Willie Junior Brocks
Willie Junior Brocks
49 YOA
400 block of 15th St. SE
Cedar Rapids, IA
Linn County
November 27, 1999
About 7:15 a.m. on Saturday, November 27, 1999, 49-year-old Willie Junior Brocks was found in front of a home in the 400 block of 15th St. SE in Cedar Rapids. He had been shot in the head.
Linn County in Iowa
Brocks resided at 702 L St. SW in Cedar Rapids, and according to Brenna Griffith, the mother of six of his children, Brocks had friends and relatives in southeast Cedar Rapids and it wouldn’t have been unusual for him to be there. Brocks and Griffith were together from 1977 to 1994, and though they did not marry, she said he regularly saw his children, ages 6 to 20 (Cedar Rapids Gazette, Nov. 29, 1999).
In addition to his children with Griffith, Brocks had two other children.
According to the Gazette, Brocks had a criminal past — including a 1991 arrest for selling crack cocaine to an undercover police officer — but Griffith said she didn’t believe he’d recently been in trouble with the law.
If you have any information about this case, please contact the Cedar Rapids Police Department at (319) 286-5400.
Jamar Magett
Jamar Magett
19 YOA
1400 block of Fifth Ave. SE
Cedar Rapids, IA
Linn County
May 10, 1999
Linn County in IowaJamar Magett, 19, of Chicago, Ill., was shot in the forehead and chest while standing in the 1400 block of Fifth Avenue SE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on May 10, 1999.
Paul Gilbert, 18, of Cedar Rapids — the younger brother of cold case victim Tyrone Gilbert — was charged and tried in Magett’s murder but acquitted by a Linn County jury in September 1999.
A post in an AETV Cold Case Files community forum alleges Tyrone Gilbert was murdered by the Gangster Disciples gang, who allegedly were friends of Magett.
Willie Junior Brocks, 49, was killed the same year as Jamar Magett and in the same block where Tyrone Gilbert was slain. Brocks’s case also remains unsolved.
If you have any information regarding Jamar Magett’s unsolved murder please contact the Cedar Rapids Police Department at (319) 286-5396 or Iowa Cold Cases via our Contact form.
Tyrone Gilbert
Tyrone Gilbert
28 YOA
412 15th St. SE
Cedar Rapids, IA
Linn County
June 21, 2001
On Thursday, June 21, 2001, Tyrone Gilbert, 28, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa was shot to death on the front porch at 412 15th St. SE, just four blocks from his home.
A post in an AETV Cold Case Files community forum alleges Gilbert was murdered by the Gangster Disciples gang. The Disciples allegedly were friends of Jamar Magett, 19, of Chicago, Ill., a Chicagoan with gang affiliations who was fatally shot in the forehead and chest while standing in the 1400 block of Fifth Avenue SE in Cedar Rapids on May 10, 1999. Tyrone Gilbert’s younger brother Paul Gilbert, 18, was charged with Magett’s murder, but in September 1999 a Linn County jury acquitted the younger Gilbert in the slaying.
Courtesy photo Mark Christian, Cedar Rapids GazetteIn a June 22, 2001 Cedar Rapids Gazette article, a woman who refused to give her name to the newspaper said Gilbert had stopped at her home in the 1400 block of Fifth Avenue SE the Wednesday before the shooting and told her he was afraid to go home because of “problems” with men who’d recently moved to the neighborhood from Chicago.
The Gazette also quoted Wellington Heights Neighborhood Association President Russ Oviatt as saying, “There’s a lot of worried neighbors, a lot of concern there may be some payback.”
The night Gilbert was shot, Aymanda Weber — one of those in the 412 15th St. SE home where Gilbert was shot — said Gilbert had rapped on the door but no one opened it. The 18-year-old Weber said she’d been sitting on the living room sofa at about 1:35 a.m. when she heard rapid footsteps outside, followed by what sounded like an argument. There was a shot, she said, followed a shout and then two or three more shots.
The teen said she heard sounds of groaning and then someone knocked on the home’s window. Just as she pulled back the curtains, she saw Gilbert fall onto the porch.
Police found Gilbert — who wore a gray shirt and blue basketball-style shorts — dead on the home’s porch with two gunshot wounds to his abdomen.
While witness descriptions varied, most said they’d seen a black man wearing a sleeveless white shirt and baggy black pants running from the scene.
Courtesy photo Mark Christian, Cedar Rapids GazetteTwo witnesses said they’d heard a man saying “Hold on, hold on,” followed by another voice cursing just before the gunshots. Witnesses also told police they’d seen three men running from the murder scene after shots were fired, including the man in the baggy pants who entered a nearby residence and then left again a short time later wearing a different set of clothing.
In addition to his younger brother Paul’s legal entanglements, Tyrone Gilbert also had his own share of encounters with the criminal court system. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported a record that included drug and assault charges dating back to 1990, and single counts of theft and burglary.
His mother Linda, however, chose to remember the good times and focus on the ways in which her son was trying to get his life turned around.
He’d been born prematurely, she told the Gazette, but loved to eat, loved to work out and loved his job at Buffalo Wild Wings. And despite his big size, she said, he was “just like a teddy bear.”
He’d attended the Cedar Rapids schools before getting mixed up with a “bad crowd” in the Wellington Heights neighborhood, Mrs. Gilbert said, but had gone on to finish his GED and had attended one year of college at Kirkwood Community College. He also was a member of the New Testament Deliverance Church and often attended services there with her.
Prior to his murder, he’d been in the process of putting together a new family grill for the Fourth of July. It still lay partially assembled outside the family’s home as they prepared for his upcoming funeral.
A week after Gilbert’s murder, Cedar Rapids Police Lt. Bernie Walther announced that officers had executed a search warrant on a 49-year-old man seen running from the murder scene, and that in addition to collecting a brown coat, white T-shirt, blue sweat pants and sport shoes, they also had taken hair samples and a cheek swab — normally collected for DNA testing purposes. The suspect had been photographed and his hands also tested for gunpowder residue.
The day before Gilbert’s funeral, more than 250 people — spilling out into the foyer — packed the Murdoch-Linwood Funeral Home to pay their respects to Gilbert. As mourners passed by his casket, they tucked gifts in around him: roses, photos, teddy bears, a small ceramic angel.
“The city has maintained we have no problem,” Pastor Aaron Doolin of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church told the congregation. “We have a problem. It’s sin.”
During the funeral services on Wednesday, June 27, Pastor Craig Brown of the New Testament Deliverance Church told Gilbert’s friends to “cover [Gilbert's family members] with the blood of Jesus” and to “give them comfort and peace,” as they all stretched out arms towards Gilbert’s family.
“Do not take revenge,” Brown told them. “Do not try to get even. Love one another. Pray for one another. Encourage one another.”
A young boy sang “Amazing Grace” while nearby easels displayed photos of Gilbert with his siblings and friends, playing ball in a Jane Boyd league and his GED certificate.
That same day, the Gazette quoted police as saying there were no known links between Gilbert’s murder and the acquittal of his younger brother Paul in Jamar Magett’s shooting death.
Both Gilbert’s and Magett’s cases remain unsolved, as does that of Willie Junior Brocks, 49, who was shot and killed November 27, 1999, on the same block where Gilbert was slain.
Tyrone Gilbert was born November 22, 1972. He was survived by his parents and four younger siblings.
Memorial services were held June 27 at 2 p.m. at the Murdoch-Linwood Funeral Home, with burial following in the Linwood Cemetery.
If you have any information about Tyrone Gilbert’s unsolved murder, please contact the Cedar Rapids Police Department at (319) 286-5396 or Iowa Cold Cases via our Contact form.
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