Crystal Arensdorf (Courtesy Iowa Department of Public Safety)
Dubuque in Dubuque CountyCrystal Ann Arensdorf, 20, of Dubuque, Iowa, was last seen at approximately 2 a.m. on July 4, 2001, at Knicker’s Saloon in Dubuque, Iowa. Arensdorf had gone to the 2186 Central Avenue bar with friends and tried to find a ride to East Dubuque, Ill.
No one saw her leave the bar, and she left her car, her keys, and her money behind. She did not show up for work Thursday morning.
Steven and David Peacock — two former Dubuque brothers who resided in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin — were at the bar on July 4 and questioned several times in Arensdorf’s disappearance.
The brothers agreed to polygraph exams in April 2002, and authorities also seized and searched David Peacock’s vehicle.
The brothers were never charged in connection with Arensdorf’s case.
UPDATE:
In June 2015, Iowa Cold Cases received a tip saying David Peacock hadn’t used his own vehicle the night Arensdorf went missing, but had instead borrowed his sister’s pick-up truck.
The tipster also provided the current aliases used by the brothers, the names of their respective employers, and identified the location where the brothers allegedly buried Arensdorf’s body.
Iowa Cold Cases forwarded the information to Dubuque Police Department investigators.
Robert F. Mootz, the Knicker’s Saloon bartender in 2001, pled guilty in May 2002 to serving alcohol to a minor.
Mootz told authorities he and Arensdorf planned to share a cab to East Dubuque after her friends departed from the bar. The plans changed during the evening and Arensdorf did not leave with Mootz. He has not been charged in connection with her disappearance.
Arensdorf’s family members said it was uncharacteristic of Crystal to leave without warning, and offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to her whereabouts.
Officials have classified Arensdorf’s disappearance as “Endangered / Physical,” which refers to a person of any age who is missing under circumstances indicating his/her physical safety is in danger.
At the time of her disappearance, Crystal was described as a 5-foot-6 white female weighing 115 pounds, with blonde hair and brown eyes.
She was last seen wearing blue-tinted soft contact lenses, a white polo T-shirt, tan shorts, black sandals, a gold chain necklace with an opal pendant, an opal ring, and a toe ring. She has a mole near her naval and her ears are double-pierced.
Twelve days after Arensdorf vanished, authorities searched Leisure Lake in Jackson County, Iowa, after a witness reported seeing a body floating in the water. The sighting turned out to be a false alarm and officials found no evidence at the scene.
In October 2001 — three months after she went missing — investigators eliminated Arensdorf’s boyfriend, Tim Gerlieb, as a possible suspect in her disappearance.
Dubuque police followed up on more than 500 leads, but have made no arrests in what they still consider a missing person case with a “high suspicion” of being criminal in nature. They do not believe she left of her own accord.
KCRG TV-9 spoke exclusively with Arensdorf’s family in multiple segments airing in June 2011. After viewing the newscasts (see below) an anonymous Dubuque business owner offered to put up $10,000 toward a reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.
The reward has thus far gone unclaimed, and Crystal Arensdorf’s mysterious disappearance remains unsolved.
A DNA sample has been submitted and tests are complete.
If you have any information about Crystal Arensdorf’s disappearance please contact Investigator Dave Randall at (563) 589-4429, Investigator Nick Schlosser at (563) 587-3813, or Lt. Scott Baxter at (563) 589-4410.
10 Years Later: Police and Family Continue Search for Crystal Arensdorf
KCRG-TV News Channel 9, Cedar Rapids, June 29, 2011
KCRG’s full interview with Crystal’s mom, Barb Beam
June 29, 2011
KCRG’s full interview with Crystal’s sister, Jen Puetsch
June 29, 2011
I have more information on Dennis Rhomberg. At age 43, slightly under 2 months after Crystal dissapeared, Dennis (kidnapper and rapist, who grew up in the area from where Crystal was taken, and who at one point lived just a few blocks down the street from Knickers) died, after falling or jumping from a bridge in rural East Dubuque.
Given Dennis’s prior kidnapping and rape history from downtown Dubuque, his cousin Randy’s abduction, participation in the gang rape of, and murder of Jodi Bausman (one of Randy’s roommates and participation in the Bausman attack was Craig Otterbeck, who we now know to be a serial rapist and probable serial killer, given his murder of Thomasina Dunavant and participation in the murder of Jodi Bausman), Dennis’s cousin Sean Rhomberg’s high level of psychopathy as evidenced by his conduct including his murder of the elderly woman, and what one might wonder is possible genetic psychopathy running through that family, maybe one should be looking at where Dennis was the night Jodi disappeared. Did he commit suicide by jumping off that bridge?
I’ll post a link here; I don’t know if it will go through or not. https://iagenweb.org/boards/dubuque/obituaries/index.cgi?read=308988
Again, this is just one possibility among many. I used to own a couple rentals very close to Knickers Saloon and have had interactions in that capacity (and some in my professional capacity) with a number of the local psychopaths.
Anon,
This is all good info.
I’d be interested in your assessment of the most likely perpetrator(s) and motive after all of your research and knowledge of the neighborhood.
The usual qualifiers of course… your conclusions are alleged only, opinions are your own, you possess no direct and substantive proof, etc.
If your so inclined and feel comfortable but it looks to me that you possess a unique insight into this case.
In 1965, Leonard J Oswald, formerly of 2561 Jackson St, Dubuque, forced his way into a Dubuque woman’s house at gunpoint and violently raped her. He grew up 4.5 blocks from Knickers saloon and this would have been within the zone of comfort that most criminals operate. Oswald is alive and well. He was discharged from Anamosa in 1969 for this violent rape. According to online records, he was living in Dubuque at the time of Crystal’s disappearance. He is just one of many violent sex offenders on the loose with ties to not only Dubuque, but in fact to the very neighborhood where Crystal was taken from.
I continue to comb through old Dubuque Telegraph Herald articles for possible perps.
In 1966, the following Dubuque men were found guilty of kidnapping a woman who was walking down the street, so that one of them could rape her (he told her this in the car). She managed to escape: Ronald J Wallace, Sidney Wallace, James L Lucy, and Richard Dunwoody. All were convicted of kidnapping her. Sidney continues to reside at 1538 Central Ave, just a few blocks from where Crystal disappeared. Sure the Peacocks names are well known, but think of all of the other Dubuque men with violent sexual assaultive history who were and are free men but whose convictions pre-date DNA testing, the Sex Offender Registry, computerized arrest and conviction records, etc.
I commented yesterday about how Crystal went missing from a bar just a couple doors down from where Jodi Bausmann had been abducted by Randy Rhomberg, Greg Otterbeck, and Michael Shaffer.
Anyway, Randy’s cousin, Dennis Rhomberg, was also an abductor and rapist, as it turns out. Dennis had picked up a girl who was hitchhiking in 1977, drove her out into the countryside, and violently raped her.
Dennis was alive and well, and living in Dubuque, at the time Crystal went missing.
I’ve been going through old newspapers to ascertain the names of other historical Dubuque rapists and/or kidnappers who had convictions before the days of mandatory DNA testing for felons, before the days of the sex offender registry, and before computerized records were kept.
Here are various Dubuque and Dubuque-area gang rapists: Michael Betts, Timothy Murphy, Ricky Shannon, Joseph Huber, Joseph Matthess, Lenny Creger, Bernard Kalvelage, George Petersen, Kevin McDonald, Randall Reiger, Charles Breitbach, Douglas Fiedler, Steven M Becker, Michael E Glans, William Camp, Winston Blackmon, Herbert G Witt III, and Charles Lewis are Dubuque and Dubuque-area gang rapists from the 70’s.
Those who were violent solo rapists from Dubuque and the greater Dubuque area from the 70’s include Raymond Rowell, Thomas J Weidenbach, Gary Shepard, William R Heitz, Gregory Lund, Carl Cox, Gene E Dryer, Michael W Fries, Daryl E Brooks, Steven R Gill, and Larry Damm.
And I’m only part-way through reviewing these old records.
Yeah, the Peacocks might be good for it, but there are so many others that might be quiet and older and under the radar.
Dubuque can be a pretty dangerous city, and the area she went missing from has a lot of crime. This is not relevant, but just a historical fact. Jodi Bausman was taken by Randy Rhomberg, Michael Shaffer, and Gregory Otterbeck from Kelly’s Cove which was at 2126 Central, on the same block from where Crystal Arensdorf went missing. I used to own a couple rentals in the 1700 block of Washington, which was 7 blocks from there, and it was not a safe area.
KWWL news story about Crystal’s disappearance:
https://www.kwwl.com/news/crime-courts/4th-of-july-marks-23-years-since-dubuque-womans-disappearance/article_4ff4d62e-3a1d-11ef-8dde-93acf9fadabf.html
[5](4)[6] Most of this is my opinion in the instance that this was a homicide. Unless it was an accidental drug overdose, this was probably sexually motivated. She made plans with the bartender and had fought with her boyfriend, Tim Gerlieb, on the 3rd. She was 20, underage, and Robert Mootz served her anyway. He offered to share a cab with her back to East Dubuque. She agreed and made plans to do that, but was nowhere to be seen at bar close.
I would ask whether someone overheard Crystal speaking about the fight she had with her boyfriend and whether she mentioned that her friends would be leaving. A predator or predators might think and know at that point that 1) Crystal is emotionally vulnerable or feeling less enthusiastic about her relationship and 2) physically isolated.
I would ask… How drunk were David and Steven Peacock? What had their behavior been like in the past? Did they often frequent bars?
Sometimes, criminal history means nothing and a casual phrase or whisper concealed with a smile is everything. Crystal was a perfect target for a late-night assault that, to predators, might look like a late-night “snack.”
If there is no physical evidence of a scuffle or some sort of fight, then there might have been manipulation and more than one person involved. One would hold Crystal down and the other might sexually assault her. She was only 5’6” and 115 pounds. One might cover her mouth to quiet her and/or even her nose to quiet her completely, increasing the risk of accidental suffocation or perhaps intentionally causing suffocation leading to her death.
There was no evidence of an encounter in any of the vehicles involved, so I’d wonder whether someone told Crystal to meet them somewhere isolated where no one would hear or see what was to take place which would have possibly been a sexual assault. Crystal might have grown inpatient to leave and communicated this to people at which point they would have encouraged her to meet them somewhere or start walking. She might have left, drunk, to begin walking home as so many others I have known personally have done in a drunken state. The lack of footprints and DNA traces lead me to think that this is less likely, but might it be impossible to trace footprints on the sidewalks of such a heavily trafficked area?
It’s a mystery how far Crystal would have gotten had she left the bar of her own accord to walk home. A staged accidental death comes to mind. I think of a bridge, and how it might be impossible to recover a body thrown and weighed down into the Mississippi and hard to determine whether the cause of death was suffocation or death by drowning at that time (e.g., the heart stopped beating before water entered her lungs).
Law enforcement might have seen Crystal walking on camera, though I do not know whether street cameras existed back in 2001.
What we would need to know is what footage they have of Crystal and where they found her and others’ DNA.
Is there any update in the case? I think about her every single day. I was born a year after she disappeared and I’m now older than her at the time she disappeared:(
Before my Grandfather passed away he couldn’t let go without telling my mom that he knew what happened to her. He said he was afraid to come forward because he didn’t want them to come after him and his family. He said that a local biker gang took her and murdered her and put her in a one of those drums. He didn’t say what they did with the drum.
I think the presence or involvement of a biker gang would have been blaringly obvious and noteworthy to law enforcement and others who were at or around the bar that night.
would you be willing to tell me about what your grandfather said before he passed?
Word on the street was she overdosed, and her body was put into a 55 gallon drum of lye and built into the house of someone out in the Durango area supposedly.
Is it true that the those brother lived in Dubuque at the time? Maybe West 5th St?
Steve peacock ran me over with a motorcycle when i was 4 years old. He broke both bones in my left leg. He was never charged or held accountable. He said i jumped in fr9nt of the motorcycle. When there is a 4 yr old on a path playing with dolls, you dont speed up! You stop! He Sped up! Somehow im not not dead.
YOU ARE LUCKY HE DIDN’T RAPE YOU, I’M SURE STEVE PEACOCK DOES NASTY THINGS TO KIDS
I think it’s worth noting that a member of the family said something to the effect of, “I’m not sure whether Steven and David would be capable of something like that.” The mother explained she suspects four people who were not present at the bar that night. I think of blind spots and how a kind, gentle tone and the right language can be more convincing than a statistical likelihood of guilt. It’s a a subtle, tactical appeal to emotion, and these are the individuals people need to watch out for. If he got away with running a four-year-old over, then I can imagine what else he’s gotten away with and how. My opinion related to what TB said specifically.
My theory is she left the bar at closing time (or perhaps a little before) and passed out in her car. Both her keys and money were found in the car suggesting Crystal was in the car before she went missing.
But I also think the car moved and whoever moved her car took advantage of the fact she was passed out/intoxicated, and took her somewhere and removed her from the car before returning it to the parking spot.
So the kind of evidence this case needs is proving Crystal was in the backseat or passenger seat of her car and proof someone else was driving. Considering the circumstances and suspects I don’t think they’d gone very far. Five miles maybe. 20 minutes total round trip. The car is gone maybe a total of half an hour to forty five minutes depending on what he/they did. Her car moving suggests two people if they are heading out of town, but returning the car to the parking lot suggests a suspect who lives more locally or someone who needs to be back at the bar to establish an alibi.
Also something to consider: last seen 2am bar time? (bars tend to set their clocks a half hour so they close by 2am with no patrons inside the bar as is the law) or 2am real time when the bar is supposed to be closed with no patrons? Now I don’t know if Knickers sets its clocks a half-hour fast, but it is something to consider when we put a timeline together to pinpoint the time and place someone last saw Crystal and match that up with a suspect.
I think those brothers lived in Dubuque at that time on West 5th St…
She didn’t have her car. Family took it home after the fireworks before she went to tge bar. She didn’t want to drink and drive. Video inside tge bar shows her coming in but never leaving.
Your theory about the car is less likely to have actually occurred because this is something the police could have confirmed with physical evidence. They searched and found nothing of note. I think it is more likely that she dropped her personal belongings off. This could have been at someone’s suggestion.
Mr. Ben,
I think you have a good theory, but I imagine there would have been DNA of the other individual in her car had that been where she passed out—that’s even considering that she passed out and was lifted out of the vehicle without physical resistance. My theory more resembles someone or more than one individual saying, “Yeah, just leave your things in your car and meet us (here).” Something like that.
Law enforcement would have looked all over for her DNA.
I spent four years in the U.S. Navy, most of it on a submarine. We normally hung out together. We watched each other’s back, and made sure we got back. Also, there is a missing young man, who was staying in Dubuque, but went drinking with a friend in East Dubuque, and got ripped off. He was thrown out, without his jacket in the cold. A police officer from East Dubuque, stopped him, but let him wander off. His remains were found in the river, a few months later.
I guess it was to hard to drive him across the bridge to his hotel. He could have driven him across the bridge and passed him off to a Dubuque officer. I hope it does not say Serve & Protect on their squad cars in East Dubuque. Maybe, the authorities in Dubuque, don’t trust the police in East Dubuque. They might be good friends with these brothers. We could ask the FBI, but then they are busy, looking for the colluding Russians. They also are protecting those who took money from Putin & friends to control 20% of American unranium.
Leisure lake
“Mootz told authorities he and Arensdorf planned to share a cab to East Dubuque after her friends departed from the bar.”
This type of thing infuriates me. NEVER leave a friend alone in a bar or club!! In college my friends and I had a rule about this very thing.
Investigation Discovery has a show called “Disappeared”. Has anyone tried to contact them with this or the other cases mentioned here?
Peacock brother’s. & Wilson brother’s. their the same. check the tagged with at the top
Believe I found a witness today, Have to share with law enforcement first.
#49 — https://www.cityofdubuque.org/DocumentCenter/View/29757/PesticideFreeParksJune2016
There is another unsolved murder in that park too…Kenny Joe Johnson…
Should not let your kid’s go fishing with stranger’s, that would not happen.
To your knowledge have the police investigated this site at all in connection with this case?
Which of these parks is the one in question?
She can never R.I.P till they find her killer
The lack of physical evidence suggests there was less of a struggle which increases the likelihood that there was more than one killer if we are assuming that one or more people killed her.
R.I.p crystal
Dig it up dig it up
so is there any new info available after this update was posted???
Nope.
(At least nothing of which I’m aware.) Jody at ICC
its 2020 now and was wondering if any new developments have come up at all or if it has hit a stagnant stop?
UPDATE:
In June 2015, Iowa Cold Cases received a tip saying David Peacock hadn’t used his own vehicle the night Arensdorf went missing, but had instead borrowed his sister’s pick-up truck.
The tipster also provided the current aliases used by the brothers, the names of their respective employers, and identified the location where the brothers allegedly buried Arensdorf’s body.
Iowa Cold Cases forwarded the information to Dubuque Police Department investigators.
Yes, Ronda. That is exactly what happened. Jody @ ICC
Have they dug Up the basement of the house the brothers I believe lived in towards Durango or in Durango I am not sure of which house exactly but I had someone tell me a bit of info when a situation came about during a gang initiation, this person was bragging about how they killed a girl shot in the back of the head since she was in the wrong place at the wrong time sitting in a basement of their house it was said her body was burried right there in basemen…
Hopefully all leads and tips are being looked at
Look i am sure if they figure out what hiuse in durango it may not belong to the brothers it even couldve been sold by now but i am more than positive that she is burried in that basement i cant excactly explain how but i know people and i know that when these people bragged about having killed before and it wouldnt b a problem to do it again to b a part of a gang that 15 years later . People dont brag about shit like that unless they thonk its no more talked about. I am too far away to b able to do n e thing about this nor do i know where to go. Crystel was my friend in 8th grade when i met her moving here fron germany. I want her to b able to b put to reat in the appropriate way.. jer family and friends deserve closure.
So was the area reported and the sisters truck ever searched?
Sisters truck?
Yeah one of males sisters truck. Read the article. They got a tip that the male was driving his sisters truck, not his own vehicle at the time she disappeared
Well I wonder what is taking so long. Maybe they don’t believe it’s creditable or something. So sad.
If u think u know the burial site why dont a few of you go and dig … I would
I’m sorry I didn’t see the update… thank you
Lynn Elaine, yes, I informed investigators of the location where the brothers allegedly buried Crystal’s body, and also informed of the names the brothers were using, their respective employers, etc. I know investigations take time, but that was some time ago, and to my knowledge, the “burial location” has not yet been dug up and (also to my knowledge) investigators have not yet seized or searched the sister’s pickup truck.
Shared
Thanks for sharing, Penny!
This young woman and her family has been in our prayers from the first onset of news she was missing. If anyone can solve this case it will be our great DLEC teams in charge. We have top drawer professional investigators. Sybil Schroeder
The police said lie detector tests wer failed why arent they doing more about the people who failed them ?
If there failing lie detector tests and arnt doing anything about them failing what was the point of using lie detector tests?
In regards to lie detector tests. The fact is that the results of these tests are not admissible in court. Also, thexresults might be read differently by different operators
Strawberry blonde? Looks more golden blonde.
She's 35, if alive. Is this news video the most current? It's from 2011.
man i hope so. I pray for closure for her friends and family.
My cousins work at Knickers, makes me worry
I pray for the family and friends.
I remember both Crystals & Tammys like it was last week. Sad for the families. Someone plz give them closure!!!
Yes I think there is. I read somewhere that there are 50 or so serial killers active in the USA that have not been identified yet. Tammy Zywicki’s murder has always bothered me especially when they thought the truck driver guy did it.
Don’t some of these cases make you wonder if there has ever been a serial killer in IA?? I mean, even just passing thru?? I know the case of Tammy Zywicki still haunts me to this day.
I was only three when Tammy went missing and then found. My grandmother actually broke down a mile behind her that same day Tammy broke down. When my grandmother was picked up they went right past Tammy’s car but she did not see her or anyone else there. My grandmother contacted the authorities the next day once her learned that Tammy was missing, She also has been in contact with her parents since its happened and still stays actively involved in Tammy’s case.
Well its sept 2020 and bar basement checked out i beleive a story i was told by a man investigating on his own who is a friend of the family .. i think she is buried in leisure lake somewhere .
maybe david wasn’t using his own truck. maybe that’s why they didn’t find anything in it.
Maybe they should dig around the peacocks old farm/farms in Cuba City Wi
I think it is possible that which vehicle David was using is irrelevant. I think Crystal could have decided to drop her belongings off in her vehicle before meeting an individual/individuals at a specified location, thereby skipping the need for any sort of vehicle. Police would have been able to confirm something like this with physical evidence. They couldn’t confirm it, and that means these individuals would have to be linked to her disappearance in other ways should they actually have played a role.
This is no serial killing, and there has been no missing womens cases of this type
since crystals dissapearance.The person, or persons invovled most likley new here
and were in the bar that night. Need to question these people again.
I’m the jackson St. Spy, forinfo on the case email me @ tylerc627@gmail.com
I think we are underestimating that Crystal was young and naive, beautiful, and possibly intoxicated that night when we talk about the person/people involved most likely knowing her.
I would look at motive. If I could guess, operating under the idea that someone took Crystal’s life, this was a sexually motivated crime that took place. In this instance, the element of knowing would of course be likely, but the element of sexual motivation cannot be discounted. That motivation can easily exist outside of knowing.
i saw her flyer in iowa at a Taco Johns…. and i am wanting to help in the search