Ronald Lipsius
Ronald F. Lipsius
30 YOA
812 South Summit Street
Iowa City, IA
Johnson County
May 16, 1966
About 8:30 a.m. on Monday, May 16, 1966, a “pudgy” young woman entered the Clover Farm Food Market at 812 South Summit Street in Iowa City, Iowa. Clad in jeans, a headscarf and wearing horn-rimmed glasses, she also carried a concealed .22 caliber pistol.
She asked the grocery’s owner, 30-year-old Ronald F. Lipsius, for two pounds of New England ham. While Lipsius sliced the meat, his back turned, the woman hit the “no sale” button on the cash register, took $50 in paper currency, and fled out the front door.
Lipsius pursued her onto the sidewalk and ran after her for a half-block north to a corner, where she turned and fired at him. She ran east and he continued chasing her, almost to within reach. She fired twice more. Lipsius shouted, “Oh, my God” and collapsed into the front yard of 1011 Sheridan Street just 300 feet from his store.
Courtesy photo Tom Merryman, Cedar Rapids GazetteBeatrice Schwab, a Sheridan Street resident, heard sounds of a fight and looked out the window to see Lipsius on the ground. Although she heard the shots (which she described as sounding like “a toy gun”), she thought he had suffered a heart attack. When she reached him, he was unconscious but still breathing. Another woman ran out and yelled, “Call the police.”
A University of Iowa graduate student who lived above the grocery heard the shots, as did Mrs. Jacob Wegmuller, owner of the grocery property who lived next door. She saw Lipsius just as he fell.
Mrs. Keith White, an employee of the market, was on her way to start work at 9:00 when she drove by the man on the ground. She did not know it was her boss who lay mortally wounded.
A bullet to the chest had severed Lipsius’s pulmonary artery and come to rest near the spinal column. Another bullet tore through his right forearm.
A woman and her son who were passing by in a car provided police with a description of the robber. She was in her early 20s, 5-feet 9-inches, and 175 pounds, they said, and a man approximately 20 years old and wearing brown trousers met up with her on the sidewalk. They described him as being 5-feet 11-inches and 170 pounds, and said the two got into a 1965 or 1966 Chevrolet in which another man may have been waiting.
Courtesy AP photo Cedar Rapids GazetteThe robber left behind about 20 dollars in change. Several hundred dollars in weekend receipts were locked in a vault. The 50 dollars taken was the amount Lipsius routinely used to start each business day.
Ronald Lipsius was born September 14, 1935, in Williamsburg, Iowa, where his father Fred A. Lipsius ran a grocery store. He had two brothers, Robert and Gerry, and two sisters, Joyce Lipsius Lenaghan and Donna Lipsius Parker.
On December 27, 1961, he married Rose Marie Cortimiglia in Iowa City.
Lipsius worked for five years as a meat cutter in an A&P store and then opened the market in Iowa City on April 1, 1965.
He left behind three young children, Susan Marie, 3, Richard James, 2, and Daniel John, one year old. His wife Rose Marie, pregnant with the couple’s fourth child, gave birth to daughter Carol two weeks after her husband’s murder.
His employee, Mrs. White, said, “He was the most wonderful person I have ever worked for.” She was stunned that Lipsius would chase the woman who robbed his store because he always told his employees, “If anybody ever comes in for the money, let them have it. That’s what I’d do.”
Questions and information about the unsolved 1966 murder of Ronald Lipsius should be directed to the Iowa City Police Department at 319-356-5275 or to Iowa Cold Cases through the Contact Form.
Click here to read an obituary for Rose Marie Lipsius, who passed away on July 13, 2011 after leading a remarkable and courageous life.
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