Cedar County

Cedar County in Iowa

Cold Cases in Cedar County, Iowa

*Please Note: The cases listed below are within Cedar County but may fall under a city police department’s jurisdiction. They are included here for cross-reference purposes. More specific information may be found on each victim’s individual page.

 

Sandra Jo Pittman

Sandra Jo Pittman

Homicide
Sandra Jo Pittman — SOLVED
17 YOA
Highway 30 Rest Area
Clarence, IA (Cedar County)
September 17, 1980

At 8 a.m. Sept. 17, 1980, 17-year-old Sandra Jo Pittman’s body was found at a Highway 30 rest area one mile east of Clarence in Cedar County. The teen died from a blow to the head with a pipe or tire iron sometime between midnight and 7 a.m. Investigators believed she was killed elsewhere and dumped at the rest area.

Nearly 20 years later, Dean Ray Tumey, 53, of Knoxville, Iowa — who would have been around 34 at the time of the crime — was charged with first-degree murder in Pittman’s death. On Oct. 1, 1999, a Cedar County jury deadlocked on Tumey’s culpability, voting 7-5 for acquittal before giving up on ever reaching a unanimous verdict.

Tumey spent a total of nine months in jail before a second Cedar County District Court jury exonerated him in Pittman’s murder. Jurors deliberated for eight hours before returning the not guilty verdict on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2000.


Tom Mather

Homicide
Tom Mather
32 years of age
West Branch, IA
Cedar County
Case # 91-07431
September 30, 1991

On September 30, 1991, Tom Mather, 32, was shot in the head and stabbed several times in his home, located on County Road X-40 about a mile north of the West Liberty exit off Interstate 80. His wife Dawn said he was shot by a naked intruder. She escaped to a nearby farmhouse.


Homicide
Baby Jane Doe
Case # 96-11840
Lisbon, Iowa
Cedar County
November 10, 1996

On November 10, 1996, the body of a newborn infant was found in a garbage bag in a barn on a residence in Lisbon, Iowa.

 

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