Angela Marie Hennes
SOLVED HOMICIDE
Angela Marie Hennes
41 YOA
Davenport, IA
Scott County
Case # 07-01804
Est. Date of Death: January 11, 2007
Body Found: January 13, 2007
Case Summary By Jody Ewing
Those who knew her usually described Angela Marie Hennes as polite. Cordial. Likeable. Someone who had the capacity to do almost anything she wanted with her life.
JUSTICE FOR ANGELA HENNES
On April 17, 2012, Chad Michael Lee Welsh was found guilty in Scott County District Court of first-degree murder in the January 2007 death of Angela Marie Hennes in Davenport.
Investigators linked Welsh to Hennes’ murder through DNA. For the brutal crime, Welsh will serve the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Click here to read a Quad City Times article about the jury’s verdict.
Update
Police say DNA has helped find Angela Hennes’ killer.
Scott County authorities announced June 8, 2011, that they had charged Chad Michael Lee Welsh, 33, with Angela Hennes’ murder, a break after more than four years.
Authorities linked DNA from the 2007 crime scene and matched it to Welsh’s DNA. Download the Arrest Warrant
Welsh was brought from a federal prison in Missouri, where he was serving time for child pornography, to the Scott County Jail to await trial on first-degree murder, a charge punishable in Iowa by life in prison without parole. Read More
Born November 4, 1965, in Omaha, Neb., Angela “Angie” Hennes had attended Davenport Catholic and public schools and graduated from high school in 1985. She’d gone on to attend Scott Community College, and eventually given birth to two sons, Matthew and Daniel.
Scott County in Iowa
Davenport in Scott County
Somewhere, though, a shift took place in her life and she’d begun using drugs. Those with whom she’d started to socialize were only too happy to suggest an alternative way to pay for the highly addictive drugs: sex. Even her boyfriend thought it would be okay, and often could be seen walking with her along the streets between Hennes’ 411 W. 4th St. residence at the Ledo Apartments and Myrtle Street, or at a safe distance on the other side of the street.
Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2007, turned out to be an unseasonably warm Davenport day, the temperature reaching 50 degrees. Both Angie and her boyfriend went out that evening, and no one would ever see Angie alive again.
Ten days later on Jan. 13 at approximately 4 p.m., the 41-year-old’s badly burned body was found face down in a fetal position in a farm field off Seven Sisters Road in rural Scott County. A vehicle’s tire tracks were discovered nearby.
The boyfriend told police he last saw Hennes heading to a grocery store about 9 p.m. on Jan. 3, and that a little while later he may have seen her get into a vehicle.
Pathology reports indicated Hennes had been dead two to three days. Toxicology reports showed no drugs or alcohol in her system. Cause of death was strangulation.
WQAD-TV Channel 8 reports on an arrest in Angela Hennes’ unsolved murder case.
Air date: June 8, 2011
Gerald Bolt, the farmer who discovered Hennes’ body on his property, estimated he’d last checked that area of his property on Wednesday, January 10.
Hennes’ cell phone had last gone off January 3, 2007 — the day she disappeared.
Sheriff’s investigators, with help from Davenport and Rock Island police, questioned many people on both sides of the Mississippi River, but had been unable to zero in on a suspect until June 2011 when authorities linked DNA from the 2007 crime scene to Welsh’s DNA.
Killer being eyed in two other Iowa slayings
In addition to Hennes’ murder, Welsh is also being eyed in two other Davenport slayings.
In a Quad-City Times article dated April 23, 2012, Davenport police Lt. Gene Wall said Hennes’ slaying was in some ways similar to two other women’s killings.
On Monday, November 12, 2001 around 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 “Bonnie” Nicholson of Rock Island, Illinois.
Nicholson’s body — clothed in a sweatshirt, shorts and socks — lay partially submerged in Mississippi River backwater near Credit Island about 75 feet from the road. She, like Hennes, had been strangled.
Three days before Christmas in 2007, a couple returning home for the evening found Agnes “Aggie” McFedries Kennedy, 51, in the north alley in the 1800 block of West 8th Street.
Police received the call about 8:30 p.m., and the former teacher’s body was transported to Davenport’s Genesis Medical Center and pronounced dead. She, too, had been strangled.
In December 2008, Det. Scott Williams from the Quad Cities Crime Stoppers announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Kennedy’s killer. The Crime Stoppers board of directors provided the maximum of $1,000; the family would provide the other $9,000.
Nicholson’s and Kennedy’s murders remain unsolved.
About Angela Hennes
Angela “Angie” Marie Hennes was born November 4, 1965, in Omaha, Neb., to William and Linda Hennes. She attended Davenport Catholic and public schools and graduated from high school in 1985.
She went on to attend Scott Community College, and had two sons, Matthew and Daniel.
In addition to her sons, Angela was survived by her parents, William and Linda Hennes of Davenport; a brother, Jeff Hennes; grandmother, Doris Ricketts; and many aunts, uncles and cousins.
Angela was buried at the Fairport Cemetery in Fairport, Muscatine County, Iowa.
Sources:
- Scott County Sheriff’s Department
- Angela Marie Hennes (1965 – 2007) – Find A Grave Memorial
- “Police: Welsh is ‘person of interest’ in other unsolved homicides,” Quad-City Times, April 23, 2012
- “Convicted Davenport killer eyed in 2 more slayings,” The Des Moines Register, April 23, 2012
- “Cold Cases: Unsolved But Not Forgotten,” Quad-City Times, June 26, 2011
- “COLD CASE: Inmate charged in ’07 Davenport slaying,” by Brian Wellner, Quad-City Times, June 8, 2011
- “Warrant issues for four-year-old murder case,” WQAD-TV Ch. 8 Quad-Cities, June 8, 2011
- Homicides seem to be down in Q-C area, Quad-Cities Online, March 23, 2008
- Scott County Murder Remains Unsolved, Quad-City Crime Stoppers, September 28, 2007
- Witness sought in unsolved killing of Angela Hennes, Quad-City Times, September 27, 2007
- Leads have not panned out in homicide, Quad-City Times, May 29, 2007
- County OKs plan to gate rural road, Quad-City Times, March 9, 2007
- A road’s grim end, Quad-City Times, February 27, 2007
- Reward raised in county homicide, Quad-City Times, February 24, 2007
- Press Release: $5000 Reward for Information, Scott County Sheriff’s Department, February 23, 2007
- More information needed on ‘persons of interest’ in Hennes murder, Quad-Cities Online, January 31, 2007
- Press Release: $2000 Reward for Information, Scott County Sheriff’s Department, January 24, 2007
- $2,000 reward being offered in homicide case, Quad-City Times, January 22, 2007
- Just the (positive) facts, ma’am, Quad-City Times, January 21, 2007
- A lesson in grace, Quad-City Times, January 20, 2007
- Reward offered in woman’s homicide case, Quad-City Times, January 20, 2007
- Homicide victim had troubled past, Quad-City Times, January 18, 2007
- Authorities Identify Woman’s Body Found in Davenport Farm Field, KCRG-TV, January 17, 2007
- Murder victim was Davenport woman, Quad-Cities Online, January 15, 2007
- A matter of record, Quad-City Times, December 10, 2005
It is so nice to read about capture(s).
Rest in peace, Angela. Your memory will live on deep in the hearts of all those who loved you, dear lady.
If only we still hung ppl…he’d be perfect for the part.
Closure is a good thing.
I can’t wait for the day when the DNA we have in the data base hits a MATCH! You better watch your back cause GOD KNOWS who killed my MOM! I am happy to hear that another WOMAN,MOTHER,DAUGHTER etc. taken too soon by MURDER can now rest in peace.