Mary Jayne Jones
Mary Jayne Jones
17 YOA
Blakesburg, IA
Wapello County
Case Number: 74-00243
April 9, 1974
Mary Jayne Jones, 17, of Ottumwa, Iowa, was found slain in a farmhouse near Blakesburg, Iowa, on Tuesday, April 9, 1974. She had been shot once in the head and once in the heart at close range with a high-powered rifle.
Shortly after 5 p.m. on Tuesday, the Wapello County sheriff’s office received a call from Ernest Marlin, who said his wife had discovered the body in a farmhouse about seven miles west of Ottumwa.
The farm was owned by the Marlin’s son, Max Marlin, and the elder Marlin worked the farm. According to [then] Wapello County Attorney Sam Erhardt, the Marlin’s son was “out west on a vacation” at the time of the slaying. Erhardt said he believed no one was staying at the home at the time of the slaying, although Mr. and Mrs. Marlin had stayed at the house “a couple of nights” before the slaying.
Several guns were found in the house, though it wasn’t determined early in the investigation if any of those found was the murder weapon.
[Then] Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent Wayne Sheston, in charge of investigations, said Jones died of “multiple gunshot wounds.” Wapello County Medical Examiner Dr. Warren DeKraay confirmed that Miss Jones, an Ottumwa drive-in restaurant employee, died from gunshot wounds to the head and heart.
DeKraay said the girl was shot “once in the head and once in the heart from fairly close range with a rifle, apparently a pretty high-powered rifle, judging from the wounds.”
Miss Jones had not been beaten, nor were there signs of a struggle.
Investigators believed Jones was last seen about 11:45 a.m. Tuesday, April 9, at the Union Bank and Trust Co. in Ottumwa. She had been employed at Henry’s Drive-in restaurant in Ottumwa for the past nine months, and restaurant employees said Jones had not been at work since the previous Friday, believed to be because of illness.
Mary Jayne Jones had come to Iowa from North Carolina nine months earlier to visit her sister, Mrs. Pat Williams, who was expecting a baby. Jones stayed with her sister until the sister had the baby in November, and had decided to remain in Iowa rather than return to N.C.
Friends described the 5′ 2″ auburn-haired Jones as an “outgoing girl,” and fellow employees said she was “a bubbly, super girl.”
Roy Ware, owner of the apartment building where Jones had occupied a second-floor, one-bedroom apartment for “about four or five months,” said he’d received a letter Wednesday, dated April 9, 1974, from Miss Jones. Her rent check was in the letter, which said, “You told me to inform you when I have a roommate. Her name is Lynn Guyette,” Ware said the letter stated. Ware said Miss Jones was a very good tenant and a great girl.
Vernon Guyette, Jr., Lynn Guyette’s brother, said his sister met Miss Jones at Henry’s Drive-In, where both were employed. Miss Guyette had been living with Jones for about a month.
Authorities confirmed Jones had also written a letter, postmarked Tuesday, to friends in N.C. telling of a boyfriend named Art who did not want to get married but who had given her a beautiful ring for Valentine’s Day. The BCI said the boyfriend was not a suspect in the case.
The Wapello County sheriff’s department interviewed numerous people and circulated photographs of Jones in efforts to find persons who may have seen her Tuesday before her death.
By week’s end, at least one suspect had undergone a lie dectector test conducted by the BCI.
Mary Jayne’s survivors included her mother and stepfather, who lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and two sisters, Miss Judy Cabanelius of Fort Bragg, N.C., and Mrs. Patrick Williams of Fairfield.
No one was ever tied to the crime.
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