John Robert Hill
51 YOA
Ottumwa, IA
Wapello County
Case # 7600925
November 22, 1976
On Monday, November 22, 1976, at approximately 5:06 a.m., two young men found John Robert Hill, 51, lying face down in a small room at the Ottumwa Launderette that Hill owned and operated on East Main Street in Ottumwa.
Authorities said Hill had been stabbed 21 times and also had been shot. A .25-caliber pistol was on the floor near Hill’s right hand. Police said it had been fired five times and found five bullet holes near the front door, but only four bullets could be found in the building. Police think Hill died fighting.
Hill’s pockets had been turned inside-out, and he was believed to have been robbed of several hundred dollars.
Someone also had written two words in his blood. One was either “black” or “lack.” The other was “older.”
Lt. Mike McDonough of the Ottumwa Police Department, new to the department at the time, described the crime as a bloody murder and said there obviously had been a lengthy struggle.
The Iowa Bureau of Investigation was called in to aid in the murder probe, and Craig Beek, then-director of the Iowa BCI, sent a crime team to the scene.
Two suspects emerged soon after Hill’s murder, and on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 1976, then-Chief of Detectives Hugh McElroy said at least one would take a lie detector test that week. The suspects, McElroy said, were southeastern Iowa residents, and that one of the major problems hampering the investigation was the early morning hour involved and that there had been no response by the public to pleas for information from anyone who may have been in the area at or near the time of the murder.
The evidence never came together well enough to make a case that would stand up in court, and police never made an arrest.
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