Paula Jean Oberbroeckling
Homicide
Paula Jean Oberbroeckling
18 YOA
Cedar Rapids, IA
July 11, 1970
Case summary by Nancy Bowers
In the summer of 1970, Cedar Rapids resident Paula Jean Oberbroeckling was 18 years-old. A beautiful girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes, she taught developmentally disabled children and worked at Younker’s Department Store in Lindale Plaza. Paula and her friend Debbie Kellogg shared an apartment at 116 Tenth Street NW.
Debbie Kellogg said that Paula went on a date Saturday night, July 11, 1970. When she returned home, she put on her nightgown but didn’t go to bed. About 1:00 a.m., Paula asked to borrow Debbie’s car keys. Dressed in her nightgown, she walked out the door and said, “I’ll be right back.” But Paula didn’t come home.
On Sunday, Debbie Kellogg’s car was found near the Eagle Food Store on Fourteenth Street SE, two miles east of the apartment the girls shared.
Paula’s family was desperate for answers. Her grandmother, Vera Oberbroeckling, went door-to-door questioning residents in the neighborhood where the car was located.
Despite great publicity and extensive searches for her, Paula was not located. Cedar Rapids Police said, however, they had no evidence any harm had come to her.
Three days after Thanksgiving, on Sunday, November 29, 1970, George Juntilla and his two sons, Dale, 14, and Dave, 11, discovered a body in a ravine near the Cedar River along Otis Road in southeast Cedar Rapids six miles from Paula’s and Debbie’s apartment.
When police responded, they found decomposed remains draped around a steel pin in the ground. The body -- hands and feet bound with clothesline rope -- was clad in a nightgown. A piece of rope lay on the ground nearby.
Two rings and the nightgown were identified by Paula’s mother as belonging to her daughter.
The cause of death could not be determined because of decomposition, although Cedar Rapids Police Chief George Matias told the press, “We believe foul play was involved.”
The Head of the University of Iowa Oral Surgery Department, Dr. Merle Hale, compared Paula’s dental records to the remains and officially identified the body as hers.
On Saturday, December 5, fifteen members of the Cedar Rapids Police Department Explorer Scout Post searched the area where the body was found but failed to locate any personal items belonging to Paula.
Paula Jean Oberbroeckling was born in Cedar Rapids on February 25, 1952 to Carol Burks and James Joseph Oberbroeckling. She had four siblings -- sister Lynn Marie Oberbroeckling Greve and three brothers, Todd Patrick, Christopher James, and Timothy Oberbroeckling.
 Courtesy photo Carl Franks, Cedar Rapids Gazette |
| The Oberbroeckling family at Todd Patrick's christening in October 1954. L to R front: Lynn Marie and Paula Jean; L to R back: James, Todd Patrick, Carol, and Robert |
Paula and all her siblings wore a linen gown at their christenings made about 1900 by their great-grandmother Mary Oberbroeckling for their grandfather Patrick Oberbroeckling. It had also been worn by their father James and his brother Robert.
In January of 1958, Paula was struck by a car that failed to stop for a school signal while she was crossing First Avenue at Twenty-Fourth Street E. Six-year-old Paula recovered fully from her injuries, but her father won a judgment against the driver.
She graduated from Washington High School in 1969.
Services for Paula were held at 11:00 a.m. Monday, December 6 at St. Matthew’s Church in Cedar Rapids, and she was buried in Mt. Calvary Cemetery.
Sources
“Body that of Girl Missing Four Months,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, December 1, 1970.
“Father of Injured Girl Gets Judgment,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, September 27, 1958.
“Identify Body as C.R. Girl,” Des Moines Register, December 7, 1970.
“Identify Body as girl from Cedar Rapids,” Ames Daily Tribune, December 2, 1970.
“Miss Oberbroeckling Funeral Is Monday,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, December 5, 1970.
“Old Christening Gown,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, October 24, 1954.
“Paula Oberbroeckling Struck by Car, Injured,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, January 22, 1958.
“Report Nothing Found in Area of Body’s Discovery,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, December 6, 1970.
Page last updated June 25, 2010
