Angela Hennes

Angela Marie Hennes

Homicide

Angela Marie Hennes
41 YOA
Davenport, IA
Scott County
Case # 07-01804
January 13, 2007

Case Summary By Jody Ewing

Those who knew her usually described Angela Marie Hennes as polite. Cordial. Likeable. Someone who had the capacity to do almost anything she wanted with her life.

JUSTICE FOR ANGELA HENNES

 Courtesy photo Quad City Times

Chad Welsh in court before being found guilty of killing Angela Hennes.

On April 17, 2012, Chad Welsh was found guilty in Scott County District Court of first degree murder in the January 2007 death of Angela Marie Hennes in Davenport.

Investigators linked Welsh to Hennes’ murder through DNA. For the brutal crime, Welsh will serve the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Click here to read a Quad City Times article about the jury’s verdict.

Update

Police say DNA has helped find Angela Hennes’ killer.

Scott County authorities announced June 8, 2011, that they had charged Chad Michael Lee Welsh, 33, with Angela Hennes’ murder, a break after more than four years.

Authorities linked DNA from the scene in 2007 and matched it to Welsh’s DNA. Download the Arrest Warrant

Welsh was brought from a federal prison in Missouri, where he was serving time for child pornography, to the Scott County Jail to await trial on first-degree murder, a charge punishable in Iowa by life in prison without parole. Read More

Born November 4, 1965, in Omaha, Neb., “Angie” had attended Davenport Catholic and public schools and graduated from high school in 1985. She’d gone on to attend Scott Community College, and eventually given birth to two sons, Matthew and Daniel.

Scott County in Iowa

Davenport in Scott County

Somewhere, though, a shift took place in her life and she’d begun using drugs. Those with whom she’d started to socialize were only too happy to suggest an alternative way to pay for the highly addictive drugs: sex. Even her boyfriend thought it would be okay, and often could be seen walking with her along the streets between Hennes’ 411 W. 4th St. residence at the Ledo Apartments and Myrtle Street, or at a safe distance on the other side of the street.

Wednesday,  Jan. 3, 2007, turned out to be an unseasonably warm Davenport day, the temperature reaching 50 degrees. Both Angie and her boyfriend went out that evening, and no one would ever see Angie alive again.

Ten days later on Jan. 13 at approximately 4 p.m., the 41-year-old’s badly burned body was found face down in a fetal position in a farm field off Seven Sisters Road in rural Scott County. A vehicle’s tire tracks were discovered nearby.

The boyfriend told police he last saw Hennes heading to a grocery store about 9 p.m. on Jan. 3, and that a little while later he may have seen her get into a vehicle.

Pathology reports indicated Hennes had been dead two to three days. Toxicology reports showed no drugs or alcohol in her system.

WQAD-TV Channel 8 reports on an arrest in Angela Hennes’ unsolved murder case.
Air date: June 8, 2011

Gerald Bolt, the farmer who discovered Hennes’ body on his property, estimated he’d last checked that area of his property on Wednesday, January 10.

Hennes’ cell phone had last gone off January 3, 2007 — the day she disappeared.

Sheriff’s investigators, with help from Davenport and Rock Island police, questioned many people on both sides of the Mississippi River but have been unable to zero in on one suspect.

A $5,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Angela Hennes’ death.

In addition to her sons Matthew and Daniel, Angela Marie Hennes was survived by her parents, William and Linda Hennes of Davenport; a brother, Jeff Hennes; grandmother, Doris Ricketts; and many aunts, uncles and cousins.

If you have any information about this case please call the Scott County Sheriff’s Department at (563) 326-8628 or the Quad-Cities Crime Stoppers at (309) 762-9500.

Sources:

• Scott County Sheriff’s Department
• “Cold Cases: Unsolved But Not Forgotten,” Quad-City Times, June 26, 2011
• “COLD CASE: Inmate charged in ’07 Davenport slaying,” Quad-City Times, June 8, 2011
• “Warrant issues for four-year-old murder case,” WQAD-TV Ch. 8 Quad-Cities, June 8, 2011
• Homicides seem to be down in Q-C area, Quad-Cities Online, March 23, 2008
• Scott County Murder Remains Unsolved, Quad-City Crime Stoppers, September 28, 2007
• Witness sought in unsolved killing of Angela Hennes, Quad-City Times, September 27, 2007
• Leads have not panned out in homicide, Quad-City Times, May 29, 2007
• County OKs plan to gate rural road, Quad-City Times, March 9, 2007
• A road’s grim end, Quad-City Times, February 27, 2007
• Reward raised in county homicide, Quad-City Times, February 24, 2007
• Press Release: $5000 Reward for Information, Scott County Sheriff’s Department, February 23, 2007
• More information needed on ‘persons of interest’ in Hennes murder, Quad-Cities Online, January 31, 2007
• Press Release: $2000 Reward for Information, Scott County Sheriff’s Department, January 24, 2007
• $2,000 reward being offered in homicide case, Quad-City Times, January 22, 2007
• Just the (positive) facts, ma’am, Quad-City Times, January 21, 2007
• A lesson in grace, Quad-City Times, January 20, 2007
• Reward offered in woman’s homicide case, Quad-City Times, January 20, 2007
• Homicide victim had troubled past, Quad-City Times, January 18, 2007
• Authorities Identify Woman’s Body Found in Davenport Farm Field, KCRG-TV, January 17, 2007
• Murder victim was Davenport woman, Quad-Cities Online, January 15, 2007
• A matter of record, Quad-City Times, December 10, 2005