Rhiannon Olsen
Alonzo Quinn
Alonzo Nakia Quinn, 27
Rhiannon Marie Olsen, 22
Full-term (9 months) unborn child
1001 Hartman Avenue
Waterloo, Iowa
Black Hawk County
January 3, 2003
Black Hawk County in Iowa
On January 3, 2003, Waterloo police discovered the bodies of Alonzo Nakia Quinn, 27, and Rhiannon Marie Olsen, 22, inside Quinn’s home on Hartman Avenue. Olsen was nine months pregnant with Quinn’s child.
Both Quinn and Olsen had been shot to death. Olsen’s unborn child, a boy who was to be named Jalen, did not survive.
Olsen’s family members became concerned when they didn’t hear from her and asked authorities to check on her welfare at her boyfriend’s home at the Hartman Avenue house. Inside, police and paramedics found the deceased bodies.
Witnesses in a kidnapping case described Quinn as a drug dealer, and authorities said a group from Iowa City was hunting Quinn and other Waterloo men involved in the drug trade months before the killings.
The group was trying to get money from the Waterloo men, and, to that end, they terrorized women associated with the Waterloo men, prosecutors said.
Olsen had previously been tied up by burglars in October 2002 when three to four people broke into her Cedar Falls apartment, demanded money, and ransacked the residence. No one has been arrested in that crime.
The following article, which details the couple’s murder, appeared in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier on June 1, 2003.
WATERLOO – In the months before Alonzo Quinn and his girlfriend were found shot to death in his home, he and two others were hunted, according to prosecutors.
The hunters were a group of men, one of whom had been a drug trafficking suspect, that terrorized women their targets knew in order to find them, prosecutors said.
Duct tape was a common tool in the crimes, as were broomsticks, detectives said.
Authorities have remained silent about the ongoing investigation into the unsolved slayings of Quinn, 27, and 22-year-old Rhiannon Olsen, who was nine months pregnant with his child.
Both were found dead of gunshot wounds in his Hartman Avenue house Jan. 3.
Courtesy photo WCF CourierFriday, Assistant Black Hawk County Attorney Ray Walton laid out part of the state’s case against David Erroll Willock, one of the men he said was pursuing Quinn. Walton argues Willock was also pursuing kidnapping-victim-turned-shooting-suspect Anthony Cole and a third man, Lamont Horton.
“The motive is clearly money and taking money by force,” Walton told the court at Willock’s hearing.
Walton said Willock, a 30-year-old bartender from Iowa City, and two others wanted money from Quinn, Cole and Horton, and they targeted women connected with them.
Willock hasn’t been charged in the January double slaying — no one has — but he was charged with kidnapping, burglary and robbery in an Oct. 16 home invasion in Waterloo and the botched kidnapping of Cole and his girlfriend from her apartment in Cedar Falls Oct. 26.
Walton wants Willock to have one trial for both crimes because, he said, they were part of a common scheme. But defense attorneys John Lane and John Bishop said this would hurt his chances of a fair trial. They are asking the cases be separated.
In the Oct. 16 burglary, a woman told police three men in ski masks entered her Waterloo apartment while she was in bed. They bound her and her children, ages 6 and 7, with duct tape.
The intruders made the woman try to phone Horton and Quinn in an attempt to lure them to her apartment, Bishop said. He argued motives for both crimes appear to be different.
After the woman was unable to contact the men, one of the assailants raped her and she was assaulted with a broomstick, according to court records.
Courtesy photo WCF CourierThen, in the early morning hours of Oct. 26, a number of armed men confronted Cole and his girlfriend at her apartment.
Duct tape was used to restrain the two. Cole was beaten with a handgun, and the attackers threatened to use a broomstick on the woman, Walton said.
The victims were taken to the girlfriend’s car, where Cole was eventually able to break free of his bonds and attack a man he identified as Willock before escaping. The woman escaped later, breaking out of the car’s trunk.
Cole was arrested for attempted murder in March after police said he shot two men in an unrelated incident in the parking lot of Club Crystyles.
According to Cedar Falls police, Olsen was also paid a visit by burglars in October.
She said three or four people broke into her Tremont Street apartment in Cedar Falls at about 1 a.m. Oct. 5 while she was alone in bed.
The intruders wrapped her wrists in duct tape and also covered her eyes, police said. The burglars ransacked the home, as if looking for something. Olsen was not injured.
Police said Olsen told them she didn’t know what the burglars sought.
No one has been arrested in connection with the Oct. 5 burglary.
Detectives with Waterloo and Cedar Falls police departments worked the kidnapping and burglary cases, and their investigations brought them to Willock.
Along with Cole’s eyewitness identification, cellular telephone records placed Willock in the Cedar Falls area at the time of the crime, prosecutors said.
Investigators tied Willock to the Waterloo home invasion after finding his DNA on a milk jug at the apartment, Walton said. But defense attorney’s appear ready to argue he had been a guest at the apartment 10 days earlier.
Still, by the end of November, the Black Hawk County area officers didn’t have the probable cause they needed to search Willock’s Iowa City home, and no one had been arrested in the crimes.
That’s when they got wind of a Muscatine-area investigation into Willock’s brother, Richard.
Courtesy photo Kim Menke, WCF Courier Staff PhotographerRichard Willock, who is part owner of the Press Box nightclub where David works, lives at the same Weeber Street home as David.
Muscatine police said Richard Willock illegally used the name and credit history of former Hawkeye football star Tavian Banks to buy a 1999 Chrysler LHS from a dealership there in 2000.
Waterloo and Cedar Falls police didn’t have a warrant to search the Weeber Street house, but Muscatine Det. Matthew Schwarz, who was looking into the identity theft case, did.
The Muscatine detective allowed a Waterloo investigator and two Cedar Falls officers to come along during the Nov. 25 search.
A 14-man SWAT team from the Iowa City Police Department secured the house, and the investigators started their search.
Schwarz said a handgun was found under David Willock’s pillow, and another weapon was located in the bedroom of Luther Hammett Jr.. who would later be charged in the Oct. 26 abduction.
But in November police learned they didn’t have the authority to seize the guns, and the weapons were later returned.
Taking the witness stand during Friday’s hearing, Waterloo Police Investigator Scott Lake said they found a receipt on a dresser in Richard Willock’s bedroom. It was from a nearby Wal-Mart and listed Duck-brand duct tape and a number of ski masks as the items purchased.
The date on the receipt was the same day as the Waterloo home invasion, Lake said.
Officers didn’t have the authority to take the receipt, and Richard Willock refused to surrender it, officers said.
Police did photograph it and then went to the store where they obtained a security camera tape showing the transaction.
Defense attorneys are asking the court to throw out the photo of the receipt, the store videotape and other documents found at the Iowa City house.
Police also found marijuana stems and seeds along with a vacuum sealing machine similar to those often used by people in the drug trade to package narcotics, Schwarz said.
Both Willocks and Hammett had been arrested for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and violation of the state’s drug tax stamp act in August after officers found 21.7 pounds of the drug. The case was later dismissed.
© Copyright 2013, Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier
Rhiannon Marie Olsen was born November 8, 1980. She was buried at the Fredsville Evangelical Lutheran Church Cemetery in Grundy County, Iowa. Alonzo Nakia Quinn was born May 6, 1975.
No one has ever been charged in Olsen and Quinn’s deaths.
If you have any information about this case, please contact the Waterloo Police Department at 319-291-4333, ext. 3, or the Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers at 855-300-TIPS (8477). Anyone with information leading to an arrest is eligible for a $1,000 reward.
Drakesville in Davis County, IA
Drakesville, IA (Davis County)
Eldon, IA (Wapello County)
Case # 84-01854
April 13, 1984
Courtesy photo Ottumwa CourierOn Friday, April 13, 1984, the body of 20-year-old Justin Alfred Hook, Jr., was found outside near his burned-out mobile home in rural Drakesville in southeast Iowa. Firefighters discovered Hook’s body about 4:30 p.m. after they’d extinguished the fire.
Hook had been killed by blows to the head.
When police went to tell Hook’s mother — Sarah Link, 41, of Farmington — about her son’s death, they were unable to locate her.
The following Monday, April 16, a farmer found Mrs. Link’s body on a hilly wooded section of his land just north of Eldon. She, too, had died from blunt force trauma to the head.
Eldon in Wapello County, IA
Authorities then launched an intensive search for Hook’s fiancée, 19-year-old Tina Marie Lade of Ottumwa, to whom he’d recently become engaged. Hook had given her an engagement ring the previous week for her 19th birthday. Lade, however, also had gone missing.
Then on Wednesday, April 18, trained police dogs discovered Miss Lade’s body in a ravine about a half-mile from where Mrs. Link’s body was found. Lade had died from blows to the head as well.
Tina Marie Lade
Authorities believed all three victims were killed at about the same time, but the exact time and location of the slayings wasn’t known.
Eight Division of Criminal Investigation agents were sent to Wapello County to investigate the murders, and hundreds of leads followed.
Drakesville residents — who’d known Hook only casually — referred to him as “polite” and a “nice boy.”
One year after the murders and despite some initial “strong suspects,” then-Wapello County Sheriff Bud Erwin said there had been no new breaks and no new leads for months. Erwin said though police continued their investigation, so far they had been unable to determine a motive for the bludgeoning deaths.
No murder weapon was recovered, and tests showed no traces of drugs in the bodies.
When the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation established a Cold Case Unit in late 2009, the murders of Link, Lade, and Hook were three of approximately 150 cases listed on the Cold Case Unit’s new website as those the DCI hoped to solve using latest advancements in DNA technology. Although the Cold Case Unit closed down in December 2011 due to lack of funding, the DCI continues to investigate the cases where progress already was being made. They also follow up on any new leads provided in these cases.
All three murders remain unsolved.
Courtesy photo findagrave.comSarah Lee (Carlisle) Link was born Jan. 8, 1943, at Fort Madison to Delbert and Mildred Jones Carlisle.
She was survived by her husband, Rex of Farmington; a daughter, Cynthia L. Moyes of Iowa City; two sons, James Hook of Ottumwa and John Crutcher at home; three stepsons, Steven, Anthony and Joshua Link of Quincy, Ill.; two grandsons; her mother and stepfather, Mildred and Joe Michael of Selma; a grandmother, Heldred Jones of Keosauqua; two sisters, Elizabeth Stone of Douds and Mary Jane Harem of Marshalltown; and two brothers, Paul Carlisle of Hermiston Ore., and Thomas Carlisle of Whittier, Calif. She was preceded in death by a son, Justin Alfred Hook, Jr.
Services were held Friday, April 20, 1984, at the Pedrick Funeral Home in Douds with the Rev. Charles Stevens of Burlington officiating. Sarah Link was buried in Iowaville Cemetery at Selma in Van Buren County.
Courtesy photo findagrave.comJustin Alfred Hook, Jr., was born April 10, 1964, in Iowa City to Justin Hook, Sr., and Sarah Lee Link Hook. He spent most of his life in LaHarpe, Ill. He married Mary Kay Ponnies on Jan. 17, 1981. They divorced in February 1984.
He lived on Route 9 in Bloomfield, and had just become engaged to marry Tina Marie Lade of Ottumwa. The couple shared the same birthday — with Hook exactly one year older — and likely shared the same death date, despite the discrepancies in dates on their gravestones. (The exact date of death could not be determined.)
Hook’s survivors included a son, Justin David of Belleville, Ill.; his stepfather, Rex Link of Farmington; his father of Iowa City; a sister, Cynthia L. Moyes of Iowa City; two brothers, James Hook of Ottumwa and John Crutcher of Farmington; his grandparents, Mildred and Joe Michael of Selma and Clara Hook of Iowa City; and his great-grandmother, Hildred Jones of Keosauqua.
Courtesy photo findagrave.comServices were held at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 17, at the Pedrick Funeral Home at Douds with the Rev. Charles Stevens of Burlington officiating. He was buried in the Iowaville Cemetery at Selma.
Tina Marie Lade was buried in Fiedler Cemetery in Floris, Ia., in Wapello County.
If you have any information about this unsolved triple murder, please contact the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation at (515) 725-6010, e-mail dciinfo@dps.state.ia.us, or contact the Wapello County Sheriff’s Office at (641) 684-4350.
SIOUX CITY COLD CASES
By Jody Ewing
May 20, 2004
A snowy haze covered the city the morning of Dec. 3, 1974, as Harriet Isom and her next door neighbor drove across town to her son’s home at 1117 Morningside Ave. Something wasn’t right: For the second day in a row, neither 27-year-old Ernest “Billy” Isom Jr. nor his roommate Jesse Hanni, 26, showed up for their jobs at Port Neal Station where they worked as boilermakers.
Billy’s father, Ernest “Big Ernie” Isom Sr., who worked at Port Neal as the boiler supervisor, called his wife and asked if she would go check on the home where the two men and Billy’s girlfriend Freta Bostic lived.
As Harriet entered the front door of the large two-story frame house, it was dark and eerily quiet. Walking through a hall and into the dining room, grim suspicions turned to reality when she discovered the 24-year-old Freta lying face down on the floor between the dining room and the adjacent living room, her arms tucked beneath her pregnant body. Barefoot and clad only in a flower-print robe, the swinging door between the rooms stood half open between her legs. She’d been shot once in the back.
Looking through the doorway and into the adjoining living room, Harriet discovered another gruesome scene: Jesse, fully clothed and still wearing his winter jacket, was propped up against a door to the hall. He’d been shot once through the back and once behind the left ear.
Then came Harriet’s most unsettling discovery – her son lay naked and face down on the floor, his legs across a mattress that he and Freta used as a bed. He’d been killed in a hail of gunfire, shot twice in the back and three times in the head.
Saturday, November 23, 1974
Jesse Hanni
After an exhausting drive home to Red Lodge, Mont., Jesse aimed to clear his head. Under a vast blue Montana sky, he took off walking and then ventured across a field to where his father and brother Ray were working. Jesse seemed tired and nervous.
“He said they were after him,” Ray said of the last time he saw his brother alive.
“The man” was on his trail, Jesse told a close friend that same weekend, referring to a drug dealer who Ray believes he crossed in a deal.
“He tried to tell me what was going on, Ray said. “But he didn’t tell me enough.”
The mystery still haunts him today.
Thursday, November 28, 1974
Billy Isom
That warm afternoon, Big Ernie treated Billy and Freta, as well as Jesse and his girlfriend, Susan, to a big Thanksgiving celebration. Harriet had gone to California to be with her ill brother. Big Ernie was excited to have his only son and future daughter-in-law home for the holiday. The couple, along with Jesse, had just moved to Sioux City the month before and rented a house together.
Freta Bostic
As they enjoyed a traditional meal complete with Jesse’s homemade gravy, they talked with excitement about the upcoming birth of Billy and Freta’s child. With just a few months to go until the birth, the couple was counting the days.
The next day, the group would say goodbye to Susan, who was traveling back to Colorado to wrap up some personal business and then rejoin the others in Sioux City.
Saturday, November 30, 1974
New friends from The Jet, a downtown pub known for live music, bikers and an open culture, had partied hard with the three, leaving the home a mess, police said.
Sunday, December 1, 1974
During the quiet evening hours, a friend stopped by, but left when no one answered the door. Two plates at Big Ernie’s home sat cold that night when Billy and Freta didn’t show up for dinner as promised.
Monday, December 2, 1974
Kent Hansen of Bronson was concerned when he didn’t receive his rent check. He’d rented the two-story house the month before to the three newcomers, though strangely enough, Jesse’s girlfriend had put up the deposit. He knew the men had good jobs at Port Neal, and didn’t know why they hadn’t dropped off the check.
It’d been snowing for a while, and as he drove up Morningside Avenue he noticed the blue Chevy parked in their driveway. Snow covered the vehicle and there were no tire tracks behind it. No footprints led toward or away from the house. They must be out of town, he thought, and quietly drove away without going to the door.
Tuesday, December 3, 1974
After they discovered the bodies, Harriet and her neighbor Dorothy Stewart fled across the street to use a phone.
When the call came into the Sioux City police station, off-duty Officer Norman Kronick, who was closest to the scene, arrived first and secured the scene while waiting for on-duty officers. Among them were Lt. Melvin Lafrenz and Sgt. Ron Shuck of the detective bureau, Capt. Lester Zerschling, Sgt. William Peterson of the identification bureau, and Sgt. Tony Bilunos. Few shifts had gone by before every detective on the Sioux City police force had some assignment connected to the case.
‘They Knew the Perpetrator’
“When you have a situation like this, a thing in a house in the middle of the night, that narrows the field tremendously,” said Sioux City Police Chief Joe Frisbie, an officer at the time who worked as a lead investigator on the case. “The people that we were focusing on were people that they knew. There’s no doubt in my mind they knew the perpetrator.”
Chief Joe Frisbie
Authorities believed from the beginning the killings were drug-related. Both men, Frisbie said, were shot “very much in execution style,” something typically associated with a ‘hit.’
“They were partying with some pretty well-known folks that we knew were involved in narcotics traffic at that time,” said Russell White, Jr., the other lead investigator on the case. “Marijuana and traces of harder drugs had been found in the house, and someone already had come forward and admitted to ‘ripping off’ some pot from one of the victims the night of the party.”
The way they were shot added credence to the theory.
“In addition to being shot multiple times, they were shot behind the left ear,” said White, now a vice president with MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company in Des Moines. “It wasn’t a crime of passion, and robbery wasn’t a motive. The only motivation we believed for the actual killing was that somebody wanted them dead.”
“We think that they were expecting some kinds of problems, too,” Frisbie said. “They were going armed all the time, pretty heavily. They actually were carrying high caliber handguns in their lunchboxes and things like that.”
Russ White
Police found Jesse’s .357-caliber revolver in a lunchbox inside his 1968 blue Chevrolet that he had parked in the driveway.
Theories abound: an unsuspecting Jesse brought home the killer after a night of partying at The Jet on Sunday; the hit was ordered by a drug dealer in Colorado or Montana; the men had created anti-union sentiments at the Port and co-workers were unhappy.
“They’d also been involved in some anti-union activities at the plant… That was rumored to have not gone well with some of the co-workers,” said White.
Though it wasn’t determined if there were one or more assailants, more than one caliber of handgun casings were found at the scene. The victims had all been killed with a .380-caliber semi-automatic weapon. No one in the neighborhood saw anything unusual that night and no one heard the gunshots.
Tracking down suspects entailed a lot of teamwork and travel. The victims had lived in Sioux City only a month and had permanent addresses from three different states: Isom from Arkansas City, Kan., Hanni from Red Lodge and Freta Bostic from Greensboro, N.C. The three additionally had worked in Steamboat Springs, Colo., shortly before their move to Sioux City.
“These young people were very traveled and they were from all different parts of the country,” said White. “They dropped out of sight for about six weeks before they showed up in Sioux City. So we theorized that maybe they were hiding out and then just reappeared up in Sioux City, thinking they could blend in with the woodwork up here and not be found.”
It’s now obvious that they didn’t.
Wednesday, December 4, 1974
An afternoon press conference holds promise for Sioux City police officers, Capt. Frank O’Keefe of the SCPD Detective Bureau tells an excited crowd of local media. The first lead has already taken officers Frisbie and White to El Paso, Texas, and on to Carlsbad, N.M., where a Moville couple is being held in jail for questioning in connection with the killings.
The man — a former co-worker of Isom and Hanni — also had been employed by Ebasco at Port Neal and had abruptly quit his job on Monday, Dec. 2, the same day that Dr. Thomas L. Coriden, Woodbury County medical examiner, said the victims died.
O’Keefe said the man and his girlfriend left the Sioux City area with little or no notice at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, approximately 10 hours before the murder victims were found. “They were friends of the victims,” said O’Keefe.
And while there had been recent labor trouble at Port Neal, “I don’t think the slayings were labor-related,” O’Keefe said at the conference.
Running out the leads
Three Victims:“This case took us all over the country,” said Frisbie, who spent his 30th birthday in Carlsbad, where the couple from Moville were given polygraph tests. “We thought the gentleman might have had knowledge or was somehow involved, but that didn’t pan out exactly the way we thought.”
Nor did a phone interview with Hanni’s former girlfriend — who had returned to Colorado shortly before the homicides — conducted by Lt. Melvin Lafrenz of the detective bureau.
“Melvin Lafrenz was on the phone with an officer in Steamboat and the officer was with the woman,” White said. “I recall Lafrenz, who’s now deceased, telling us that they had found the woman and she ‘didn’t know anything.’ I never believed that and still don’t today.”
No doubt the threesome had developed some bad relationships in their travels; Freta was “involved with some credit card scams. They’d been using phony credit cards and were involved in buying and selling plastic,” White said. In addition, according to an anonymous telephone call allegedly placed to a Sioux City television station, Hanni had earlier that year testified in federal court in Denver against a major drug kingpin.
Shortly after Frisbie and White returned from New Mexico, the phone rang at Sioux City Police headquarters. Someone from eastern Iowa had seen a report of the homicides on the evening news. They said they had information.
“There were some people from eastern Iowa that had witnessed the falling out of one of these [victims] with this person we wanted to interview out west,” Frisbie said. “There was some bad blood between them and this other group of people.”
‘Affront to our sworn oath’
Officers and detectives continued to run down leads, conducting hundreds of interviews with friends and family members from Montana to Kansas to Oklahoma and North Carolina. The exhaustive investigation forced Sioux City Police to contact an FBI agent in Colorado to conduct a follow-up interview with a “person of interest,” who they believed knew more than she gave up in the earlier interview via phone.
Lt. Lisa Claeys
If the case took place today it would be handled differently, said Lt. Lisa Claeys of Sioux City’s Investigative Services Bureau.
“It’s risky because you’re missing information that only the officers who worked the actual case would have,” Claeys said of courtesy interviews. “When somebody lies to you, you’re going to know because you have the details of the case, whereas somebody who’s doing a courtesy interview has no inclination. They have to base it on face value, and it’s just not a good idea.”
But the Sioux City officers already were running ragged.
“I just lived it for weeks at a time. And you couldn’t do anything else,” said Frisbie, who in addition to serving as Chief of Police teaches criminal justice courses at University of South Dakota and University of Bellevue, Neb. “So basically the bureau was without two people, because the workload went on and we had to run this thing down. Every lead we had, we worked to its end until there was nowhere else to go.”
When the case started to become an anniversary thing, Frisbie said they’d run something in the paper. Someone usually would see it and call, and new detectives assigned to the case went out for additional follow-up work.
“It took an awful long time to follow all the leads out,” said Frisbie, who, like many others, has strong suspicions about Hanni’s girlfriend.
The case — never resolved to his satisfaction — is still open and reviewed on a regular basis. And, the state also has the new computerized file that can search through the DNA database.
“We collected a lot of physical evidence at the time – all kinds of things,” Frisbie said.
Police still have all the evidence, including bloody clothes, bullets, blood samples, carpet pieces and crime scene photographs.
“There is no statute of limitations on murder,” Claeys said.
White, who left the police department in 1980 and served as Woodbury County Sheriff from 1981 to 1988, said the case is very much prevalent in his mind and he believes it eventually will be solved.
“Joe Frisbie and I were about as dedicated as two young detectives could have been and worked every case we were assigned to the max,” said White. “We took this case especially serious because we had determined early on that someone had come into our city and committed these murders, and that was a personal affront to our sworn oath.”
This article first appeared in the Weekender on May 20, 2004.
Police Chief Joe Frisbie retired from the Sioux City Police Department on March 31, 2009.
If you have any information about this crime, please contact the Sioux City Police Department at 712-279-6390.
Eldon in Wapello County
Wapello County in Iowa
Homicide:
Helen Morrow
55 YOA
Eldon, IA (Wapello County)
August 12, 1980
Mrs. Helen Morrow was found lying on a bed in a first floor room of her fire-ravaged two-story home in Eldon, IA, on August 12, 1980. An autopsy report showed she died of smoke inhalation.
Triple Homicide
Sarah Link, 41 YOA
Justin Hook, 20 YOA
Tina Lade, 19 YOA
Drakesville, IA and Eldon, IA (Davis & Wapello Counties)
Case # 84-01854
April 13 – 18, 1984
On Friday, April 13, 1984, the body of 20-year-old Justin Hook, Jr., was found outside near his burned-out mobile home in rural Drakesville. Hook had been killed by blows to the head. The following Monday, April 16, a farmer found the body of Hook’s mother, Sarah Link, 41, on a hilly wooded section of his land just north of Eldon. She, too, had died from blunt force trauma to the head. On Wednesday, April 18, trained police dogs discovered the body of Hook’s fiancee, Tina Marie Lade, 19, in a ravine about a half-mile from where Mrs. Link’s body had been found. Miss Lade had died from blows to the head as well.
If you have information you think might help solve any of these cases, please contact the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation at (515) 725-6010 or e-mail dciinfo@dps.state.ia.us.
Marshall County in Iowa
*Please Note: The cases listed below are within Marshall County but may fall under a city police department’s jurisdiction. They are included here for cross-reference purposes. More specific information may be found on each victim’s individual page.
Earl, Mary and James Hardy
Triple Homicide
James Hardy, 61
Mary Hardy, 58
Earl Hardy, 29
Van Cleve, Iowa
Marshall County
June 5, 1910
On June 5, 1910, nearly the entire James Hardy family was viciously beaten to death in their home. Murdered were James Hardy 61, his wife Mary, 58, and their disabled son Earl, 29. While suspicion fell on the Hardy’s youngest son, Raymond, 19, he was never charged in their slayings.
Undetermined
Helen Mae Bown
62 YOA
Iowa River in Tama County
Marshalltown/Le Grand, IA
Marshall and Tama Counties
Found: October 31, 1973
Went Missing/DOD: October 7, 1973
Mrs. Helen Mae Bown — a 62-year-old widow who resided in Marshalltown, Iowa — went missing from her home on Sunday, October 7, 1973. Three weeks later on Wednesday afternoon, October 31, state agents discovered her body in the Iowa River in Tama County about seven miles east of Marshalltown and two miles northeast of Le Grand.
Peggy Cottrell
Missing Person:
Peggy Ann Cottrell
Age at Report: 66
Missing From: Marshalltown, IA (Marshall County)
Missing Since: May 26, 2001
Peggy Ann Cottrell resided at the Southridge Nursing Home in Marshalltown, Iowa. A relative dropped her off at the facility at approximately 6:30 p.m. on May 26, 2001, and Cottrell was last seen running away from the home only minutes later. A fisherman discovered Cottrell’s purse along the banks of the Iowa River several weeks after she was reported missing. Her ID and cash were inside the handbag.
Ila Mae Clark
Homicide:
Ila Mae Clark
73 YOA
116 Iowa Ave. W.
Marshalltown, IA
August 28, 2001
A few days shy of her 74th birthday, Ila Mae Clark was found on the floor of her Marshalltown, Iowa home, lying in a pool of blood. The active senior had been brutally beaten to death.
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