On This Day

MARCH

On March 4, 1910, three workmen veered off their usual path home and walked through the snowy timber of Johnson Woods near Iowa City. What they found under a tree there shocked the community with sadness and horror. Click here to read complete details in “Babe in the Woods.”

Dale Redman

Dale Redman

On March 5, 1968, Dale Redman, 57, was found shot to death near the ice cream machine in his dairy in La Porte City in Black Hawk County. Click here to read about the violent crime and a bizarre hoax perpetrated by a confused young man seeking publicity in “Death at the Dairy.”

In February of 1909, Italian coal miner Peter Ross was slashed, axed, shot, and thrown in the Des Moines River at Des Moines. His body was found floating in Ottumwa 85 miles to the southeast on March 6. He was at first incorrectly identified as missing Ottumwa resident Fred Loerche. Click here to read “Mistaken Identity.”

Gloria Faye Slump

Gloria Faye Slump

On March 6, 1967, the frozen body of 24-year-old Gloria Slump was found under a railroad trestle over Pony Creek near Councils Bluffs in Pottawattamie County, where she had been left to die from stab wounds. Click here to read about the brutal crime and the suicide of a potential suspect whose father said he “was just trying to be a good guy” in “‘Heaven Is My Home.'”

On March 7, 1898 73-year-old bachelor George Sulzberger was found beaten to death in his home near Keota in Keokuk County. Click here to read the story of “an old man who lived alone” in “In the Corner Under a Blanket.”

On March 8, 1864, Aaron Smith, 41, was ambushed and shot in the back in Saylor Township of Polk County. With his dying breath, he declared his assailant was a man with the unusual name of Christopher Columbus Howard. Click here to read the twisted story of incest and family feuds in “Flesh and Blood.”

Andrew Hatges

Andrew Hatges

On March 8, 1968, 75-year-old Greek immigrant and WWI veteran Andrew “Andy” Hatges was beaten to death with an 8-inch wrench when he returned home with his daily receipts from his Mason City grocery store. Click here to read about Hatges’s extraordinary life and tragic homicide in “Death of the American Dream.”

On March 9, 1965, Myrtle Zelda Cumpston, 61, was robbed of $50 and shot in the head at the aquarium and tropical fish business she co-owned in her farm home near Redfield in Dallas County. Click here to read the story of the heartless crime in “Among the Tropical Fish.”

On March 10, 1913, 55-year-old hotel handyman John Schnellbacker (Schnellbächer) was found unconscious on the sidewalk at E. Third and E. Walnut streets in Des Moines and taken to jail for suspected intoxication. When he died in custody, it was discovered he had suffered a blow to the head. Click here to read his story in “Dead From a ‘Wallop.'”

Henry Nurre

Henry Nurre

On March 11, 1890, Henry Nurre, a 76-year-old mortgage broker and farmer, was attacked with a poker and hammer in his own home near Brown’s Station 13 miles east of Maquoketa. His wife Elizabeth, who was chased through the house by the assailant, was also severely beaten but recovered. Click here to read about Elizabeth’s later claims, which spun out a tale of alleged spousal abuse and defense of her honor which she said led to the murder in “Last Accounts.”

John Pierson (photo courtesy of Lora Pierson Larrance )

Burlington milkman John Pierson was last seen flashing a large wad of money on March 11, 1904 in a Jefferson Street tavern. He was found dead and robbed on August 20, 1904 in the Mississippi River at the mouth of a city storm sewer. Click here to read “What the Medium Saw.”

Sarah Ann Ottens

Sarah Ann Ottens

On March 13, 1973, University of Iowa Coed Sarah Ann Ottens, 20, was brutally murdered in her dormitory on campus during Spring Break. Click here to read about the unthinkable murder, an accused killer who killed again, and Sarah’s life in “Spring Break Killer: Murder of Sarah Ann Ottens 1973” and here in “Sarah Ann Ottens: A Remembrance and Tribute” by David Jindrich.

On March 14, 1926, railroad workers found the body of 46-year-old Italian immigrant Phoebe Jane Vigoletti on a pathway near railroad tracks in Oelwein in Fayette County. She had been strangled from behind in her own home and dragged to the spot where she was found in what looked like a Black Hand vendetta. Click here to read about Vigoletti’s death and find links to other Iowa Black Hand murders in “Black Hand Vendetta?”

On March 16, 1925, a dead infant was found in a boxcar at the Sioux City Rail Yard. It had been cut and slashed on the neck and both wrists. The baby was one of several found murdered in the city that year. Click here to read “Slaughter of Innocents.”

On March 20, 1896, 39-year-old painter and photographer Oliver Pearson was pushed or fell during a heated argument about artistic integrity on the balcony outside his second-floor studio at East 6th & East Locust in Des Moines. Did Henry and Charles Wilcox — two brothers from a large and eccentric family — get away with murder? Click here to find out in “Picture Imperfect.”

Louis Dayton ( from the Spencer News-Herald)

Louis Dayton

Fifty-four-year-old Special Deputy Sheriff Louis H. Dayton (a.k.a. Clarence L. Plummer, Bert Cook, and Bert Pettit) was beaten with brass knuckles in front of the Spencer Post Office on March 20, 1929. He died later at the Chris and Emma Jensen home at 426 West Pine Street. Investigators believed the homicide was related to Dayton’s work as a liquor informant. Click here to read “Undercover.”

On March 22, 1963 Henry Hults, 62, was found badly burned in the yard of his rural home near Oxford Junction in Jones County and later died of his injuries. Click here to read “Burning Mystery.”

Geraldine Maggert

Geraldine Maggert

On March 22, 1968, 25-year-old secretary and divorced mother Geraldine Maggert left her daughter in the care of her parents, packed a suitcase, withdrew money from the bank, and disappeared from Cedar Rapids in Linn County. Her nearly-nude body was found on April 6 at Coralville Lake in Johnson County 25 miles to the south; she had been beaten and strangled. Where was she going? Who was she planning to meet? Why was her car found at the Cedar Rapids Airport? Did her homicide have something to do with her pregnancy? Click here to read Geraldine’s story in “Destination Unknown.”

On March 27, 1911, German-born Alton Town Marshal Joseph “Joe” Kashmetter (Kashmitter), 53, was shot while making his rounds in the business district of the small Sioux County town. The father of 10 passed away two days later, becoming one of the 185 Iowa Peace Officers who have died in the line of duty as of 2014. Click here to read his story in “Dark Byway.”

Black Hand symbol

Black Hand symbol

On March 27, 1921, 25-year-old Domenico Barretto was shotgunned to death in his yard in Des Moines’s “Little Italy” as he was returning from a dance. Was his death another of the many Black Hand related murders in Iowa’s history? Click here to read his story in “‘Fear of the Dread Black Hand.'”

On March 29, 1897, the mangled body of coal miner Elmer Anderson was found on the railroad tracks in Mystic in Appanoose County. His death had been faked to look like a train accident. Click here to read “’Ground Into a Hundred Pieces.'”

On March 30, 1881, Appanoose County Treasurer John Addison Pierson of Centerville, received a horrifying package by rail: the body of a new-born infant girl who had been splashed with lye. Also inside the pasteboard box was a set of instructions or where and how to bury the baby. Click here to read about the horrible crime, which shattered Pierson and the entire community in “Baby in the Pasteboard Box.”

On March 31, 1881, 54-year-old farmer and financial broker Gustav Rechfus was shot to death through a window as he sat reading a newspaper by lamplight in his home in the Pleasant Ridge Community of Giard Township 14 miles northeast of Elkader in Clayton County. His brother Henry Rechfus was tried and acquitted of the homicide. Click here to read “The Money Lender.”

 

 

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