A Double Murder In Muscatine: The 1902 Killings off Jesse And Martha Tuman

 

Jesse Tuman. (Muscatine Journal. December 16, 1920)

Sometime in the middle of August 1902, violence came to a lonely patch of timber a few miles northeast of Muscatine.

 

Jesse Tuman and his wife , Martha, lived there in a small cabin, away from the city and largely out of sight. Newspapers described the place as isolated, surrounded by woods and reached by a road that saw little traffic. Tuman was familiar enough around Muscatine, but his home was another matter. Out there, a person could disappear from view.

 

And that appears to be exactly what the killer counted on.

 

The first sign that something was wrong came when Jesse Tuman was discovered badly injured inside his cabin. He’d suffered terrible blows to the head, apparently from an ax. His skull was crushed, but he was still alive.

 

Then came another discovery. Martha Tuman was missing.

 

Searchers eventually found her body in the timber, roughly a hundred yards from the cabin. She’d been attacked with an ax. The newspapers described a brutal scene and quickly concluded that whoever had attacked Jesse had also killed Martha.

 

It was one of the most sensational crimes Muscatine had seen. And Jesse Tuman, barely alive, was the only known witness.

Snipers Are Nothing New. Does Anyone Remember Frank Carter The Omaha Sniper?

 

Frank Carter, the Omaha sniper

The Omaha Sniper didn’t rob banks, kick in doors, hold up payroll wagons, or swagger through saloons with two pistols blazing.

 

He hid in the dark and shot strangers.

 

That was worse.

 

People understand greed, revenge, and drunken rage. A man who steals money has a purpose. A man who kills over jealousy has a reason, twisted as it may be.

 

A hidden gunman firing at people he didn’t know was something colder.

 

His name was Frank Carter.

A Midnight Murder in Davenport

James Gallagher

He didn’t see them coming until they were right on top of him.

October 30, 1915. Second and Fillmore Streets. Davenport, Iowa, after dark. A street corner that feels normal in daylight and ugly at night. Quiet. Empty. A little too much shadow.

James Gallagher came in from Ottumwa and ended up on that corner at the wrong time. Two men stepped out of the dark and closed the space between them fast. They weren’t there to talk.

There’d been two holdups in the past two days. Quick stickups. A hard voice, a gun in your ribs, a pocket turned inside out. The same story stayed the same: two men. One taller. One shorter. The short one with the nerve.

That night they picked Gallagher.

The smaller man pulled a .38. There was a flash, a crack, and it turned from robbery to murder in a heartbeat. Gallagher took a bullet through the right lung. He lurched forward.

He made it a few steps. Then he folded and hit the pavement.

He Killed His Wife To Marry His Girlfriend

Walter "Dusty" Rhodes

Walter “Dusty” Rhodes wasn’t a stranger drifting through Iowa City. Everyone knew him. He could joke with a hardware clerk, nod at a neighbor, and blend into the daily noise of town. “Dusty” sounded harmless, like a nickname earned from farm roads and old work boots. Nothing about him said danger.

He had a wife, a steady job, and a home. People like that don’t get whispered about or watched. They move through life under a blanket of normal, and normal is the best hiding place.

 

The morning his wife died, he leaned on normal like it could hold him up.

 

Down in the basement, the shotgun went off with the force of a bomb.

 

Dusty ran upstairs and told the maid to call a doctor and the sheriff. It was an accident. His voice was fast, controlled, almost businesslike. Myrtle remembered that calm later.

 

When the officers arrived, Dusty said he was preparing to go hunting. His wife handed him the shotgun, and it accidentally discharged. It was tragic, but nobody’s fault.

Three Dead Before Dawn: The Hardy Family Murders

The Hardy family

Raymond Hardy was days away from getting married when he walked into his family’s farmhouse and found his life blown apart.

His mother lay dead on the couch. His brother was sprawled on the kitchen floor. Before the night was over, his father would be found beaten to death in the barn. Three people were gone. The house was quiet. Whoever had done it was already gone—or so it seemed.

Raymond called for help, grabbed a shotgun, and searched the house in case the killer was still there. Then he waited.

Within hours, Raymond Hardy became the prime suspect.

The case against him was thin, centered on where he hung his hat, and why there was blood on it. Where a revolver turned up, and how much money he had in his pockets. For Raymond, those details became a matter of life and death. If the county attorney convinced a jury, he would hang.

An Unlikely Suspect in the Villisca Axe Murders

Reverend Lyn George Jacklin Kelly

Reverend Lyn George Jacklin Kelly was an unlikely suspect in the Villisca Axe Murders. He was often described as a queer, strange, little man—standing only five foot two and weighing 120 pounds. An article in Smithsonian Magazine said he was well known as a sexual pervert. Just days before the murders, he was observed peeping into windows in Villisca.

Detectives arrested Kelly in 1917 and charged him with the killings, and for a while, it seemed they had the case wrapped up.

Kelly made a written confession. He said he saw a shadow by the Moore house while he was out walking. “Something prompted him to follow it. He saw an ax. He picked it up. Then came a voice saying: ‘Go in. Slay utterly.’”

He crept up the stairs and into the children’s bedroom. The voice came back. “Slay utterly. Suffer little children to come unto me.” He replied, “Yes, Lord, they’re coming quick.” Chop—went the ax.

Blood on the Beat: Remembering Des Moines Policeman Ollie Thomas

Policeman Ollie Thomas

Nobody agrees on the number, but the official count says seven. Seven shots cracked through the humid August night like the city itself had snapped.

August 21, 1925, near Fourth and Grand.

Some poor bastard heard the first few go off and thought it was just a car backfiring. Then two shots boomed louder than the rest, the kind that don’t lie about what they are. Gunfire always has a signature. Anyone who’s heard it knows when the lie ends.

Moments later, a bareheaded man came flying out of an alley and tore east down Grand Avenue like hell had suddenly remembered his address. The witness said the build looked right. The speed looked right. The panic looked right. Bootlegger energy, all of it.

By the time the echoes finished bouncing off brick and glass, Patrolman Ollie Thomas lay dead.

They found him crumpled at the bottom of a stairway landing, soaked in his own blood. Two bullets did the job. One through the abdomen. One through the head. Both traveling downward. That detail stuck with the detectives like a splinter in the brain.

Senator Frank Jones Villisca Axe Murder Suspect

 

Ever since the Villisca Axe Murders, there had been rumors that Frank Jones and his son Albert had skin in the game. Some residents traced it back to when Joe Moore left Jones’ implement business and opened his John Deere dealership. Supposedly, there had been hard feelings ever since.

Another story making the rounds was that Joe Moore was sleeping with Albert Jones’ wife. But that allegation held little water; rumors had linked Dona Jones to half the men in Villisca.

Like the case against Mansfield, the charges against Jones went nowhere. Investigators brought in more suspects over the years, but nothing came of it.

You can read the full story of the Villisca Axe Murders here.

Blood on the Roadside: The West Liberty Tourist Camp Murder

Harland Gabe Simons

The West Liberty tourist camp murder hit the front pages in July 1924 like a thunderclap.

Orton and Diana Ferguson had been on the road for almost a year, wandering up and down the West Coast, drifting from camp to camp, letting the dirt roads decide their path. July 12 was Diana’s thirty-fourth birthday. They were heading home to Atlanta, Michigan, tired but happy, planning to catch a concert in town and sleep under the stars afterward.

 

They pulled into the West Liberty camp just before dusk. A man stepped out of the trees and waved them down. He called himself the park ranger.

 

He told them someone had spilled crankcase oil on the grass up front. He’d show them a better spot. Something quiet. Something private.

 

He guided them deep into the grounds, well away from the other travelers. He helped them settle in, then said he had other campers to look after, and vanished between the tents.

 

His name was Harland “Gabe” Simons.

 

Later that afternoon, he reappeared, casual as a neighbor dropping by to borrow sugar. He chatted, joked, and offered to watch their tent while they went into town. He seemed kind. Polite. Harmless.

William "Blackie" Mansfield Villisca Murder Suspect

In mid-June 1916, newspaper headlines across the state screamed, “Great crime at Villisca now solved.” William Mansfield, an ex-convict and dope fiend, better known in his circle as “Insane Blackie,” was the killer.

The key to the case was the ax murders in Blue Island, Illinois, of Mansfield’s wife, infant daughter, and mother-in-law and father-in-law. Investigators also placed him in Paola, Kansas; Aurora, Illinois, and Villisca, Iowa when those gruesome murders occurred.

Detective J. N. Wilkerson of the Burns Detective Agency ferreted out the link.

Unfortunately, the case fell apart after Mrs. Elmo Thompkins, who claimed to have overheard three men plotting the Villisca murders, failed to identify Mansfield in court.

The prosecution dismissed the case against William Mansfield on July 21, 1916.

You can read the full story of the Villisca Axe Murders here.

The McGreggor Murders--Andrew Thompson

Andrew Thompson dragged Marie Haggerty and her
children across eastern Iowa and Wisconsi for over a week

The river keeps secrets until it’s ready to spit them back.

 For almost six months, the Mississippi held its tongue about what Andrew Thompson did on a frozen December night in 1868. It kept quiet while the ice tightened, the slush thickened, and the current dragged four bodies along its dark ribs. No one in Iowa or Wisconsin knew a thing. Thompson went home, fed his livestock, slept beside his wife, and pretended his hands weren’t stained.

 

Love—or whatever twisted thing he felt—had pushed him there.

 

Maria Haggerty. Thirty-six. Pretty, dark-haired, sharp-eyed. She ran the Bull’s Head Saloon after her husband left for the Union Army. Thompson was a regular. A big, soft-bellied farmer from Monona Township with money in his pockets and hunger under his skin. When Maria poured the whiskey, he fell hard and stupid.

 

People whispered. John Haggerty came home from the war and didn’t even try to fight it. He divorced her, turned the saloon over to her, and headed west.

What Happened to Mrytle Cook: A Vinton Iowa Mystery

Myrtle Cook

Myrtle Cook’s murder had everything police hate—politics, booze, the Klan, and an estranged husband whose alibi kept springing leaks. On September 7, 1925, someone walked up to the living-room window of her Vinton, Iowa home at 703 Third Avenue, confirmed she was sitting at her desk writing a speech for the next day’s W.C.T.U. meeting, and put a bullet straight through her heart.

She stayed alive long enough to whisper a name to her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Cook—a name the town didn’t expect. A man the local police practically trusted with the keys to the city. Detectives didn’t buy it. They chalked it up to shock, pain, and wishful thinking.

Her husband, Clifford B. Cook, wasn’t so dismissive. He said the family reenacted the shooting angle. If Myrtle saw the shooter, she could have identified him. That made everything messier.

Investigators first chased the obvious suspects: rumrunners. Myrtle was one of the loudest prohibition activists in Iowa. She harassed mayors, sheriffs, and state officials. She wrote down license plates and took notes on her neighbors. She treated Prohibition like a personal crusade and made enemies the way some people collect stamps.

Boxcar Murder in West Davenport, 1922

Harry Carey (aka Walter Baum)

Manuel Rodriguez didn’t expect anything unusual when he walked into his friend’s boxcar shack on May 4, 1922. He just pushed open the door—and froze. Manuel Rocha was on the floor, head in a pool of dried blood. Three ax blows to the skull. Then the killer flipped the ax and smashed his face in. Rocha hadn’t even gotten off the soapbox he used as a chair.

Police barely had time to process the scene before the rumors started: Rocha had been sleeping with his friend Harry Carey’s wife, Margaret. In that part of Davenport, an affair was a fast way to end up dead.

 

Margaret wasn’t hard to track down. Detectives found her half out of her mind at Evelyn Locke’s brothel on Warren Street—drugged up, covered in blood, and rambling. Locke said she’d shown up around ten the night before, screaming, “The Mexican has killed Harry. My poor Harry. He will never have to go to jail no more.”

Murder At The Handy Grocery Store Davenport Iowa 1913

Floyd Sheets

February 5, 1913. Davenport was half-frozen and half-drunk. Somewhere on Rockingham Road, a boy with a .38 in his pocket decided he’d had enough of being hungry.

The Handy Grocery was open late. Ernest Dalldorf, twenty, and Clyde Jager, seventeen, were closing up when a skinny shape shuffled through the snow and pressed his face to the glass.

 

Dalldorf felt sorry for him, and unlocked the door. “Come on in and warm up.”

 

The boy stepped inside, pulled a gun, and shouted, “Throw up your hands.”

 

That’s how fast life goes sideways.

 

He shoved them against the counter, grabbed what he could from their pockets. Then nodded at the cash register.

 

Dalldorf raised one hand, pretending to open it. He grabbed a bread case with the other and hurled it. The boy panicked. Three shots cracked through the store.

 

Murder in Lyons, Iowa The Death of Fritz Dolph

Irene Dolph

The morning of February 29, 1908, started cold and gray over Lyons, Iowa. By noon, seventeen-year-old Irene Dolph had killed her husband, Fritz, and was halfway to Joliet, Illinois, telling her mother she was “in trouble.” That was an understatement.

Her mother, Ella Goldsmith, didn’t blink. Trouble had been the family business for years. She bought two train tickets back to Clinton and found a lawyer before the sheriff even heard the name “Dolph.” It was the most organized thing either of them had ever done.

 

Attorney F. L. Holleran told Sheriff T. J. Burke that Fritz Dolph “either murdered himself or was murdered.” The sheriff found out quickly which one it was. The Dolph house smelled like beer and gunpowder. Fritz was on the floor in a mess of sheets, his skull blown apart. A shotgun leaned against the wall with one shell missing. The Daily Times described it as “blowing out his brains,” which was accurate but not helpful to anyone trying to eat breakfast that morning.

 

Everyone in town agreed: Irene did it.

Murder on the Brunner Farm Mason City Iowa

Jennie Brunner

The morning of September 30, 1941, started quietly on the Brunner farm, a few miles northwest of Mason City. By noon, Sam Brunner was dead, and his twenty-two-year-old wife, Jennie, was running for her life.

They had known each other eight weeks before marrying. Long enough for a smile and a dance. Not long enough to see the violence underneath. Within two weeks, the fights began—sharp, fast, unpredictable. Once, Sam pressed a gun to his own chest and dared her to watch him pull the trigger.

That morning, they were in bed. Jennie reached over, teasing him, tickling his ribs. He told her to stop. She laughed. Then he reached under his pillow for the pistol he always kept there. “Quit it,” he said, “or I’ll shoot you.”

Belle Plaine Witch Murder

John Geyer killed his mother with his bare hands because he thought she’d hexed his cattle. That’s what he told the sheriff. “She bewitched the herd. The voices told me to do it.”

 

Neighbors said he’d been off for months. Muttering about curses. Watching the barn at night. One man at the feed store told a reporter, “He talked about the cows like they were possessed. We thought he’d just lost money on bad hay.”

 

He was broke. The cattle were dying. His head wasn’t right.

 

One November morning, he took a lamp into the old woman’s room. The farm was quiet and cold. She was whispering spells in her sleep. The light flickered and told him to strike.

 

When the neighbors found him, he was standing over her, calm as Sunday. “It’s done,” he said.