Development and the Botanical Center.
Police believe the last contact Davis had with anyone was an afternoon telephone conversation with an employee of Skyline Display’s Cedar Rapids office, 419 First St. SE. Davis routinely traveled to Des Moines once or twice a week to conduct business at the showroom, though the office was open only a couple days a week and by appointment only.
A Prairie High School graduate, Julie Bell Davis was married to Frank Davis, a Cedar Rapids firefighter. The couple had two sons, ages 3 and 5. Davis’ husband was ruled out as a suspect early in the investigation.
The case remains open today.
If you have any information regarding this case please call the Des Moines Police Department at 515-283-4800.
Dorothy Miller, the only female relator in Burlington, was killed at a vacant property August 18, 1969
As the only female realtor in Burlington in 1969, 48-year-old Dorothy Miller was a ground-breaking professional. However, the very thing that made her so singular probably allowed a predator to locate her, get her alone in a vacant house, and brutally rape and kill her.
Burlington Police believe they know who killed the attractive and petite grandmother: a well-spoken, ordinary young man of average height and weight with brown hair who called himself “Robert Clark.”
A composite sketch of Dorothy Miller's killer,
based on descriptions by her husband and other witnesses
But Clark concealed his true identity and residence through an elaborate ruse using public telephones and pick-up and drop-off locations for meetings with Dorothy.
Dorothy was not cavalier about her safety nor did she take risks. She ordinarily didn’t make appointments at night and, as a precaution, took along her husband Fred for a first evening meeting with Robert Clark.
Clark disarmed both Dorothy and Fred with his ordinary appearance, pleasant manner, and believable story about moving his wife and child from Des Moines to Burlington.
So, when he phoned Dorothy saying he needing to take photos of their potential home, she agreed to meet him alone a few nights later.
Dorothy Miller's body was found in the closet of the upstairs room on the right
About 8:00 p.m. on August 18, 1969, Robert Clark accompanied Dorothy to a house at 118 Grand Street, followed her inside, knocked her unconscious, raped and stabbed her, and left her body in a second-floor bedroom closet.
Dorothy’s murderer — according to both 1969 and current Burlington Police officers — is likely a serial killer skilled at creating a narrative of deception leading to murder.
In these days of cell phones, GPS, and video surveillance, the scenario leading to Dorothy Miller’s murder would be much more difficult for the killer to construct and execute.
Sadly, however, woman working alone must always be on guard and aware of their surroundings and the people they encounter.
If you have any information concerning the murder of Dorothy Miller, contact the Burlington Police Department at 319-753-8355 or submit it directly to the Iowa DCI Cold Case Unit.
Bipolar disorder is a frightening condition for its victims and the people who care about them. Medications help tremendously, but there is always the chance that patients will stop taking them.
Christopher Lee Stewart was last seen August 14, 2003 in Des Moines
That’s what happened to 36-year-old Christopher Lee Stewart before he disappeared; and without them, he is mentally and physically endangered.
Christopher was last seen outside his apartment in the 600 block of 18th Street in Des Moines at 10:30 p.m. August 17, 2003.
Stewart, whose friends called him “Chris” and “Christo,” is 5-foot-9 and weighs 189. He has brown eyes and hair (although his head was shaved when he disappeared), has pierced ears, and wears glasses. He was born November 13, 1966.
If you have any information that can bring Christopher Lee Stewart home, please contact the Des Moines Police Department at 515-283-4800 or 515-283-4864 or the Iowa DPS Missing Person Information Clearinghouse.
During the first full week of August for almost every year since 1938, throngs of motorcycle enthusiasts have descended on the Black Hills of South Dakota for the annual Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis. The Rally can swell the population of the city of 55,000 to as much as 750,000, a figure which nearly doubles the 812,000 population of the entire state.
Main street of Sturgis, South Dakota during annual Rally (photo courtesy of City of Sturgis)
Bikers from all over the country and world attend. Hundreds of vendors sell motorcycles and accessories, alcohol, food, and clothing. There are concerts, street dances, and motorcycle competitions, as well as social events like weddings, sometimes of as many as 200 couples a year.
And it’s not uncommon for people to die at the Rally — there were 11 deaths in 1990 during the 50th anniversary of the event — or to die traveling to or from Sturgis in traffic accidents.
But in 1975 — the year the event expanded to a full week — a biker was murdered on the way to the Rally.
On August 14, 1975, three members of the “Dirty 30” Hell’s Angels Cleveland Chapter — 32-year-old James M. “Beetle” Bailey, Jr., 27-year-old Paul Philemon, and 31-year-old Richard Vesey — were riding their motorcycles to Sturgis accompanied by two other club members in a van.
At the Highway 117 I-80 overpass near Colfax in Jasper County, Iowa, gun shots rang out, fatally striking Bailey in the neck and wounding Vesey in the arm.
Investigators believed the shot that struck Bailey was fired from below and the one striking Vesey from atop the overpass, where they found two shotgun shells.
The Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation could not determine if the attack was directed at Bailey and his friends or if it was a random act.
Bailey, a Navy veteran of Vietnam, was Treasurer of the Cleveland Hell’s Angels, an affiliation he cherished so much that his tombstone, bearing the Hell’s Angel’s emblem, is inscribed with this epitaph:
James M. (Beetle) Bailey
Hells Angels Cleveland, Ohio
Treasurer
Sept. 25 1942 – Aug. 14, 1975In Memory
BeetleThey say my life is through
For to Society I’m not true
But if I have to be phoney [sic] to
Live in this world that I do
I’d rather live the life of a
Hells Angel and to myself
Be true.
If you have information concerning the 1975 unsolved shooting death of James M. Bailey, Jr., contact the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office or the Iowa DCI Cold Case Unit.
One of the many sad things we see at Iowa Cold Cases is the death of a parent before the murder of their child has been solved. Because the parent’s horrible loss is compounded by not knowing, the situation is always heartbreaking.
Bernita DeWoody, mother of ICC victim Lance DeWoody
We saw it once again when Olin resident Bernita Lee Houston DeWoody passed away on July 17, 2009. Her obituary noted that she was preceded in death by “her beloved son Lance in 1985.”
North Liberty resident Lance Lee DeWoody was only 22 when he was shot in the head at a picnic shelter on the north side of the University of Iowa’s Oakdale campus in Coralville on August 13, 1985.
The large Oakdale campus had just become the headquarters of the Technology Innovation Center, the University’s home for new businesses using advanced life sciences technology.
Although Coralville Police believed they had a suspect, no arrests were made. Few details about the murder were released and no possible motive was advanced, leaving family and friends to wonder.
Although his mother Bernita did not live to see a resolution to her son’s murder, Lance’s father Carl Lee DeWoody and his sister Carrie DeWoody Fortin still need answers.
If you have any information concerning the 1985 death of Lance DeWoody, please contact the Coralville Police or the Iowa DPS Cold Case Unit.
As today comes to an end, the families of three more Iowa victims go to bed knowing yet another year has passed without answers or justice for their loved one’s lost life.
Dennis Clougherty, a 23-year-old Vietnam vet and soon-to-be graduate student, was shot five times while hitchhiking through Iowa.
Twenty-three-year-old Dennis Clougherty was a Vietnam vet preparing to start graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Eugene Martin, only 13, just wanted to make some extra money to attend the Iowa State Fair. And Helen Morrow, 55, surely could not have imagined her fate when she’d employed a younger man to work for her.
Around 4 p.m. on Monday afternoon, August 12, 1974, Dennis Clougherty left Madison, Wisconsin, with plans to hitchhike to Torrington, Wyoming, to retrieve his motorcycle. The bike had broken down in Torrington earlier that year and he’d had to leave it behind for repairs.
The 905-mile route between the two cities — a 15-hour trip on Interstate 80 — would be the fastest, but Clougherty chose the familiar Highway 20, perhaps in the hopes of catching a ride with someone he knew. From Torrington, Clougherty planned to ride the bike to Detroit, Michigan, where he’d attend a weekend family wedding.
This map shows the I-80 route from Madison, WI, to Torrington, WY. Clougherty was found in Cedar Falls north of Waterloo near the map’s purple star.
Clougherty never made it to the wedding, or to Torrington, or even past the first day of his trip; sometime between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and midnight, he was shot five times in the chest and left along Union Road south of First Street in Cedar Falls, Iowa. A passing motorist discovered his body the following morning. Some of his personal belongs, including a backpack, a clothes bag and Clougherty’s motorcycle helmet, were located approximately five miles south on Viking Road.
An investigation confirmed a motorist picked him up about 7 p.m. Monday while traveling westbound on Highway 20 near Dubuque, and gave him a ride to Independence, IA, dropping Clougherty off at a café there around 8:15 p.m. Clougherty ate at the then-Rush Park Café and left Independence around 9:15 p.m., hitchhiking westbound on Highway 20. Another motorist picked him up and drove him to Waterloo, dropping him off at the Highway 20 and Highway 63 intersection.
Here, two male subjects in their early 20s, driving a brownish/gold 1962-1964 Chevrolet car — possibly a four-door with beige interior — pick up Clougherty around 10:30 p.m. The young military vet and soon-to-be graduate student was never seen alive again.
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Eugene Martin disappeared while delivering newspapers for the Des Moines Register.
Ten years later to the day, young Eugene Martin got an early start at 5 a.m. to deliver the Des Moines Register newspaper on his regular paper route. His older brother normally accompanied him, but on this day Eugene went alone; the Iowa State Fair was in town, and he was anxious to earn some extra money to spend at the fair.
Sometime between 5 and 5:45 a.m., residents living near Southwest 12th Street and Highview Drive observed Gene speaking to a clean-cut white male in his 30s. The teen folded papers as he spoke to the man, and the witnesses said the conversation appeared friendly — almost like a “father-son” sort of conversation.
Less than an hour later, sometime between 6:10 and 6:15, the boy’s newspaper bag was found on the ground outside Des Moines — 10 folded papers still inside.
Authorities issued a nationwide bulletin for a man described as between 30 and 40 years old, 5 feet, 9 inches tall, clean shaven and with a medium build. Federal agents wondered if Eugene’s disappearance might be connected to that of missing Register paperboy Johnny Gosch, 12, who’d gone missing two years earlier on September 5, 1982.
Eugene Martin’s aunt, Jeannie McDowell, told WHO-TV’s Aaron Brilbeck in a July 2010 Iowa Cold Cases segment she believes her dying brother, Don Martin, needs some type of closure in his son’s disappearance before he can let himself go. The elder Martin once read and clipped from daily papers every article or reference he could find about Eugene. Courtesy photo WHO-TV
Many Iowans believed both boys had been kidnapped and sold into a pedophile sex ring, though nothing has been proven in either case.
Eugene Martin’s aunt, Jeannie McDowell, spoke with WHO-TV Channel 13′s Aaron Brilbeck in July for an update on his case, and said she fears her brother — Eugene’s father Don Martin, who is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s Disease and cancer — is hanging on until he gets some kind of closure in his son’s death. Gene’s mother, Janice, died recently from diabetes without ever knowing what happened to her child.
The Martin family — like Johnny Gosch’s mother Noreen — continue to wait with hope for the one strong lead that might break open and provide long-awaited answers and justice.
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In Eldon, Iowa, witnesses saw Herman Pierce, 48, leave the home of Mrs. Helen Morrow, 55 — for whom Pierce worked — the evening of August 12, 1980. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until flames began to shoot from the two-story frame home moments after Pierce left.
Authorities found Mrs. Morrow lying on a bed in a first-floor bedroom, and an autopsy report concluded she died of smoke inhalation.
Police held Pierce in jail on an intoxication charge, and on August 26 county prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder in Morrow’s death. Despite the filed charges, the prosecutors decided to take the case to the grand jury. It was a move they later would regret.
On Friday, October 3, 1980, a four-man, three-woman Wapello County Grand Jury failed to return an indictment against Pierce. Helen Morrow’s case remains unsolved.
If you have any information regarding Helen Morrow’s murder, please contact the Wapello County Sheriff at (641) 684-4350.
Tips on the Eugene Martin case may be submitted to the Iowa Cold Case Unit online or you may call the Iowa DCI at (515) 725-6010.
Information involving Dennis Clougherty’s murder may also be submitted online to the DCI’s Cold Case Unit, or you may contact the Cedar Falls Police Department at (319) 273-8612.
In mid-August of 1978, 59-year-old Glenn W. Turner was passing through Iowa, transporting a new van and towing another to Pella. He was nearly 600 hundred miles from his home in Arcanum, Ohio.
What should have been a pleasant drive across the state during one of the most distinctive times of the prairie calendar — fields tall with corn, wildflowers blooming in the ditches — ended in brutal death.
On August 8 someone beat him, stole his wallet, and left his body in the back of the van in the parking lot of the Latin King Restaurant at 2222 Hubble Avenue in Des Moines.
The Latin King parking lot where Glenn Turner's body was found August 11, 1978
When Glenn’s body was discovered on August 11, he became Des Moines’s 21st homicide of the year, although it was hardly the sort of distinction we would’ve have wished for him or any other visitor to Iowa.
His family took Glenn back to Ohio. Left behind, however, was the mystery of who viciously killed and robbed him in our state.
If you have any information on the 1978 homicide of Glenn Turner, contact the Des Moines Police Department at 515-283-4864.
(photo courtesy of Google Street View)
Dale Strassburger disappeared from the Quad Cities area August 6, 1982
In 1982, 37-year-old Dale Webster Strassburger lived with his parents in Davenport, Iowa. Like thousands of other Quad City residents, he worked at the Rock Island Arsenal.
Dale was a machinist at the plant, which since the 1880s has manufactured ordnance and equipment for the United States Army on a large island in the Illinois segment of the Mississippi River.
After he left work at 12:15 a.m. on Friday, August 6, 1982, Dale was never seen again.
The LeClaire Bridge over the Mississippi,
where Dale Strassburger's car was found
That same day, authorities found Dale’s car on the LeClaire Bridge over the Mississippi River on Interstate 80.
Located a little over 17 miles northeast of the Arsenal, the bridge is in the opposite direction of Dale’s home.
He was reported missing by the Police Department of Le Claire, Iowa, the jurisdiction where his car was located.
There was no sign of foul play in the disappearance, and searches of the Mississippi River and the nearby area yielded no sign of Dale.
At the time he disappeared, Dale — who was born October 10, 1944 — stood 5-feet-9 and weighed 180. He has blond hair and hazel eyes.
He is classified as a missing person with a disability that is physical or mental.
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact the LeClaire Police Department at 563-289-5580.
(LeClaire Bridge photo courtesy of the Quad City Times)
Zion Lutheran Church, where Lewis Glenn was murdered August 5, 2002
At twenty minutes to midnight on Monday, August 5, 2002, 29-year-old Lewis M. Glenn was shot dead in the parking lot of Zion Lutheran Church at West 8th and Taylor streets in Davenport, Iowa. Police believe a dark blue vehicle with a tinted back window was involved.
The Glenn murder was just one of many acts of violence that plagued the west Davenport neighborhood. Much of the trouble originated at the notorious Chief Tavern at the corner of West 8th and Fillmore streets near the church.
The Chief had served patrons for 75 years. In its early days, it was a friendly and safe neighborhood “watering hole” with baroque light fixtures from the old Davenport Columbia Vaudeville House and a huge wooden arched bar.
But as time passed, violence increased inside the tavern and spilled out into the surrounding neighborhood. An unsavory and unruly crowd gathered there and some believed the tavern was connected to the local drug trade.
Not long before The Chief closed permanently in September of 2002, a man fired three shots inside the tavern – none struck a patron but one dented the brass beer tapper — and then robbed the cash register of $500. In the previous eight months, police were called there 74 times.
After the closure, the Zion Lutheran Church rented the property and transformed it into Noah’s Ark Community Coffeehouse. Church members patched 8 bullet holes in the walls, tore up the beer-soaked floor, and painted and repainted the nicotine-stained walls. Bright flowers were planted in front where cigarette butts and broken glass once littered the sidewalk.
Bagels, hot chocolate, and coffee were served from the old bar, which was renamed “the counter.” There were flowers at tables where rowdy patrons once sat and a donated organ and piano replaced a dice table.
Drinking, drug activity, and gambling gave way to by knitting classes, video and television watching, bingo, and quiet conversations with religious overtones.
In August 2008, the former tavern became home to the True Faith Deliverance Ministries Churches, lead by Pastor Elizabeth Sanders, while the group was waiting for a permanent location.
Ironically, Lewis Glenn’s tragic murder may have changed the violent behavior in the neighborhood and helped create positive changes that made it safer for families and businesses.
A year after Lewis Glenn’s murder, the Zion Lutheran Church held a memorial cookout in his honor.
If you have any information about the 2002 murder of Lewis Glenn, contact the Davenport Police Department at 563-326-7979. If you wish to remain anonymous, call the Quad Cities Crime Stoppers at 563 -762-9500. There is a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.
Source: “Notorious saloon turned into church coffeehouse,” Carroll Daily Times Herald, August 12, 2003.
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