Sandra Dee “Sandy” Kinney
33 YOA
Davenport, IA
Scott County
July 20, 1996
On Saturday, July 20, 1996, 33-year old Sandra Dee “Sandy” Kinney was strangled to death near the Mississippi River walkway in Davenport, Iowa, and her body thrown into the Mississippi River. Her nude body was found floating face down by local fisherman the same day. Scott County officials said that she had only been in the water for approximately three to four hours when her body was pulled from the river at 8:00 pm that night.
Davenport police interviewed more than 150 persons who may have seen or heard something or known details about Kinney’s murder. They did confiscate a vehicle owned by a local junk dealer, 52-year old Jerry Lee Huff, that contained Kinney’s personal contents. When Huff arrived at the Davenport Police Department he was arrested, charged with First Degree Murder and Willful Injury, and jailed until his trial began several months later.
According to court documents, Huff made an incriminating statement to Davenport Police Detectives in October while in custody, however the judge in the case decided to suppress the statement and all information regarded as “any fruits from the poisonous tree.” That information was never offered to the jury selected for the trial which began in January of 1997, five months after Kinney’s murder.
Scott County officials did not give up, and pushed for a Motion in Limine, which was granted, to keep the case open for further investigation into Huff’s activities. During the trial, Scott County Prosecutors accused Huff of killing Kinney because she refused to perform a sex act with Huff sparking Huff to angrily slay Kinney via strangulation and dispose her body in the Mississippi River. More than 50 witnesses testified during the trial that lasted a week in the Scott County District Courthouse.
Kinney, while known to live in rural Calamus, Iowa, was reported by witnesses and Scott County and Davenport officials to have spent much of her time in the downtown Davenport area, sometimes working as a waitress in various establishments but also working as a prostitute to fund a crack cocaine addiction. Kinney had been convicted of minor charges involving alcohol, theft, drug and vehicular related offenses and she was completing probation given for her guilty pleas prior to her death. She had no driver’s license nor vehicle and allegedly accepted rides from Huff and other persons during the summer of her death.
Other evidence offered during the trial included a pair of shorts that Kinney was seen wearing on the day of her death along with other pieces of Kinney’s clothing and personal items found in Huff’s car immediately following her murder. On January 21, 1997, the jury found reasonable doubt and cleared Huff of the two charges. Huff walked out of the courthouse a free man. Since the trial, public records show that he has been charged with more than two dozen minor charges unrelated to Kinney’s death. Since he was living in his vehicle at the time of Kinney’s murder and at the time of his arrest several days later, it is believed that he remains a resident in Iowa but his exact location is unknown to Iowa Cold Cases. Due to Double Jeopardy, he cannot be tried again for the First Degree Murder and Willful Injury charges in Sandra Kinney’s case since he was acquitted by the jury.
Now, more than 16-years after Kinney’s strangulation murder, Davenport Police consider her case an “unsolved homicide” and they continue to investigate her murder as a “major case” along with many other murders that have occurred in Davenport through this year. Although many Scott County area officials allege that Huff had the opportunity and motive to kill Kinney, they continue to search for any new clues that would lead to the arrest of any person or persons involved in the woman’s untimely and violent death. Kinney’s daughter, Aime, has reached out to Iowa Cold Cases to spread the information about her mother’s murder hoping that someone will remember something, large or small, that would help officials solve her Mom’s case.
Sandra Dee Kinney was born November 29, 1962 and was 33 years old when she died on July 20, 1996. She lived in Davenport and nearby Calamus all of her life. Kinney was employed as a waitress in Davenport at various restaurants and clubs. Survivors include her daughter, Amie Whittmeyer of Cambridge, Illinois, a grandson, two brothers, Douglas Kinney and David Kinney of Calamus, and her parents, Mary Kinney of Calamus and Russell Kinney of Jacksosnville, Illinois.
Cunnick-Collins Mortuary and Cremation Service was in charge of private arrangements. Kinney’s remains were cremated more than a week after her death on July 29, 1996 at Fairmount Cemetery Crematory in Davenport. Daughter Amie provided this information about Kinney being laid to rest and she retains the package information about the incinerated remains. Aime is reaching out for any information leading to the conviction of her mother’s killer.
If you have any information regarding Sandra Kinney’s murder, please contact the Davenport Police Department at (563) 326-7979 or Iowa Cold Cases via our Contact form. You may remain anonymous or you may offer your personal information to us or to Law Enforcement when you offer any information you have about the end of young Sandy Kinney’s life.
Anthony Chance
Age at Report: 45
Weight: 160 lbs.
Height: 5’10″
Race: White
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Brown
Sex: Male
Incident Type: Disability — physical / mental
Missing From: Davenport, IA
Scott County
Missing Since: March 25, 2012
Anthony Chance was reported missing to the Davenport Police Department in Davenport, Iowa, on March 25, 2012.
If you have information regarding the whereabouts of Anthony Chance, please contact the Davenport Police Department at (563) 326-7979. You may also send information to Iowa Cold Cases via our Contact form.
Iowa Department of Public Safety Missing Person Information Clearinghouse
Ricardo Jerome Pimentel
Age At Report: 39
DOB: Oct. 19, 1950
Weight: 160 lbs.
Height: 5’10″
Race: White
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Sex: Male
Incident Type: Endangered / physical
Missing From: Davenport, IA
Scott County
Missing Since: December 19, 1989
Ricardo Pimentel was reported missing to the Davenport Police Department in Davenport, Iowa, on December 19, 1989.
We have little information about this case.
If you have any information regarding Ricardo Pimentel’s disappearance, please contact the Missing Person Information Clearinghouse / Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation at 1-800-346-5507 or the Davenport Police Department at 563-326-7979.
Yvonne “Bonnie” Nicholson
Yvonne “Bonnie” Nicholson
32 YOA
South Concord St.
Davenport, IA
Scott County
November 12, 2001
On Wednesday, November 12, 2001, at approximately 9:30 a.m., two construction workers driving along a slough on South Concord Street in Davenport discovered the body of 32-year-old Yvonne Nicholson of Rock Island, Illinois.
Her body — clothed in a sweatshirt, shorts and socks — lay partially submerged in Mississippi River backwater near Credit Island about 75 feet from the road.
The Davenport Fire Department provided officials with a ladder trick in order to get an overhead look at the scene, and investigators took photos while inside the bucket at the ladder’s tip. Officials constructed a plywood walkway through the mud and shallow water in order to retrieve Nicholson’s body from the river.
An autopsy concluded she had been strangled.
In September 2003, a late-summer drought drained enough water away from the tree-lined shore to enable detectives to sift through the mud in hopes of shaking out some clues. Since Nicholson’s murder, the crime scene had never been dry enough to dig around the area where officials found her body.
The Davenport detectives marked out a 20-foot-by-15-foot area and began digging, shoveling the thick mud into a sifter while looking for clothes, personal effects or anything else that might bring them closer to identifying Nicholson’s killer.
Courtesy photo Larry Fisher/QUAD-CITY TIMES“It has been two years, but nonetheless it’s worth a try,” Lt. Dennis Kern, deputy commander of the criminal investigation division, told the Quad-City Times in a story published Sept. 11, 2003. “If we don’t do it, we know we won’t find anything.”
One detective ran a metal detector inside the marked-off perimeter. It beeped only a few times, but turned up nothing more than an aluminum can.
In a Quad-City Times article dated June 26, 2011, Davenport police Lt. Gene Wall, commander of the criminal investigation division — said detectives were going to take another look at Nicholson’s unsolved homicide as well as that of Agnes Kennedy. The announcement followed the arrest of Chad Welsh in the 2007 slaying of Angeles Hennes.
Hennes’ burned remains had been found alongside a road in the 1500 black of 100th Ave. in rural Scott County on January 13, 2007.
Courtesy photo Scott County JailAgnes Kennedy’s body was discovered in Davenport on December 22, 2007, in the north alley in the 1800 block of West 8th Street.
Angela Hennes’ burned remains were found Jan. 13, 2007.
Wall told the Times the cases were connected because all there victims were known or convicted prostitutes.
Authorities in Scott County announced on June 8, 2011, that they had charged 33-year-old Chad Michael Lee Welsh with Hennes’ murder. The break in the case came after more than four years. Welsh’s DNA matched DNA taken from the 2007 crime scene.
Welsh was brought to the Scott County Jail from a Springfield, Missouri federal prison, where he was serving an eight-year sentence on child pornography charges. A Burlington, Iowa, resident, Welsh was arrested on the pornography charges September 16, 2008, eight months after Kennedy’s death, according to the Times.
Agnes Kennedy’s body was found in Davenport on Dec. 22, 2007.
On April 17, 2012, the Scott County District Court convicted Welsh of first degree murder in Hennes’ 2007 death. Welsh will now serve the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Wall cited the difficulty of solving murders where the victim is a prostitute.
“You never know who they’re with or where they were picked up at,” he said in the Times interview.
Nicholson had been released from prison just 10 days before her body was found.
If you have any information about Yvonne Nicholson’s murder or that of Agnes Kennedy, please contact the Davenport Police Department at 563-326-7979.
Truong Ngoc
Age At Report: 69
Weight: 105 lbs.
Height: 5’03″
Race: Asian or Pacific Islander
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Sex: Female
Incident Type: Disability – physical / mental
Missing From: Davenport, IA
Scott County
Missing Since: July 2, 2009
Truong Ngoc was reported missing to the Davenport Police Department in Davenport, Iowa, on July 2, 2009. She was last seen wearing a black and blue dress.
If you have any information about this case please contact the Davenport Police Department at 563-326-7979.
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