Double Homicide
Willard Charles Woodring, 42
Richard B. Buchanan, 49
Case # 6000902
Hawkeye Hotel
Keokuk, Iowa (Lee County)
October 9, 1960
Case summary by Nancy Bowers
In 1960, 42-year-old Willard Charles Woodring owned a “rooming house” — formerly known as the Hawkeye Hotel — in seedy downtown Keokuk, Iowa.
Woodring was no stranger to criminal activity. He was acquitted at a coroner’s inquest in the 1951 death of a Peoria, Illinois, man and fined 200 dollars in 1957 for “keeping a disorderly house” in Quincy, Illinois.
 Richard Buchanan |
On Sunday night, October 9, 1960, Woodring was in the two-story house with four women who “resided” there and a customer, 49-year-old Richard B. Buchanan, a service station owner from Green Rock, Illinois. One of the women was St. Louis resident Betty Andrews, 22, described by the Ames Daily Tribune as a “young and shapely” 5-foot 2, blue-eyed brunette who claimed to be Woodring’s “fiancée.”
A male in his 20s with black hair and wearing a black leather jacket knocked on the door. With him was a young red-head in a lavender dress. The male asked to see Woodring and Andrews later told police, “It didn’t sound funny. It sounded as if he really knew him.”
Betty Andrews let them into the house and took them to Woodring’s apartment where he and Buchanan were talking. Woodring invited them in. The male pulled out a .38 caliber automatic pistol and forced Woodring, Buchanan, and Andrews into the kitchen and bound and gagged them. The male asked repeatedly, “Where do you keep the money?”
The couple went to the front of the house looking for cash. Woodring freed himself and attacked the male when he returned to the kitchen. While the two men struggled, Andrews stripped the tape off her wrists and ran from the room. Buchanan, too, had gotten free and tried to flee. The male robber shot both men in the back of the head at close range. The couple fled the house just before a call to police reporting the shootings.
 Courtesy photo AP/Cedar Rapids Gazette While the murder of Willard Woodring and Richard Buchanan netted the robbers only $200, police later found $45,000 in the trunk of Woodring's pink Cadillac after Woodring's "fiancée" tipped them off. |
The robbery yielded only $200 from a cigar box on the kitchen table. Woodring still had $600 in his pockets, while a strong box in another room contained $1,600. Acting on information from Betty Andrews, police also discovered $45,000 in 50- and 100-dollar bills in the trunk of Woodring’s pink Cadillac.
The robbers seemed to know that Woodring kept large amounts of cash. Law enforcement speculated that the male panicked and fired the shots and the two then fled without looking for more money.
Keokuk Police asked the Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation to assist in the investigation. No fingerprints of the couple were found inside the house. There were few signs of a struggle in the kitchen and authorities said that the couple “seemed to know what they were doing.”
The other three women were identified as Dorothy Madison, 27, of Peoria, Illinois; Barbara Sullivan, 31, of Phoenix, Arizona; and Jean Lee, 21, of Bloomington, Illinois. They were charged with “inhabiting a disorderly house,” waived preliminary hearings, and were bound over to the grand jury. Each was placed under $2,000 bond.
Betty Andrews and the other women were shown photographs of Michael Walton Layton, 21, and Nancy Fordyce, 19, of Indianapolis, who committed a murder while robbing a service station in their home town and were early suspects in the Keokuk murders. However, the four women said Layton was not the man who shot Woodring and Buchanan.
A three-state search for the “bandits” was undertaken. On October 14 — only five days after the double homicide — Keokuk Police Chief George Jones told a Mason City newspaper that the trail of the two had grown “as cold as any I’ve ever seen.”
Sources:
IDPS Division of Criminal Investigation
“2 Sought in Iowa Slayings,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, October 10, 1960.
“4 women may hold key to 2 slayings,” Mason City Globe-Gazette, October 13, 1960.
“Car of slain Keokuk man yields $44,000,” Ames Daily Tribune, October 11, 1960.
“Keokuk,” Mason City Globe-Gazette, October 14, 1960.
“Linked to 2 Deaths at Keokuk,” Cedar Rapid Gazette, October 19, 1960.
“Police Turn Up Clues,” Estherville Daily News, October 11, 1960.
“Seek Couple in Slayings at Keokuk,” Estherville Daily News, October 10, 1960.
“Seek two in Keokuk murder,” Estherville Daily News, October 10, 1960.
“Slayer Knew One Victim, Police Think,” Carroll Daily Times Herald, October 12, 1960.
“Slayer of Keokuk Men Still at Large,” Estherville Daily News,” October 12, 1960.
“Suspect in Keokuk killings is eliminated,” Ames Daily Tribune, October 14, 1960.
“Two Clues Turn Up in Slaying Case,” Oelwein Daily Register, October 11, 1960.
“Was Slayer Acquaintance of Victim?” Cedar Rapids Gazette, October 12, 1960.
“Woman tells of Keokuk murders,” Ames Daily Tribune, October 12, 1960.
Page last updated: February 16, 2010
