Leota Camp
Homicide:
25 YOA
3213 Flemming Ave.
Des Moines, IA (Polk County)
Case # 1967-10836
July 10, 1967
Case summary by Jody Ewing
Just after 12:00 noon on Monday, July 10, 1967, Mrs. Raymond (Leota) Camp, 25, was discovered "bleeding" in her home's front bedroom by her son Kevin, 4, and daughter Brenda, 3, who immediately went crying to neighbors.
Neighbors then found the young mother lying face down on the bed, her arms crossed and tied behind her back with a necktie. Neckties also bound Camp's neck and ankles, and a necktie was stuffed in her mouth as a gag. She had been stabbed four times in the back while her two older children played outside and her three-month-old daughter Christine lay on a white blanket on the living room floor, nursing a warm bottle of milk.
Neighbors described to police a young white man with a good suntan, approximately 20 to 25 years old, 5' 8" to 5' 10" tall with brown, curly hair, stockily built and wearing a brown and white plaid shirt and dark trousers, who had parked his car -- a black Ford Mustang with louvers behind the doors -- about a house and a half away from the Camp house at 11 a.m. The man had cut diagonally across the Camp's front yard and entered the home. Another neighbor saw the man leave a few minutes before noon.
Mrs. Camp lived with her husband, Raymond, 25, and their three young children in a neat, one-story home with blue-gray asbestos siding. Mr. Camp -- a tabulating equipment operator for the Iowa Employment Security Commission -- was at work when he was summoned to the hospital and notified of his wife's death.
When the two older Camp children went crying to the home of Mrs. Mary Groe, 3209 Flemming, and told her "Mommy's bleeding," Mrs. Groe ran to the Camp home, saw Mrs. Camp on the bed, rushed out and called for Mrs. Nelle Edwards, the Camps neighbor to the west at 3215 Flemming, who was in her front yard at the time.
Both women ran to the Camp home, where Mrs. Edwards went into the bedroom. There she found Leota Camp stabbed and bound with the four neckties.
A blood-stained six-inch kitchen knife lay on the bed beside Mrs. Camp, who moaned (according to Mrs. Edwards) but couldn't answer questions.
A fire department rescue squad administered artificial respiration for seven minutes on the way to Broadlawns Polk County Hospital, but Camp was pronounced DOA.
Dr. Leo Luka, Polk County medical examiner, said Camp had been stabbed four times in the back, the wounds penetrating her lungs, and died of internal hemorrhaging. She was fully clothed in a blouse, skirt and shoes when found, and Luka said no evidence existed she had been raped or sexually molested. He later said he believed Camp was slain by "a kook or pervert who got scared and panicked."
Police said the wounds were inflicted by two different knives from a kitchen set -- the one found on the bed beside Mrs. Camp, and another of which police found the blade but not the knife's handle.
Luka believed the killer probably entered the home around noon while Mrs. Camp hung clothes in the back yard. When she came back into the house quicker than expected, she likely "walked into trouble," he said, and the intruder probably threatened harm to her baby if she screamed or struggled.
Luka also said there were no signs of physical struggle, no marks, bruises, or scratches on the victim, and that nothing had been noted missing from the home.
Police compiled a composite sketch of the "handsome" young man seen entering and leaving the Camp home, and received approximately 500 calls with tips within the first four days following the murder. Police also followed up on 1965 or 1966 "fastback" Ford Mustangs with louvers on the car's upper portion behind the doors.
On July 14, 1967, the Des Moines Register reported that Mrs. Camp had received an obscene telephone call a few weeks before her death. Raymond Camp told The Register his wife received the anonymous call "about one and a half or two weeks before the Fourth of July," and that when she answered, a man asked "Where you been?" Thinking it might be a friend kidding her, Leota told the caller she'd been feeding the baby, to which he replied "I thought maybe you were ... (an obscene expression)," Camp told authorities.
Their home phone number, Mr. Camp said, wasn't even in the phone book so they thought some nut dialed it by mistake, and there were no further calls.
The case remains open today.
Sources and References:
Des Moines Police Department, July 2009
The Cedar Rapids Gazette, Tues., July 11, 1967
The (WI) Capital Times, Tues., July 11, 1967
The Waterloo Daily Courier, Tues., July 11, 1967
The Oelwein Daily Register, Tues., July 11, 1967
The Des Moines Register, Tues., July 11, 1967
The Cedar Rapids Gazette, Wed., July 12, 1967
The Waterloo Daily Courier, Wed., July 12, 1967
The Des Moines Register, Wed., July 12, 1967
The Oelwein Daily Register, Wed., July 12, 1967
The Des Moines Register, Fri., July 14, 1967
The Des Moines Register, Sun., Aug. 20, 1967
