Waverly in Bremer County
Bremer County in Iowa
Valerie Klossowsky
Homicide
Valerie Lynn Klossowsky
14 YOA
Waverly/Denver, IA (Bremer County)
Case # 71-00549
June 13, 1971
On Tuesday morning, June 15, 1971, the partially clad body of 14-year-old Valerie Lynn Klossowsky of Waverly was found on a creek bank under a bridge on a lonely country road three miles west of Denver, IA. The Waverly-Shell Rock Junior High School student had been strangled.
Tammy Rachel Nitcher
2-1/2 months old
Rt. 1.
Waverly, Iowa
Bremer County
Date of Death: Friday, January 7, 1972
First it was 2-1/2-month-old Tammy in January 1972. Then, two months later in March, 2-year-old Sarah. Fast forward four years — and to another state — and it was 3-month-old Crystal. And finally, almost a year to the date after Crystal’s death, it was Misti, just 5 weeks old. One by one, Helen Nitcher’s four daughters died under mysterious circumstances.
Sarah Marie Tenery Nitcher
2 years old (27 months)
Rt. 1.
Waverly, Iowa
Bremer County
Date of Death: Wednesday, March 15, 1972
On March 15, 1972 — just two months after her 2-1/2-month-old sister Tammy’s death, 2-year-old Sarah Nitcher was found unresponsive in the family’s rural Waverly, Iowa home. The girl’s mother, Helen Nitcher, said she found Sarah “dead after a nap.”
Julie Benning
Homicide
Julie Ann Benning
18 YOA
Disappeared from Waverly, IA (Bremer County)
Body found in Shell Rock, IA (Butler County)
Case # 76-00382
November 28, 1975
Julie Ann Benning, 18, disappeared from Waverly, IA, the day after Thanksgiving on November 28, 1975. A Butler County road maintenance worker found her nude and decomposed body in a roadside ditch along a quiet country road about a mile northeast of Shell Rock on March 18, 1976.
Marie “Lisa” Peak
Homicide
Marie “Lisa” Peak
19 YOA
Waverly, IA (Bremer County)
September 7, 1976
On Tuesday, Sept. 7, 1976, the nude, beaten body of 19-year-old Marie “Lisa” Peak was found lying face down under a lone cottonwood tree in a ditch a quarter mile north of Waverly’s city limits. Peak had been sexually assaulted and died of suffocation and a broken neck.
I did some online checking. It appears that James Edward Clark, was murdered by a James Cowell. Supposedly Clark was a patron of The Sir Lounge.
So, Julia may have overheard something she was not supposed to hear.
The majority of the evidence in the Waverly three murders would seem to hub at the Sir Lounge. There was a large drug ring associated with the Sir in the mid 70s. Have you heard of John Carmody? John did not have anything to do with the murders, but some of his associates, with their own interests in mind, had to silence Julie and Lisa. I was told Julie had a big mouth. “Things that happened.” Could have been a grand jury convened in November 1975 looking into Carmody. People talked.There were individuals in Waverly, working at the Sir that could have helped Carmody transport drugs or in his quest for more ladies to traffic. Those individuals did not want someone like Lisa and Julie who knew them and their roles in the illegal activities talking.
In regards to the “Waverly Strangling” victims… You need to look into Waverly native Dennis Klocke. I’m not saying he did it but he’s had conversations with my father and has said some suspicious stuff. I think he knows more than he’s letting on.
James, I can tell you with 100% certainty that Dennis Klocke was NEVER considered a suspect and was ruled out decades ago (as in, immediately) by local, state, and federal officials.
If anything, Mr. Klocke (whom I have personally known for many years), is the epitome of what constitutes an “upstanding citizen” who has worked tirelessly to see justice served in these Waverly cases.
He has my utmost respect.
Ditto that!
Unlike all the others who know something, Mr. Klocke has dared to speak to the police and the state and federal investigators ever since Julie Benning was found in March 1976. He spoke to the Des Moines Register reporters in 2015, to Anelia Dimitrova (iRoving Reporter who reported none of Mr. Klocke’s statements), and the new Iowa Cold Case unit launched by Attorney General Brenna Bird in 2024.
The slings and arrows, the defamation of character, the threats, the surveillance: this is why Jody’s Iowa Cold Case site has an anonymous tip line.
It takes great courage to speak up.
We’ve seen it in movies, TV shows, and crime novels: the witness or tipster gets silenced. I used to think it was a cliche.
Joleen Kay Hass, age 22, was killed while in Witness Protection 10-November-1975, two weeks before Julie Benning was silenced.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/181693572/joleen_kay-hass
Ms. Hass was an informant with the Sioux Falls Police Department under the alias Jolene Schutt.
A Rapid City police detective and a DCI agent “found Hass stabbed multiple times, possibly with a switchblade. The knife was not found. The rope she was strangled with was around her neck. At least one of the investigators believed the killing was ordered by one of the people she was informing against.”
Numerous people were questioned. The primary suspect, James Cowell, was found murdered and buried in a cornfield in 1977.
Joleen Kay Hass (1953-1975)
*** Killed while in Witness Protection ***
Dennis is my Dad. Jody is correct. He only wants to see justice served.
The only Waverly “native” who “knows something” and actually TELLS the authorities anything to help solve the case would be Dennis Klocke.
Dozens if not hundreds of people in the area know what went down in the 1970s and who’s covering up for whom. I know of only one man brave enough to speak up. Everyone else plays it safe and maintains the Code of Silence which protects criminals. Hey, when people follow you, tap your phone, threaten you, and try to intimidate you, it’s no wonder REWARD money is never claimed. Who’s gonna risk their life for a $500 or even a $100,000 reward?
Who “knows” more than he’s telling about the Waverly Three? A long list of people. Half of them are dead now. Anthony Kingery was one of the many people questioned by police. He died in 2004 at age 52 . Vince D. Bland was questioned; he died at age 66 in 2017. Bob Jessen, Jeff Miller, Steven Hansen, Rick Weitl: what secrets did they take to the grave? “Vince Hayden” is another who allegedly knows something. I could go on, but the two people who top the list of those who know more than they’re letting on would be Richard “Rich” Clarence Greenlee and Bob Gaston.
I have the utmost respect for Mr. Klocke.
You want names?
People Who Know Something are dying off, after 50 years.
Who is on a mission to keep these cases cold?
Not the citizen “James” named.
Here’s a list of names. These men**could** have left something in writing before they died, but if they did, the gatekeepers have managed to keep the truth buried.
Robert J. “Bob” Jessen, age 71 ( March 25, 1953 – September 12, 2024), bartender at The Sir
Rick Weitl, age 60 (January 24, 1951 – October 7, 2011
Jeffrey Neal Miller, age 64 ( September 14, 1951 – August 27, 2016)
Steven Kent Hansen, 76 (September 21, 1946 – November 5, 2022 )
Christopher “Chris” Howard Hansen, 62 (June 14, 1959 – June 13, 2022)
Chris Hansen, son of James and Marlene (Hill) Hansen
Steve Hansen, son of Lyle and Phyllis (Reiher) Hansen
That’s just a small number of all the names of people who know (or knew) more than they’re letting on.
A number of people **did** tell local/state/federal investigators what they knew.
All the information was taken by the FBI and studied. The FBI came up with a “holiday killer” theory but nothing about the presence of Carmody in Waverly (two young women filed rape charges against him in Waverly in November 1975, before Lisa Peak got him arrested), nothing to connect the dots to an Iowan sent to SD only to be killed while in witness protection before she could testify about a a very large drug operation in Iowa. Small town Waverly Iowa was one of the focal points of the Iowa “war on drugs” – Joleen Hass and the guy hired to kill her both had connections to the Sir. “Nothing to see here, folks.”
In 2015 I gave names to “new blood” at the local, state, and federal level. Ten years later, what has come of it?
Smear campaigns on anyone who tries to get these cold cases solved.
Carol, let’s get a court order and dig them up. Then we get a DNA sample. Then we see if they are connected to any cold cases around the country.
I bugs me that seems to be a number of cold cases in Iowa, where some authorities don’t want them solved
One sheriff made the comment that he was waiting for someone to drop a note over the transom, or something under the door
That’s why I support a statewide Cold Case Unit, under the Attorney General. They can walk in an say gives us everything you have and solve the case. Then the locals will then hopefully vote the sheriff out of office.
The problem is that they don’t want to share the credit for solving the case. There are a ton of resources out there to help solve these cases.
In Michigan, the State Police are using college students to help clear their cold cases.
Patrick,
The insinuations and allegations in your comment here left me deeply disturbed.
While I respect your public service background and your work with the Chicago Veteran’s Administration (investigating incidents of missing personal property and government property, as you’ve mentioned many times in comments on this site), I don’t believe you’ve ever worked as a homicide investigator — thus my concerns with your comments here.
You imply that in a number of Iowa cold cases, authorities don’t want them solved. In a very small handful of cases, that may have been true several decades ago, but not today. They are not waiting for someone to drop a note over the transom.
You say you support a statewide Cold Case Unit (CCU) under the [Iowa] Attorney General’s Office (which we now have), but incorrectly state they can just walk in and say “give us everything you have” and then solve the case. This is simply untrue. They, very much like the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), cannot just walk in and take over any investigation. Local law enforcement must “ask” the DCI for assistance, and the AG’s new CCU works in similar fashion; either local law enforcement or the DCI must ask the AG’s new CCU to step in and assist with a case.
The AG’s Cold Case Unit not only has additional resources available, but also a cold case unit prosecutor specifically assigned to cold cases.
You also say they don’t want to share credit for solving a case. This could not be further from the truth. If anything, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird has gone out of her way — in media interviews and with press releases — to thank and include every organization involved from the arrest date to a conviction. Prior to its official launch July 1, 2024, she visited all 99 counties in Iowa to talk about the new CCU, address concerns, and has held multiple press conferences across the state (I attended many) with local LE officials to praise their efforts and dedication in never giving up on decades-old unsolved homicides.
Just today, in a press release involving a 2023 hit-and-run homicide in Monona County, Iowa, she concluded her statement with:
“I want to thank the Monona County Sheriff’s Department, the Woodbury County Sheriff’s Department, and the Iowa State Patrol for investigating the crime, and the State Medical Examiner and the Division of Criminal Investigations Crime Lab for their assistance with the investigation. Thanks also to Monona County Attorney Haley Bryan and her office. This case was prosecuted by Assistant Attorneys General Andrew Schoonhoven and Ryan Baldridge along with the Statewide Prosecution Division of the Attorney General’s Office.”
Does she provide credit where it’s due? Absolutely. Always.
Jody
NOTE: If you have any information about a cold case, please contact: 1-800-242-5100 or email coldcase@ag.iowa.gov.
James, if you ever want to talk about any of this, I’m here. If you know anything that would help the police solve these cases, please contact Jody Ewing, Carol Kean or the Bremer County Sheriff’s Dept. My best to you and your family.
If you look at findagrave.com, there have been quite a few infant deaths in Iowa with the last name Ritcher. Assuming they are related somehow, it makes you wonder if there is a congenital issue.
I wonder: did anyone ever interview/investigate Helen Nitcher herself?
I called the coroner of the day (who was still alive, in his 80’s) a few years back when I first read about the 2YO dying in an old newspaper article. He didn’t remember it.
In Iowa, autopsy and coroners records are not public records. Therefore I could not get the file and see who said what.