Donna Sue Davis
Donna Sue Davis hadn’t yet reached her second birthday. The 22-month-old 21-pound blue-eyed girl with the mass of dark blond curly hair was the youngest of James (“Don”) and Mary Davis’s three children, and her three prized possessions included her teddy bear, a rubber doll and a red purse.
Eleven-year-old Mary Claire, the eldest of the siblings, had friends who resided in the same west side neighborhood in Sioux City, IA, and they often could be seen pushing strollers and buggies around the block with Donna Sue and the other girls’ young siblings in tow. Timothy, 7, also had ample playmates within safe walking distance from the family’s 715 Isabella Street home.
Everyone knew and loved Donna Sue, though seldom used her name. To them, she was simply “The Darling of the Neighborhood.”
In July 1955, life is still good along West 14th and 15th street and the intersecting Rebecca and Isabella streets, and half the summer still remains for riding bicycles and playing Army and swimming and girlfriend sleepovers, and even entertaining baby sisters and brothers while mothers work the outside gardens and hang fresh sheets to flap and dry in the wind.
But summer in this working class neighborhood — and life as all its residents know it — is about to change forever. The shift begins to emerge the night of July 9, when sirens awaken a city that will not know peaceful slumber for many years to come.
Rain has fallen since 9 p.m., and near 12 a.m. flood sirens puncture the midnight hours. While rain falls in torrents, a fire breaks out at a lumber company but fire trucks can’t navigate the water laden streets. Utility employees work throughout the night to restore electricity to Sioux City residents.
Dawn is about to break.
Sunday, July 10, 1955
Rain ends by early morning, and as water starts to recede city crews move forward with clean-up efforts.
The day’s temperatures soar into the 90s, bringing with them humidity’s heavy blanket. Though room air conditioners have grown in popularity since World War II’s end, costs are still prohibitive for many western Iowa families, whose usual reprieve amounts to nothing more than a cool bath and, hopefully, a nightly breeze through an open window. The Davis family has learned to weather the heat.
Sunday night, Mary Davis gives Donna Sue a bath, dresses her in pink pajamas, and at approximately 9:30 p.m., tucks her into her crib for bed in the first-floor bedroom of the two-story duplex where the family has resided for many years. Donna Sue’s crib sits against the wall at the foot of the Davis’ bed, right next to a cedar chest positioned directly below the bedroom window.
“Three to get ready, and four to go . . . to bed,” Mary tells Donna Sue as she kisses her goodnight. The child is all set with her teddy bear, rubber doll and red purse within arm’s reach. With temperatures still in the 80s, the bedroom window is left open to capture any breeze.
In the kitchen, Mary sits down to read the day’s Sioux City Journal as her husband — a clerk for the Chicago and Northwestern Railway — watches television in the living room. In the next room, Mary Claire and Timothy are already fast asleep.
In the upstairs duplex, Mr. M.A. McLeod goes outside to sit on his upper porch balcony while his wife putters around in the couple’s bedroom.
On the corner just south of the Isabella Street duplex, George Berger sits in his back yard at 1301 Villa Avenue. His back yard faces the Davis home’s south side, and he often enjoys watching the Davis children and their neighborhood friends play together in the large lot between the two homes.
9:35 p.m.
Something catches Mr. Berger’s eye. A man has just crossed through a hedge near the front of the Davis house and, walking quite erectly, is heading west along the south side of the Davis’s home. Berger strains to see what the man is doing, but can’t see very well in the darkness and his vision also is obstructed by his own vehicle, which he parked in the driveway earlier that day.
A few minutes later he sees the man retrace his steps toward the street and head in a northerly direction. The man, however, now walks in a crouched, stooped position.
Mr. and Mrs. Laif Fjeldos, who live around the corner two houses away at 1310 West 14th Street, hear their dog Rex barking at the back door. Their back lot borders the Davis’s back lot, separated by mulberry and hackberry trees.
Mrs. Fjeldos gets up to let Rex inside and switches on her back yard light. Skulking along the alleyway, she sees a man who appears to be carrying some type of bundle. She immediately calls for her husband.
Mr. Fjeldos grabs a flashlight and shines it toward the man, who is now stooped over and hiding behind a bush. Mr. Fjeldos isn’t about to let this one get away, either; just two weeks before, Rex’s ferocious barking had alerted him to a young man tampering with the Fjeldos’s car, and Rex had held the man at bay while Fjeldos called police. Before police took the man into custody, Fjeldos had voiced a strong complaint about the “poor lighting” in the neighborhood.
This time, however, Fjeldos suspects the stranger might be carrying meat to poison Rex or other neighborhood dogs. He hands his wife the flashlight with instructions to keep it shining on the stranger while once again he calls police.
9:37 p.m.
Sioux City police answer a call from a Mr. Laif Fjeldos, who tells them he has “a suspicious man cornered” and needs assistance. Before police can arrive, the man flees north through the alley and Fjeldos gives chase. Fjeldos chases the man across W. 14th Street and into the next alley, which leads north toward W. 15th. The man — described as about 31 years old with a slight build and wearing a white T-shirt and khaki trousers — runs awkwardly, still stooped over with the bundle. He appears to have something wrapped inside a blanket.
The man suddenly ducks between two bushes in the back yard of the home located at 1417 Isabella Street. It is but one block from the Davis home, despite the jump from the 700-block to 1400-block addresses. Fjeldos approaches slowly, but by the time he reaches the bushes realizes the man has simply vanished.
Approximately 9:40 p.m.
Mr. Davis gets up to go to bed and check on Donna Sue. He doesn’t see her in her crib and thinks she’s hiding beneath the covers, but she isn’t there.
“Where’s Donna?” he hollers to his wife, and then sees that the bedroom screen has been removed. He immediately telephones police, unaware they’re already on their way to the neighborhood in response to Mr. Fjeldos’s call about the prowler.
Laif Fjeldos stands outside his home waiting for police to arrive and telling the gathering crowd of neighbors what he’s seen and how he chased the man up the alley toward 15th Street before losing him.
Suddenly, they hear Mary Davis screaming from inside her home. “My baby is gone! My baby is gone!” she wails, and then they hear sounds of crying as she pleads “Help … help … help.”
Running out the Leads
As more and more area residents gather outside to discover what the commotion is all about, Sioux City Police officers arrive on scene.
Mr. Berger tells police about the stranger he saw moving stealthily along the Davis home’s south side just a little while earlier.
Mr. and Mrs. McLeod from the upstairs Isabella street duplex state they didn’t see or hear anything unusual.
Several neighbors report having seen the man, but say it was difficult to determine his height because he was bent over carrying something.
More than 25 neighbors go out searching in the vacant fields and houses in the vicinity. Mr. Davis, extremely distraught over his daughter’s disappearance, jumps into his car and begins to search the area on his own, but the surrounding roads are still muddy from the rains and he drives his car into a ditch and gets stuck. Friends come to his rescue to help him pull it out.
Relatives begin gathering at the Davis home to provide comfort and support. The Davises tell police there’s been no family trouble and they know of no one with a motive for wanting to kidnap Donna Sue.
10:05 p.m.
Sioux City resident Sid Goldberg drives through the nearby town of Elk Point, South Dakota, and near a motel sees a man in a white T-shirt and khaki trousers standing on the road beside a black Chevrolet 2-door sedan with Nebraska license plates. The man in the T-shirt and khakis holds a baby in his arms, but Goldberg — unaware of what has transpired back in Sioux City — thinks nothing of it.
10:30 p.m.
Mrs. Everett Hauswirth, who lives on the “Old Back Road” in South Sioux City, Nebraska, is startled by the sound of a vehicle either stopping outside on the gravel road or pulling into her driveway. A moment later she hears the car quickly accelerate and speed away.
Approximately 11 p.m.
Sid Golberg is back on the road and listening to his radio. He hears the report about Donna Sue’s abduction and immediately stops to telephone Sioux City police. The Sioux City police notify Elk Point, S.D. police, who quickly converge at the same hotel Goldberg passed almost 90 minutes earlier. The Chevrolet sedan is gone, but Goldberg says he remembers the license plate number.
Sioux City police radio a detailed description of the man and child to law enforcement networks in Iowa, S.D. and Neb., and to taxicab companies whose cabs are equipped with two-way radios.
Police take Donna Sue’s bedroom screen and several other items to police headquarters to check for possible fingerprints.
Police follow up on the license plate number in hopes of discovering the owner and getting a lead, but nothing pans out. The Nebraska Motor Vehicle Bureau won’t be open until the following morning.
Sioux City Police Chief James O’Keefe is roused from bed to take charge of the search for Donna Sue and her kidnapper.
Capt. John Rispalje and detectives John Banys and Paul Brown are held over for extra duty in the investigation, as are several patrolmen.
Throughout the night, Sioux City police swarm over the city’s west side in search of any type of clue.
Monday, July 11, 1955
Early Monday morning at the Davis home, Capt. Rispalje explains that the FBI cannot be called in on the case until proof exists the abductor took Donna Sue across a state line or contacted the Davises asking for money or other consideration in exchange for Donna Sue’s return.
More detectives descend upon the neighborhood, talking with residents about the previous day’s and evening’s activities. They perform a house to house check.
Three FBI officers from the Omaha Field Office arrive at the Davis home, stating they are there to familiarize themselves with the neighborhood. They unofficially associate themselves with the case in what they call a “consultatory capacity.”
A farmer reports to the Woodbury County Sheriff’s office that he heard a baby crying in a parked car on a road about three and one-half miles east of Highway 75, halfway between the nearby towns of Sergeant Bluff and Salix, Iowa. He says the car had Nebraska plates, and deputies go to investigate.
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Just across the river in South Sioux City, Neb., Mrs. Ernest Oehlerking, 33, is in a festive mood. Today, one of her six daughters turns 11 years old, and she is getting ready to bake a cake while the girls are in town at a Girl Scouts camp. The birthday gifts are already wrapped.
—
As afternoon approaches, Chief O’Keefe appeals to all householders to check carefully for the possible presence of baby garments or a child’s clothing that might be a clue to the kidnapping.
Police officers report to an anxious public that a man with a bundle had been seen north of an alley near 14th and Nebraska streets. They say the man entered a garage in the vicinity, stayed a few minutes and then left the building.
They speculate the child may have been wrapped in a blanket the abductor carried with him elsewhere in the city, but state nothing had been taken from Donna Sue’s bedroom. Her teddy bear, rubber doll and red purse had all been found in her crib after she vanished.
The search party grows to include Air National Guardsmen, extra police and dozens more volunteers. The search extends from West Seventh Street to West 18th Street and along Perry Creek, and from West Eighth and Bluff Street West to Ross Street.
They find nothing.
3:45 p.m.
Across the river in Nebraska, Ernest Oehlerking drives his tractor toward South Sioux City where he intends to buy oats. His nephew, 14-year-old Ronnie Oehlerking of Denver, rides behind the tractor in a wagon along with Ernie Reed and Harlan Haas — two locals who help out on the Oehlerking farm.
One-eighth of a mile north of his farmhouse and midway to Mrs. Everett Hauswirth’s home, Ernest Oehlerking notices something in a ditch. He goes to investigate and discovers the bottom half of a baby’s pink pajamas as well as a pair of rubber pants — the kind normally worn over a baby’s diaper.
—
Read Part II Thursday.
“Bless . . . the children, for in this world they have no voice, they have no choice.”
If murder is the most unacceptable act in our society, then surely the murder of a child — who is totally defenseless — is the most horrific of all.
Amber Marie Hayes
Amber is only one of Iowa’s murdered children.
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On Tuesday, August 31, 1954, eight-year-old Jimmy Bremmers, a boy with a speech impediment and whose only friend was his black and white dog, was abducted in Sioux City, Iowa, and murdered.
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Donna Sue Davis
Patricia Veach
Valerie Peterson
Kenny Joe Johnson
Ricky Morehouse, III
Jaymie Grahlman
Josh Yoder
Evelyn Miller
And — most importantly — parents can protect their children from unsafe situations and individuals by making wise relationship choices and refraining from substance abuse.
Unfortunately, a child is often abused or murdered by someone they know –- the very people who should be their voice and make the right choice for them.
If you know of an endangered child, contact the Iowa Department of Human Services.
If you have information on any of the child murders on this site, please contact Iowa Cold Cases or the appropriate law enforcement jurisdiction. Continue reading »
It was something that millions of people do every day. Forty-five-year-old Sioux City, Iowa, resident Patricia Anne Jauron placed a newspaper ad to sell something she no longer needed—in this case, a water bed.
On the morning of May 26, 1998, Patricia was savagely stabbed to death at 1516 Old Highway 141 by a man who responded to that ad.
Gene Jauron, Patricia’s husband of 25 years, believes the man came to the couple’s yard sale the day before and showed interest in the water bed. He told Gene he worked at an area packing plant and Gene believes he drove a red car. Phone records show the man called the Jauron’s home to set up the fatal encounter from a pay phone near a local convenience store.
Had the killer stalked for a victim by attending yard sales and combing want ads? Was Patricia targeted specifically or was she a target of opportunity? Was the killer’s motive robbery, rape, or some sort of sadistic pathology that drove him to kill so openly in the middle of the day?
The Jauron family needs help in finding and bringing to justice the man who took the life of Patricia.
If you have any information on this case, please contact the Woodbury County Sheriff at 712-279-6010 or click here to leave information for the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation Cold Case Unit.
It seems the stuff of urban legend. Someone leaves their house with only the clothes they are wearing, walks away or gets into a car and drives away—never to be seen again.
But it does happen, as it did with Norma M. Maynard, a 61-year-old Boone, Iowa, woman who disappeared on February 3, 1979. And it occurred in the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 18, 2005, when 83-year-old Helen Jean Kelly drove away from her home at 3646 Court Street in Sioux City, Iowa, without her purse, and disappeared.
Helen Kelly
Descriptions of Helen—a Caucasian female with grey hair and brown eyes who was 5-feet-5 and weighed 115 pounds—and her car—a gold 2000 Honda Accord with Iowa license plate 953EDK—were released to the media.
Tips of sightings came in but did not lead to Helen’s recovery. In July of 2005, a boat ramp on the Sioux City side of the Missouri River was checked by the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, but there were no signs of Helen or her Honda.
Helen was born August 26, 1921 in Sioux City, Iowa, the last child of 10 in the Josephine “Jessie” Marie Hensler and Anton “Anthony” Braunger family. He father was a German butcher who came to the United States and built a large and lucrative meat market in Sioux City.
In 1947, she married Arthur Lennon Kelly, the former publisher of the Sioux City Tribune and later the General Manager of KTRI radio station. They had two children—Anne Kelly Krause and Anthony “Tone” Kelly—and four grandchildren.
If you have any information about this case, please contact the Sioux City Police Department at 712-279-6440 or Crimestoppers at 279-258-8477 (258-TIPS).
Below are side, front, and rear views of a gold 2000 Honda like the one Helen Kelly was driving.
Eleven Years Ago Today …
Patricia Anne Jauron, 45, was stabbed to death at her former residence at 1516 Old Highway 141 just outside of Sioux City, Iowa.
Patricia and her husband, Gene, had moved out of the house about six months earlier and into a house across the road at 1541 Old Highway 141. The day of her murder, Patricia allegedly went to the former residence at 9 a.m. to show a waterbed to a person responding to an ad placed on the radio show Swap Shop.
When Patricia did not return, her husband went looking for her, and after finding blood in the house called 911.
Patricia was found in the front yard on a downhill slope, though the weapon was never found.
The Woodbury County Sheriff’s Office asks anyone with information to call the office at 712-279-6010 or (800) 352-6352, or Crime Stoppers at 712-258-8477 or (800) 728-6401.
Helen J. Kelly, 83, was reported missing to the Sioux City Police Department four years ago today on May 18, 2005.
When Mrs. Kelly’s husband awoke that morning, he discovered she was missing and reported her as a missing person that afternoon.
Mrs. Kelly left behind her purse and had not mentioned plans to travel anywhere. Her gold 2000 Honda Accord with Iowa license plate number 953EDK also was missing.
Few details are available in Mrs. Kelly’s case, but she has not been heard from nor seen since reported missing.
If you have any information about this case, please contact the Sioux City Police Department at 712-279-6390.
In the last week or so, I’ve been able to get six more victim pages added to the Iowa Cold Cases website. Four are unsolved homicides and two are missing persons cases. More details are still needed for some — particularly the missing persons cases — and we hope to have that information soon.
Brief overviews of each case follow, with links to the individual victim pages.
Missing Person:
Naomi Wilson
Age at Report: 32 YOA
Missing From: Cedar Rapids, IA (Linn County)
Missing Since: April 12, 1981
Naomi Wilson was reported missing to the Cedar Rapids Police Department in Cedar Rapids on April 12, 1981. If you have information regarding her disappearance, please contact the Missing Person Information Clearinghouse/Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation at 1-800-346-5507.
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Homicide:
Leota Camp
25 YOA
3213 Flemming Ave.
Des Moines, IA (Polk County)
July 10, 1967
Just after 12:00 noon on Monday, July 10, 1967, Mrs. Raymond (Leota) Camp, 25, was discovered “bleeding” in her home’s front bedroom by her son Kevin, 4, and daughter Brenda, 3, who immediately went crying to neighbors. Neighbors then found the young mother lying face down on the bed, her arms crossed and tied behind her back with a necktie. Neckties also bound Camp’s neck and ankles, and a necktie was stuffed in her mouth as a gag. She had been stabbed four times in the back while her two older children played outside and her three-month-old daughter Christine lay on a white blanket on the living room floor, nursing a warm bottle of milk.
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Homicide:
David Redowl
27 YOA
610 West 3rd St.
Sioux City, Iowa (Woodbury County)
April 26, 1997
At approx. 2:00 a.m., Redowl and his 24-year-old sister, Sonja, had a physical altercation in the back yard of their mother’s Sioux City residence, which both Redowl and his sister listed as their home. The SCPD and medical personnel were called at 2:07 a.m. Upon arrival they found Redowl unconscious and he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at Mercy Medical Center. Cause of death was a stab wound to the chest. Because of conflicting witness statements and inconsistencies, no charges were ever filed.
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Homicide:
Wilbur Brown
47 YOA
603 West 5th St.
Sioux City, Iowa (Woodbury County)
Sept. 14, 1997
An area resident returning home at approx. 5:30 a.m. noticed Brown lying on the ground between a curb and the sidewalk. After calling Sioux City Police, Brown was transported to a hospital and died shortly thereafter. An autopsy revealed he’d been beaten about the head and body and died as a result of those injuries. Brown had recently received and cashed his paycheck, though no money was found on his person. Police interviewed numerous people but no suspects were arrested.
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Homicide:
Betty Swetnam
73 YOA
1610 West 19th St.
Sioux City, Iowa (Woodbury County)
January 1, 1994
When Swetnam’s family couldn’t contact her by phone, they sent her grandson and granddaughter’s husband to check on her welfare. The grandson found his grandmother dead at the bottom of the basement steps. She had received multiple stab wounds. Sioux City police observed that the house had been ransacked, with drawers dumped out of dressers. The victim had operated a massage business out of her home, and though investigators interviewed every client named in Swetnam’s book as well as all relatives and associates, no viable suspects were developed.
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Missing Person:
Barbara L. Elms
50 YOA
Missing From: Cedar Rapids (Linn County)
Date Reported Missing: August 25, 1993
Barbara Elms was reported missing to the Cedar Rapids Police Department on August 25, 1993.
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