Gloria Faye Slump

Gloria Faye Slump

Homicide

Gloria Faye Slump
24 YOA
Council Bluffs, IA
Pottawattamie County
Case # 6700368
March 6, 1967

Case summary by Nancy Bowers

On Monday, March 6, 1967, Burlington Railroad employees found the frozen body of 24-year-old Gloria Faye Slump under a trestle over Pony Creek three miles south of Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Pottawattamie County in Iowa

Council Bluffs in
Pottawattamie County

A trail of blood showed she was dragged to the site from a county road 150 yards away.

She had been dead two to three days. She was beaten, stabbed 14 times in the throat with a dull knife or an implement similar to a beer can opener, and left to bleed to death. There were no signs of sexual assault.

Gloria worked at an Omaha, Nebraska, brokerage house. Her coworkers described her as “deeply religious.”

She told friends she was spending the weekend she went missing in Stanton, Iowa, with her parents.

Pottawattamie County Sheriff Roy O. Wichael headed up the investigation. Evidence was examined by both the Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the FBI.

On Sunday, March 6 — the day before Gloria’s body was found — an Iowa State Highway patrolman discovered an abandoned car 150 yards east of the Pony Creek railroad bridge. It belonged to 24-year-old Jerry E. Neve of Omaha, who was seen with the victim before she disappeared.

Neve was questioned and released by Sheriff Wichael. He also voluntarily took a polygraph at the Iowa BCI. The test showed deception when he was asked about knowing Slump or having information about her death.

Jerry Neve killed himself on Saturday, March 11, 1967, with a shotgun in the backyard of an Omaha residence. His stepfather, Cecil Fellows, told the Oelwein Register that Neve said he did not murder Gloria but, “was just being a good fellow and that . . . he was so involved he did not know what to do.”

Later FBI testing of Neve’s car confirmed that a piece of cloth found there came from the victim’s clothing.

On Saturday, June 10, 1967, Omaha Police — acting on a tip — found the victim’s coat in a hotel room once registered to Jerry Neve and Herschell L. Gitchell, who at the time was awaiting trial on burglary charges.

Gloria Fay Slump was born April 7, 1942, in Red Oak, Iowa, to Kathleen Ione Williams and Carroll Riggs Slump. She was survived by her parents, a brother, and four sisters.

Questions and information about the unsolved 1967 murder of Gloria Faye slump should be directed to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Cold Case Unit or to Iowa Cold Cases through the Contact form.

Sources:

• “Coat Found May Be That of Dead Woman,” Muscatine Journal, June 12, 1967.
• “Coat Linked to Girl’s Death,” Des Moines Register, June 11, 1967.
• “Cloth in Car From Woman Who Was Killed,” Muscatine Journal, June 12, 1967.
• IDPS Division of Criminal Investigation
• “Man Questioned in Slaying of Woman,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, March 7, 1967.
• “Omaha Police Close Case on Suicide,” Oelwein Daily Register, March 13, 1967.
• “Questioned, Released in Slaying,” Waterloo Daily Courier, March 7, 1967.
• “Say Slain Woman Bled to Death,” Waterloo Daily Courier, March 9, 1967.
• “Says Dead Man Failed Lie Test,” Waterloo Daily Courier, March 14, 1967.
• “Suicide Case Closed,” Muscatine Journal, March 13, 1967.