The Night Clara Rosen Didn't Come Home

Clara Rosen

After supper on February 6, 1909, Clara Rosen left her parents’ home on Plum Street in Ottumwa, Iowa, to walk to her sister’s house on Dare Street, a route she knew well.

She never arrived.

At eight o’clock, her sister called the Rosen home. Clara wasn’t there either. By midnight, neighbors were searching the streets. Hundreds joined in, moving through yards, alleys, and empty lots, calling her name.

Around four in the morning, Clara’s brother Fred Rosen and his friend Otto Johnson found her body in an empty lot near Dare Street. Her skull was crushed. Her body had been dragged and left in the dirt. Officer Frank Williams called undertaker C. T. Sullivan. By daylight, all of Ottumwa knew Clara Rosen was dead.

Clara was twenty-nine. Until recently, she had worked as a bookkeeper. For fifteen years, she was the lead soprano in the Swedish Lutheran Church choir. She was engaged to be married that spring. Newspapers printed her photograph: neat hair, a fashionable hat, a respectable young woman. A victim, a town rallies around.

The American Commercial Travelers Company offered $1,200 to hire the Pinkertons. Citizens raised another $700. Nobody wanted an unsolved killing.

The police focused on John Junkins.

Junkins, 26, was well known to authorities. He drank heavily and used cocaine and opium. He drifted in and out of Smoky Row, a district the newspapers openly blamed for much of Ottumwa’s crime. His mother said he had been disobedient since childhood, always fighting. And always running away. He’d spent much of his life in reform schools, jails, or on the street.

Junkins was arrested shortly after the murder but released two days later for lack of evidence.

Then he made a mistake.

John Junkins

On February 16, he tried to sell a loose diamond at K. Redman’s pawn shop. Redman recognized it as Clara Rosen’s. The police arrested Junkins again. This time, they held him.

After his arrest, Junkins told shifting, often bizarre stories. The Ottumwa police brought in Pinkerton detective J. O. Smith, a Black investigator, and locked him in a cell with Junkins at the Albia jail. Smith supplied Junkins with whiskey and cocaine and encouraged him to talk.

Nothing solid came of it.

Another Pinkerton, Detective Way, and Police Judge Kirby questioned Junkins for hours, but got nothing from him. Back in his cell, wired and agitated, Junkins bragged to Smith that they had gotten nothing out of him. Smith said he shouldn’t hang for someone else’s crime.

Junkins named Frank Weaver.

He said Weaver gave him a ring and told him to sell it. Sheriff Griffin arrested Weaver and brought him to Albia, playing the two men against each other. Weaver denied involvement. Weeks later, he was arrested for an unrelated theft in Illinois, which damaged his credibility, but they could not place him at the murder.

Just after midnight on Sunday morning, the pressure increased.

Sheriff Griffin questioned Junkins for three hours. He made him wear the same clothes he had worn the night of the murder. Then Junkins was paraded with six other Black men before Mrs. A. E. Parks, who had seen a Black man on Gara Street that night. She identified Junkins immediately.

Back in his cell, Junkins paced, muttered, and snorted more cocaine. By evening, he agreed to confess—if his mother were brought from Ottumwa.

When she arrived, Junkins asked what he should do. Tell the truth, she said, and don’t involve others you’re guilty.

Junkins confessed.

He’d been drinking that night and lost his money in a poker game. He waited behind Dutro’s Grocery Store looking for someone to rob. When Clara Rosen passed, he followed her. He attacked her, knocked her down, and smashed her head against the pavement. She wouldn’t stop moaning, so he dragged her to a cellar and covered her with brush.

He didn’t mean to kill her. He just needed money. And no, he didn’t molest her. He returned to his apartment above his mother’s restaurant and hid the jewelry in Weaver’s attic.

Authorities moved him to Des Moines to prevent a lynching. On the way, Junkins told Police Chief Pete Gallagher he was high on cocaine during the killing. He’d bought two fifty-cent bottles earlier that night and was so intoxicated afterward he couldn’t remember what happened to the $11.75 he’d stolen from Clara Rosen.

Back in Des Moines, Junkins recanted his confession and blamed two white men, Tommy Saunders and Jim White, known as “Katie.” They suggested robbing a store. When Clara Rosen passed, they propositioned her. She refused, saying she was a Christian. Junkins said the men attacked her while he took her pocketbook and jewelry. They dragged her away and that her screams suddenly stopped.

He denied assaulting her and blamed the killing on the two men. Newspapers avoided explicit language, using words like “assaulted” and “brutalized,” leaving open whether Clara Rosen had been raped.

Junkins said the authorities in Albia beat the confession out of him. He showed a cut lip as proof. The Ottumwa Tri-Weekly Courier described the interrogation as brutal. Junkins was exhausted, dehydrated, and nearly broken before he confessed.

The jury deliberated less than four hours. John Junkins was found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang on July 30, 1910.

The execution went forward as planned. At first, Junkins was still. Then, he writhed, pulled at the manacles, and drew up his knees. His body swung before finally going limp.

John Junkins was dead. Clara Rosen was avenged.

Ottumwa closed the case, ignoring the fact that Junkins’ confessions contradicted each other and were got under the influence of drugs and pressure.

The town got a conviction, but whether it got the truth was never settled.

 Read about thirty more historic Iowa murders.