Dubuque County in Iowa

Dubuque County in Iowa

Cold Cases in Dubuque County, IA

* Please Note: The cases listed below are within Dubuque 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.

 

Francis Rafferty

Francis Rafferty

Homicide
Francis J. Rafferty
58 YOA
Dubuque, IA (Dubuque County)
Case # 64-00326
February 8, 1964

Shortly after midnight on Saturday, February 8, 1964, Gretta Rafferty returned home from work and found the body of her brother, Francis John Rafferty, 58, in the apartment they shared in Dubuque, Iowa. His hands, feet, and legs were bound with telephone wire ripped from the wall and his mouth and nose were covered with electrical tape. He had choked on regurgitated food and died of asphyxiation.

 

Homicide
Sherrie Lee Martin and
Victoria Lynne Martin

Dubuque, IA (Dubuque County)
Case # 65-00461
March 6, 1965

On March 6, 1965, Janet Martin and Donald Martin escaped from their burning house but were unable to save their two daughters, Sherrie Lee and Victoria Lynn. It was later determined that the house fire was deliberately set and deemed arson.

 

Kenneth Bouzard

Homicide
Kenneth Marvin Bouzard
53 YOA
Case Number: 71-00481
Dubuque, Iowa (Dubuque County)
April 23, 1971

On Friday April 23, 1971, the badly battered and crushed body of Kenneth Bouzard was found beneath a boxcar on railroad tracks in Dubuque, Iowa. Police believed Bouzard had been assaulted and struck in the head with a piece of railroad equipment while sitting or lying near the tracks.

 

Jackie Shireman

Jackie Shireman

Homicide
Jackie Shireman
21 YOA
Dubuque, IA (Dubuque County)
January 4, 1975

On Saturday, Jan. 4, 1975, at approximately 7:45 p.m., a customer at Dubuque’s “Marino’s Meal on a Bun” found waitress Jackie Shireman lying in a pool of blood in the walk-in cooler. The 21-year-old newlywed and Sunday School teacher had been stabbed approximately 30 times with a pair of scissors. A trial returned no homicide conviction, and the case remains open.

 

Theodore Hoerstman

Theodore Hoerstman

Missing Person
Theodore Anthony Hoerstman
Missing From: Dubuque, IA
Dubuque County
Age at Report: 45
Date Reported Missing: December 6, 1982

Theodore Hoerstman was reported missing to the Dubuque Police Department in Dubuque, Iowa, on December 6, 1982. Hoerstman is a disabled adult and has a 1-inch appendectomy scar and a scar on his right calf. The name “Sharon” is tattooed on his lower right arm.

 

Charles Jaeger

Charles Jaeger

Homicide
Charles Jaeger
37 YOA
914 Second Ave. SE
Dyersville, IA (Dubuque County)
Case # 84-04212
August 29, 1984

On Aug. 29, 1984, Charles “Chuck” Jaeger reportedly was found in his bed in a pool of his own blood, a bullet lodged in his brain. He had been shot in the back of the head with a rifle or a handgun. He was transported from his Dyersville, Iowa home to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, where he was pronounced dead. He was 37. The gun used was never found, and no one has ever been charged. The case remains open in name only.

 

Kenny Joe Johnson

Kenny Joe Johnson

Homicide
Kenny Joe Johnson
14 YOA
Maus Park
Dubuque, IA (Dubuque County)
Home Residence: New Liberty, IA
Local Case # 87-21572
DCI Case # 87-05013
October 10, 1987

Around 9 a.m. on Oct. 10, 1987, an elderly fisherman discovered 14-year-old Kenny Joe Johnson’s body near a floodgate in Dubuque’s isolated Maus Park. He was rolled in a 5-foot-by-9-foot piece of yellow-orange nylon carpet that had been dumped at the park, and an autopsy revealed he had been strangled by hand and sexually assaulted.

 

Paul Knockel

Paul Knockel

Missing Person
Paul Joseph Knockel
Age at Report: 53
Missing From: Dubuque, IA (Dubuque County)
Missing Since: November 26, 1990

Paul Knockel was last seen in Dubuque, Iowa on November 26, 1990, and has never been heard from again. When Knockel didn’t show up for Thanksgiving dinner, family members became concerned and went to check on him. They believe he may have been abducted at his home and murdered.

 

Crystal Arensdorf

Crystal Arensdorf

Missing Person
Crystal Ann Arensdorf
Age at Report: 20
Missing From: Dubuque, IA
Dubuque County
Missing Since: July 4, 2001

Crystal Arensdorf of Dubuque, Iowa, was last seen at approximately 2:00 a.m. on July 4, 2001 at Knicker’s Saloon, 2186 Central Avenue in Dubuque. Arensdorf — a minor at the time of her visit to the bar — was there with friends and trying to get a ride to East Dubuque, Ill.

 

Marlon Barber Jr.

Marlon Barber Jr.

Homicide
Marlon Terrell Barber, Jr.
15 YOA
2000 block of Jackson St.
Dubuque, IA
Dubuque County
October 20, 2012

On Oct. 20, 2012, Marlon Barber, Jr., a 15-year-old Dubuque teen, was shot in the chest and stomach as he and his friends walked away from a party. He died soon after in the hospital. Another teen was hit by gunfire but treated at a hospital and released.

One Response to Dubuque County

  1. Dianne Klein says:

    Thank you for sharing this. I briefly knew Jackie Shireman and worked with her Dad at the time of her murder. It was a nightmare! I’d heard that her husband was a suspect but then he mysteriously drowned. It makes me sick to this day to think about what she went thru and how her family suffered. Someone got away with murder and there is no closure for anyone who knew her or the family. I’m just thankful she hasn’t been forgotten.

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