Valerie Klossowsky

For us, Valerie has stopped in time – still that shyly smiling junior high school student of the photos in 1971 newspapers. If she were alive, she would be 54 years-old.

As we mark the anniversary of Valerie’s murder, we are encouraged by the recent exhumation of Lisa Peak, who was found beaten and strangled in a ditch just north of Waverly on September 7, 1976. Bremer County Attorney Kasey Wadding hopes that something will be found that can be analyzed by modern scientific methods not available 34 years ago.

Some have long speculated that Valerie’s and Lisa’s deaths were related to each other and to that of Julie Ann Benning, 19, who went missing from Waverly on November 28, 1975 and whose remains were found in a ditch northeast of Shell Rock on March 18, 1976.

The three Bremer County murders have many similarities. Advancements in DNA may bring a break in the case of Lisa Peak which will help solve the other two.

Time marches on, but so does science; and those who murder are finding that time is not on their side.

Every year, Julie Benning and her four sisters helped their father clear rocks from the field before he planted.

She was bright, beautiful, spunky and ambitious, and always eager to get out and meet people and make things happen. She had a zany laugh and quick smile, designed and sewed her own dresses, loved live music and the weekly Top 100 Countdown.

She also was an avid reader — Nancy Drew mysteries were a favorite — was already writing her own stories and had an interest in investigative journalism. But the day after Thanksgiving in 1975, Julie Ann Benning suddenly vanished without a trace.

The recent Plainfield High School graduate’s whereabouts remained a mystery for nearly four months until a Butler County road maintenance worker discovered her body alongside a quiet country road. Thirty-four years after the spirited and independent teen first went missing, her case remains unsolved.

If you think you have any information that could help solve this case please click here to send your information to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Lisa Peak

While many families celebrate today’s Labor Day holiday, at least two Iowa families will mark the day with another kind of remembrance: the loss of a young, vibrant daughter, and the cold case anniversary of each of their untimely and senseless deaths.

Thirty-three years ago on Tuesday, September 7, 1976, the nude, beaten body of 20-year-old Marie “Lisa” Peak was found lying face down under a lone cottonwood tree in a ditch a quarter mile north of Waverly, Iowa’s, city limits. She had been sexually assaulted, and, according to autopsy findings, died of suffocation and a broken neck. None of her clothes were found at the scene.

Peak, a sophomore majoring in journalism at Wartburg College in Waverly, had just returned to the campus following a summer vacation break. She disappeared the following day — Labor Day — after telling friends she was going shopping.

Many couldn’t help but wonder if Peak’s murder might be connected to two other Waverly homicides.

The nude body of 19-year-old waitress and budding writer Julie Ann Benning of Clarksville had been found March 18 approximately six miles from where Peak’s body was discovered. Benning had been missing since late November 1975 and had been strangled. An autopsy report established her death was due to “homicidal violence, caused by injury to the throat area.”

Five years prior to Benning’s murder, the partially clad body of Valerie Lynn Klossowsky, 14, was found south of Waverly. She, too, had been strangled.

All three cases remain unsolved.

Labor Day also proved deadly for another young Iowa woman. On September 7, 1992, Rhonda Anette Knutson — a month shy of her 23rd birthday — was murdered in the early morning hours while working the 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. shift at the Phillips 66 convenience store in Chickasaw County. Knutson died from severe traumatic head injuries caused by beating from a blunt object.

The investigation into her death included hundreds of interviews by deputies and agents from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, along with the employment of a private investigator and several psychics.

Her case also remains unsolved.