Connie Choate Bodensteiner
24 YOA
2800 Fleur Drive
Des Moines, IA
Polk County
August 8, 1995
Connie Choate Bodensteiner was raised with small-town values in an Iowa town of about 225 people.
But she died in Iowa’s biggest and arguably most dangerous city.
How did it happen?
Her mother told the Cedar Rapids Gazette, “[Connie] had a lot of problems. She just chose a rough life.”
Connie was last seen alive leaving the Polk County Courthouse in Des Moines on the afternoon of August 1, 1995.
A few days later, residents smelled a strong odor near the storage area of an apartment building at 2800 Fleur Drive, a major Des Moines street leading to the airport.
Inside a bin, a maintenance worker found Connie’s partially-clad body.
An autopsy showed she was strangled with a belt.
In the last two years of her life, Connie had several scrapes with the law.
Lt. Clarence Jobe of the Des Moines Police said Polk County records showed Connie was arrested four times for prostitution, the latest time only a month before her death. She also had pending charges for possesion of drugs.
One day after Connie’s body was discovered, 37-year-old Angela Renee Buck was found shot to death in Black Hawk County.
Angela Buck
Both women had a history of prostitution and once worked for Greg Peterson, who operated an out call/prostitution service from a mobile home in Urbandale, a Des Moines suburb.
On August 13, 1994 — a year before Angela’s murder — Greg Peterson was beaten to death by a business rival.
Bob Ervin, a sergeant in the Des Moines Police Department told the media that investigators questioned the same persons in the Bodensteiner case as in the Peterson Murder. No connection, however, could be established.
Des Moines resident Montez Shortridge was convicted of Gregory Peterson’s murder and sentenced to life in prison.
However, the murders of Connie Bodensteiner and Angela Buck remain unsolved and authorities are unable to link the two cases.
To read about Angela Buck’s murder click here.
Connie Jo Choate was born December 15, 1970 in Ames, Iowa, to Sandra Shenton and Randy Choate. She had four brothers — Jason, John, James, and Craig.
Connie was raised in New Providence, a town founded by Quakers, and attended school there before dropping out in the tenth grade.
She married Michael Bodensteiner and in 1990 the two had a daughter, Brittany. The marriage, however, was troubled and the two split up in 1992.
Although Sandy and Randy Choate urged Connie to return to New Providence, she went to live in Des Moines, leaving Brittany in their care. Connie last saw her parents and Brittany on July 23, not long before her death.
Courtesy photo findagrave.comPrivate graveside services for Connie were held on August 11 at the Paton Township Cemetery with Rev. C.G. White officiating.
If you have information about the unsolved 1995 murder of Connie Jo Choate Bodensteiner, please direct it to the Des Moines Police Department at 515-283-4864 or Iowa Cold Cases through the Contact form.
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