40 Responses to Tom Mather

  1. LakeLife says:

    It’s clearly the wife. He caught her naked in bed with the guy & was shot & killed.
    Probably by the guy but she clearly wasn’t “scared” of him because she was seen talking to him in that shirt the police found in her apartment.
    She was ALL about that money when he died too so clearly it was all about the money & being with another guy for her.

  2. MikeD says:

    I know the obvious first thought is that the wife must have been having an affair. The theory that she was busted by Tom while she was naked and in the act with the other man.

    My thought is that she was naked when she went to the other farmhouse because she did run right away. If Tom was killed while she was there she probably would have taken the time to get dressed. She would have been able to tell the same story about the naked intruder without her being naked as well and would have looked a lot less suspicious.

    I can believe that she wasn’t there when he was shot, but I don’t beleive her story about what lead up to it. I’m sure she knows exactly who did it. Chances are that Tom knew him too.

  3. Paul Anderson says:

    The police probably know to a certainty who committed the homicide of Tom Mathers but they don’t have the proof to take to the prosecutor they’re probably afraid it’ll get thrown out on a technicality or aquitted by a jury. The police like everyone else probably to a certainty don’t believe her story but like I said don’t have the proof and Hope they solve it someday.

  4. Anita Johnson says:

    If anyone is interested she’s married. Her name is Dawn M Marcotte from Farmington Minnesota.

  5. Anita Johnson says:

    This is what I find perplexing, How does a naked person running around especially in a rural area not draw attention of somebody. I grew up in a small town and Iowa and anything even remotely out of the ordinary and people are calling the cops. Why did she want the insurance money so badly? I think she had something to do with his murder. Not saying she pulled the trigger, but I think she definitely knows more than she’s letting on…

  6. Carrie Coburn says:

    Tom was a good friend to me. I have always held that Dawn was the one who did this, or at least helped to orchestrate it. Her story has just never quite washed…Perhaps one day she will get her comeuppance…

  7. Gerry says:

    Of course she did it. Who had the motive and time to do it, she did. A naked man confronts them, then orders her to get undressed? Very rarely a person ever escapes like that. She said her husband told her to run, in effect making him the hero so she didn’t die. He tied him tight but didn’t tie her tight, so she escaped. If it quacks like a …….

  8. Mike Byrne says:

    I’d be more inclined to believe that her husband walked in on his wife and her lover and caught them in the act,The wife is/was afraid for her life and made up this cockamamie story.I’ll give her the benefit of doubt and say she was present when the husband was killed and was frightened half to death.I think that her lover said something to the effect of “if you tell on me,I’ll kill you,too”.After seeing her husband murdered,she no doubt believed the lover/murderer!!! Just a different viewpoint.

    • Jody Ewing says:

      Mike, your theory is pretty much along the lines of other hypotheses developed in the case. And then, of course, Dawn has never been ruled out as a suspect in Tom’s death. (Yes, I checked with local LE.) Tom’s murder is one of those very tragic deaths where he did nothing wrong but was [allegedly] in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thanks for sharing this.

    • Kat Mannahan says:

      I m Tom Mathers cousin. My immediate family still believes that Dawn did indeed have something to do with Tom’s murder. There was this happy friendly guy at visitation wearing a cowboy hat. His description is totally opposite of Dawn’s description of intruder. Did anyone check him out? Did Dawn take a lie detector test?

  9. Mike Byrne says:

    One thing about it,murder has no statute of limitatations,meaning that if they ever get enough evidence to charge the wife with murder they can.

  10. What an awesome gentleman and friend he was!! Another cold case I so wish would be solved!!!

  11. LuAnn says:

    I think his wife did it..Sounds like pure greed to me plus she was pretty antsy on getting that insurance money….Maybe she had him killed? They found clothing that belonged to her…plus someone saw a man & woman talking outside the car? Possibly the guy that killed Tom and the woman was probably Dawn…..& she moved out a state? Why? To leave because she knows she is guilty of the crime……..

  12. Haillie says:

    Why was she not ever concerned about finding her husbands killer? Just the money. And why was there no money or anything taken if they were going to be robbed, at night, which is rare and a lethal combination they would have both been dead and pretty much everything valuable taken. I bet she was cheating on him and he walked in on her with someone else and the guys went at it whether she killed him or her significant other she ran to the neighbors because she was scared. It explains why nothing was taken and 2 naked people.

    • andrea olmanson says:

      The wife may or may not have done it.

      However, in response to your comment that no money was taken, I’ll just point something from my own family’s personal experience. When my own son — walking back to his RV from a Jack-In-The-Box in Seattle– was robbed at gunpoint of his backpack, cell phone, and cash, the robber then panicked, said “f*ck it” and shot my kid through the head (miraculously my kid lived and now 2.5 years later is back in college), and then apparently dropped the money he stole from my son before fleeing the scene of the crime. The detective on the case told me that in my son’s case, the police recovered $30-odd dollars (I think $34 but can’t recall for sure) on the ground where the spent casing and blood spatter was found.

  13. Sounds real fishy. She was worried about about the insurance money than her husband. Sounds like she was involved.

  14. Mandie El says:

    Well I went to Iowa courts, she must have changed her name back but she had been in trouble alot if it is her. So from what I have seen they need to look in to her. It’s just sounds like there is a chunk of time missing there.

  15. I think the wife had something to do with it.Sounds fishy.

  16. Brina Ernst says:

    Not hard to assume that the wife was having an affair and the husband walked in on it then it got heated. Either the wife or her sexual partner pulled the trigger. Did the husband even know of the life insurance policy?? What’s been the wife’s history since this murder?? Has she had other husband’s or boyfriends that end up dead??

  17. This case seems very strange. Does anyone know if gunshot residue tests were done on the spouse?

    • She also claimed the “intruder” raped her. The rape kit did reveal one man’s DNA – her husband’s. People living in the area at the time almost universally believed that she did it.

  18. Tom was my 2nd cousin and murder has always haunted me.. I wait for the day when they solve his case.

    • Gail Daugherty says:

      Carol I am sorry for you and your families loss. I can’t even imagine what or how you feel. I pray you find some closure soon. I find it hard to believe that that they wife hasn’t been charged, cause it doesn’t add why she was naked and the robber was naked. so strange. God bless you and yours.

  19. Nancy Danks says:

    Really fishy!! Two naked people and a clothed husband?!

  20. Diana Wilson says:

    It was his wife!!!! Easily solved!!!! Lol

  21. I will keep praying for someone to come forward. Prayers to the family and friends.

  22. Jeanine Beard-Stennett says:

    I remember this..and knew one of the people that they thought was involved.

  23. Tom was my 2nd cousin and his murder has always haunted me. Knowing where the home is I never believed it was a person off the freeway. I pray that one day they will find who did this horrific murder

    • Stay Strong, Keep Fighting For Justice! says:

      I just found the house on Google Maps based on the picture in the story above and you’re right; there are 3 other homes closer to I-80 on X-40 and 2 others at the same intersection as the Maher home. Four of the other five appear to be more affluent with the remaining home about the same. That coupled with the fact that money was left at the scene certainly suggests that robbery clearly was not a motive.

      Not to mention, her ridiculous story is simply not believable. It’s a shame that she apparently will get away with murder. Justice will prevail on judgement day though.

  24. yeah she proll did it ne one else would want to know if they caught the killer not want money

  25. Write, that just sounds like the most unlikely story she gave. No wonder everyone believes she did it. Just reading this, I’m convinced. And she had his parents believing her ???

  26. His friends believe she did too

  27. I lived in Iowa City at the time, and most people believed that his wife did it.

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