Lucille DeVries
Lucille Elaine DeVries
22 YOA
Case # 6300204
607 3rd Street NE
Mason City, IA
Cerro Gordo County
October 10, 1962
The 1962 death of Lucille Elaine DeVries still puzzles Mason City authorities. Despite exhaustive investigation and the passing of nearly fifty years, they cannot say definitively how she met her end.
The 22-year-old was a happy and hard-working young woman of Dutch descent. She shared an apartment in a two-story house at 607 3rd Street NE with Judy Siskow, a school friend from nearby Thornton, where both were raised.
When Lucille awoke on Tuesday, October 9, 1962, it no doubt seemed an ordinary day to her. She could never imagine that in fewer than 24 hours her life would end in a fiery blaze.
At 8:00 a.m. Lucille arrived at Iowa Company, an insurance office where she was employed full time as a secretary. She put in a day of work and left at 5:00 p.m.
At 6:00 p.m., she started the second portion of her working day as a part-time waitress at the Frontier Ballroom. When the ballroom closed at 1:30 Wednesday morning, she left unaccompanied and went to the Wheel-In restaurant and ate a meal by herself. Lucille left the restaurant alone about 2:45 a.m., drove to her apartment, and parked in the driveway by the house.
A man going to an early-morning job saw Lucille’s car. Although he observed the driver’s door ajar and the dome light on, he did not see her inside. Two other witnesses noticed the car, but reported it in different locations on the sloping driveway. None of the three saw a fire.
About 3:30 a.m., Lucille’s roommate Judy Siskow was awakened by the smell of smoke but returned to bed when she couldn’t find a source. She woke again about 4:10 a.m. and looked outside to see Lucille’s white two-door car ablaze in the driveway. She, as well as two neighbors, phoned for help.
By the time firefighters arrived, the car windows had shattered and the metal roof was sagging from the intensity of the blaze. Inside, the dash was melted. Flames rose high enough to blacken the edge of the house roof.
Courtesy photo Mason City Globe-GazetteOn the backseat was Lucille’s body, burned so severely it was difficult to identify. Except for the portion directly underneath her, fire had consumed the seat down to the springs.
An autopsy that day by Cerro Gordo County Medical Examiner J.E. Christopherson concluded that Lucille burned to death. He also found smoke inhalation but not enough carbon monoxide in her blood stream to kill her. Christopherson speculated that Lucille discovered a fire in newspapers on the back seat and that, fatigued from her 17 and one-half hour workday, she was overcome by smoke and heat as she tried to put it out.
Immediate questions arose about the involvement of alcohol; Lucille had been charged with drunk driving and had her license suspended for 60 days after a car accident on the night of December 19, 1961.
She and Judy Siskow were traveling on Highway 18 about two and one-half miles east of Clear Lake when Lucille struck another car from behind, knocking it 300 yards. Both cars were extensively damaged and the young women were taken to Mercy Hospital in Mason City.
However, Lucille’s blood alcohol at autopsy was not high enough to cause intoxication or disorientation.
Mason City Fire Chief A. Boyd Arnold reported that local police and fire — working with the State Fire Marshal’s office — found no evidence to contradict the Medical Examiner’s opinion that a smoldering cigarette or something similar started the fire in the back seat.
Lucille’s death was ruled accidental, pending further investigation.
A prayer service for Lucille was held on Friday, October 13 at the Wartnaby-Grarup Chapel in Thornton with funeral services afterwards at St. John’s Methodist Church.
She was buried in Pleasant View Cemetery. Lucille was survived by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gerald R. DeVries, her four sisters — Rose Springer, Mildred Jensen, Mary DeVries, and Mrs. Muhlenbruck — as well as four brothers, Don, Richard, John, and Robert DeVries.
Citizens of Mason City were skeptical of the official conclusion of accidental death and wanted questions answered:
An Inconclusive Final Report
In mid-February of 1963, the details of a four-month investigation into Lucille’s death were made public.
Local and state agencies put in 16-hour days examining evidence. The Mason City Fire Department alone spent 244 man hours working the case. At least 100 people were interviewed. Lie detector tests were voluntarily taken by some witnesses to verify their accounts to establish a timeframe for the fire.
Investigators examined Lucille’s finances and created a victim profile based on interviews with friends and co-workers. They learned she was a “reasonably attractive” and seemingly normal young woman without enemies who had moods like everyone else but was not depressed. She dated but had no steady boyfriend. Her employers found her highly competent and hard-working. There were no red flags.
Authorities believed Lucille got into the backseat on her own because there would be no reason to move a dead or incapacitated person to that spot when they could easily be left on the front seat and a fire started there.
As for what one witness saw, firemen believed the fire itself illuminated the car from within to create a dome-light appearance and that darkness obscured any smoke.
From burn patterns, investigators concluded that the driver’s door was ajar, even though firemen found it closed when they arrived. They speculated a draft created by the fire, in combination with a door spring weakened by the heat, caused it to shut.
The only question that investigators could not answer to their satisfaction was what caused the fire to start and then to build up so rapidly. Witnesses saw the car in the driveway, still not on fire, for from 20 minutes to half an hour before the blaze was called in. Based on their car fire experiences and car body experiments, firemen concluded that the blaze developed too fast for “normal circumstances.”
The engine and its fuel were not involved. Gasoline and other petroleum-based products were ruled out as an accelerant, although chemicals in Lucille’s clothing or the car seat materials could have caused the fire to spread. However, tests could not identify the agent any more specifically than to rule out unvulcanized rubber used in elastic.
Authorities admitted that none of the interviews with Lucille’s contacts established any motive or suspects nor placed her with any particular individual the night of her death.
The report did not rule out foul play entirely. It was questioned how a suspect might have disabled Lucille so she could not escape the fire but do so without killing or injuring her, as there was no evidence of concussion, skull fracture, choking, broken bones, or smothering enough to cause lung collapse. It was, however, conceded that injuries could be obscured by the extensive burning.
Investigators told the Mason City Globe-Gazette that any “criminal involved” would have “had extremely good luck, excellent planning or both.”
Questions and information about the 1962 death of Lucille DeVries should be directed to the Mason City Police at 641-421-3636 or Iowa Cold Cases through the Contact form.
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