Donna Lee Marshall
Donna Lee Marshall
37 YOA
Iowa City, Iowa
Johnson County
Case # 9600444
January 8, 1996
On January 8, 1996, Donna Lee Marshall, 37, was found by her fiancé and daughter in her southeast side Iowa City mobile home with a gunshot wound to the head. She died the next day.
Donna’s 7-year-old daughter Tiffanie discovered her mother lying on the living room floor of their trailer around 3 p.m. She ran outside to tell Donna’s boyfriend, Donald Matthess, who had just picked Tiffanie up from school. Donald and Tiffanie notified authorities.
According to documents filed with the Johnson County clerk of court, a search of the mobile home — located at Lot 99 in the Bon-Aire Mobile Home Lodge — yielded mostly prescription drugs and paperwork pertaining to child custody. Authorities searched both the mobile home and two cars that were parked there.
Investigators also took some child custody documents addressed to Marshall and letters from the state child support recovery unit addressed to Matthess.
When Marshall divorced Scott Sweeting in 1989, Marshall was awarded custody of their daughter, Tiffanie. Sweeting was granted visitation rights, but divorce proceedings on file with the clerk of court showed Sweeting petitioned the court in 1992 to grant full custody to him. No final ruling had been made at the time of Marshall’s murder.
According to a list released by the state Department of Human Services on March 15, 1994, Matthess was delinquent on child support payments. The list did not specify to whom the payments were due or for how many children. (Cedar Rapids Gazette, Jan. 19, 1996)
Donna Lee Marshall was born August 23, 1958. Survivors included her daughter, Tiffanie Sweeting; and her father, Bernard “Bud” Marshall and wife Lottie of Iowa City.
Following Marshall’s murder, Tiffanie went to stay with her father, Donna’s ex-husband Scott Sweeting.
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