Norma Jean Horgen
Homicide:
18 YOA
DOB: February 15, 1948
Case Number: 6601036
Mason City, Iowa
Cerro Gordo County
September 10, 1966
Case summary by Jody Ewing
The body of Norma Jean Horgen, 18, was found near the northwest shore of Iowa's Clear Lake on September 10, 1966. The St. Ansgar teen had been a cosmetology student in Mason City.
Twenty-six years after her death, authorities arrested Las Vegas veterinarian John Rea Wallace, 44, and charged him with first-degree murder. Wallace, a decorated Vietnam war veteran with no known criminal history, owned and operated the Spring Valley Animal Hospital in Las Vegas but returned to Iowa after learning a warrant had been issued for his arrest.
Wallace was a student at Mason City Junior College in 1966 when Horgen was a cosmetology student, and had been living in Las Vegas since the mid-1970s.
In July 1992 Wallace pleaded innocent to the charge and was freed on $100,000 bond. His trial was scheduled for September, but Cerro Gordo County District Court Judge Gilbert Bovard granted a defense motion to delay the trial.
Wallace's attorney, Randall Mainor of Las Vegas, accused Cerro Gordo County Sheriff's Lt. Larry Mason of "outrageous conduct" and challenged the completeness of the state's evidence, arguing that evidence had been lost or withheld. Mainor also said the state withheld from the grand jury evidence about other suspects in the case.
Bovard dismissed the murder charge in February 1993, ruling that evidence had been withheld from the grand jury and that Mason took part in grand jury deliberations, which is against the law.
The case remains unsolved.
Sources and References:
IDPS Division of Criminal Investigation
Accused's attorney: How do you find witnesses of '66 crime? Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 3, 1992
Las Vegas man pleads not guilty, Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 14, 1992
Las Vegas man has murder trial delayed, Cedar Rapids Gazette, Sept. 3, 1992
Iowa judge drops murder charge against Las Vegas veterinarian, Cedar Rapids Gazette, Feb. 26, 1983
Page last updated: July 4, 2010
