Who Killed Edward Kriz at the Hamburg Inn in Iowa City

 

Sometimes the difference between life and death can be as simple as who walks out the door first. That was the case for Edward Kriz, 43, the owner of George’s Buffet, a tavern on Market Street in Iowa City. Kriz closed the tavern shortly after 1 a.m. on November 10, 1962, and headed next door to the Hamburg Inn for a late-night bite with his wife, Bernice, and employee Ralph Thomason.

After finishing their meal, the group left through the back door at around 1:45 a.m. Edward Kriz barely made it two steps out the door before a man wearing a Halloween mask opened fire. Kriz lurched forward, wrestling the man for the gun. Two more shots were fired before he crumpled to the ground.

The shooter fled north toward Bloomington and Gilbert Streets. A witness heard the shots, then saw a man running across Linn Street. He got into what looked like a foreign sports car and sped away.

Kriz was rushed to University Hospital, where he died less than an hour later.

The Murder of Roy Wertz. An Open And Shut Case, Except ...

 

Roy Wertz

Roy Wertz’s murder seemed like an open and shut case. He got into a heated argument with his wife and daughter and began slapping them around. His wife wrestled the gun away from him. It went off, sending two slugs into Wertz’s head, killing him.

Mrs. Wertz admitted, pulling the trigger, so there was no question who fired the fatal shot, or why. Her husband attacked her, then tried to choke her daughter.

Bang. He was dead. They weren’t.

A few days later, the coroner’s jury seemed to agree with her. They determined Mimi Wertz shot her husband with a .32 caliber pistol, adding they believed the “shots were fired in self-defense.”

Case closed. Except.

An hour before the coroner’s jury released its verdict, the police arrested Roy Wertz’s son-in-law, Robert Leeper, 22, on a charge of murder in the first degree.

What was the disconnect? Why did the police suspect Robert Leeper killed his father-in-law? And why didn’t they wait for the verdict of the coroner’s jury before arresting Leeper?

A Double Murder in Low Moor

 

By the time the sun came up over the Lincoln Highway on November 14, 1922, Homer (47) and Rose Brownfield (38) were dead on the floor of their roadside store and the killer was gone.

 

No witnesses. No arrest. No suspect.

 

Just two bodies beside one of the busiest roads in America and a murderer who vanished into the darkness somewhere west of Low Moor, Iowa.

 

People around Clinton County still talk about it more than a hundred years later. A husband and wife running a little highway store. A cold November night. Then gunshots followed by silence.

 

The Lincoln Highway brought strangers through eastern Iowa at all hours.

 

That was part of the problem.

 

By 1922, it had become one of the busiest roads in the country. Cars rattled through Clinton County day and night carrying salesmen, drifters, farm families, tourists, and men nobody knew anything about. Most just passed through.

 

Some didn’t.

 

Homer and Rose Brownfield ran a little roadside store near Low Moor. It sat out in the open country where the road cut through fields and darkness. Travelers stopped for gas, cigarettes, sandwiches, coffee, or directions before moving on.

 

The Brownfields worked long days.

Who Poisoned Ross Ashbaugh in Maynard Iowa?

By the time they dug Ross Ashbaugh out of the ground for the third time, people around Maynard had stopped asking whether he’d been poisoned.

They were asking who had done it.

The Ashbaugh farm sat outside Maynard, Iowa, surrounded by fields that rolled flat into the summer heat. Neighbors noticed everything. Who came by? Who stayed too long? Which marriages looked strained at church on Sunday morning.

Ross Ashbaugh was 44 and built like a man who’d spent his life outdoors. He farmed, raised livestock, and kept the operation running through the endless cycle of planting, feeding, fixing, and harvesting. He and his wife, Effie, were raising two children, Lucile and Edward. By most accounts, Ross wasn’t flashy or loud. Just another hardworking Iowa farmer trying to get by.

Arthur Cahoe had been around the farm for four years.

He was 38, hired help, and close enough to the family that people didn’t think twice about seeing him there. He worked alongside Ross during the day and spent evenings in the house. Over time, neighbors noticed the way Cahoe and Effie acted around each other.

The Chilling 1972 Mystery of Lynn Schuller and the Alligator Named Pogo

 

Lynn Schuller was a 25-year-old mother living the suburban dream in Cedar Rapids with her husband, Keith, and their three-year-old son, Eric. On the surface, the couple enjoyed a picture-perfect life. They’d tied the knot in 1967 and welcomed their first child in 1969. Life was good, right? But as often happens, appearances can be deceiving.

Keith dropped a bombshell on Lynn in 1971. He wanted a divorce. But Lynn wasn’t ready to give up on her marriage and refused. He kept pushing, but she wouldn’t sign the papers.

Things went sideways. Fast. Lynn wrote a letter to her mother, Eloise Tickner, in 1972, confiding Keith had threatened to kill her. But she quickly dismissed it, saying, “He would never do anything like that.” Was it denial? Or wishful thinking?

Fast forward a few months.

It’s August 6, 1972. Keith told authorities: He woke up early, left the house with their son around 7:30 a.m. to take his son fishing, and let Lynn sleep in. When they returned just after noon, Lynn and her bicycle were gone. No note. No trace—just gone.

Murder of Marlene "Mickey" Padfield Lisbon Iowa 1959

 

When Marlene “Mickey” Padfield, 17, of Lisbon, Iowa, disappeared on February 18, 1959, it was assumed she’d run away. There was a small notice in The Cedar Rapids Gazette the next day, then nothing for nearly two months. But that all changed on April 29 when the skeleton of a young woman was found on a section of timberland near Roy White’s farm.

White said his dogs walked up to him carrying what looked like bones. When he checked, it was a human hand. He did a little digging and found a skeleton lying on a nearby road. Apparently, the dogs dragged it out of the timber.

Ethel Padfield, Marlene’s mother, identified the remains by the blouse she was wearing and the color of her fingernail polish. More of Marlene’s clothes turned up in May—her purse, a shoe, and her underwear, but none of them helped detectives piece together what happened to her. Her skirt turned up the following February, and pieces of her slip after that.

A pathologist examined the remains but couldn’t determine the cause of death because there wasn’t enough soft tissue left to test. The skeleton didn’t provide any clues—there weren’t any broken bones or other clues to show foul play.

Detectives spent the next few weeks piecing together the girl’s life and last days.

Marlene was described as an attractive, brown-haired girl who tried a little too hard to be popular during her junior year. She had short hair above the ears, with curls up front—stood 5 foot four, weighed 112 pounds, was smart, aggressively friendly, and wanted everyone to like her.

She joined the band and acted in the school play, “Our Hearts Were Young and Gay.” And then, six weeks into her senior year, Marlene decided it was too much. School bored her, and she wasn’t learning anything worthwhile, so she dropped out and ran through a string of low-wage jobs, earning $28 to $32 a week. She worked as a waitress at several restaurants, clerked at Mongomery Ward, then got a job as a bookkeeper at J & T Radio and Television Repair.

Ethel Padfield dropped Marlene off at J & T Radio and Television Repair in Cedar Rapids on February 18. She talked to her daughter on the phone several times during the day, and said her daughter planned to take the bus home.

Murder of Edward Stuart At Lone Grave Bluff In Clinton

 

Harold Riggs (The Daily Times. October 8, 1926)

The place already had a bad reputation before Edward Stewart was murdered there.

 

People around Clinton called it Lone Grave Bluff. Legend says a steamboat stopped there once so the crew could bury a dead river pilot. Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t. By 1926, nobody cared much either way. The name fit. High bluffs. Thick brush. River fog rolling off the Mississippi. The place kids dared each other to visit after dark, then ran all the way home afterward.

 

It was where Harold Riggs took Edward Stewart.

 

Riggs was young, but the police already knew him well. According to the Clinton Advertiser, officers first arrested him when he was eight for breaking into automobiles. Not long after, they picked him up again for stealing a gun from a local house. He pleaded guilty and was supposed to go to reform school, but got paroled at the last minute.

 

The city watched him grow up mean.

 

Teachers complained. Police hauled him in over and over. Neighbors said he was always looking for trouble. Even as a teenager, he had a bad temper and could fly off over almost nothing.

Book Review: Skull In The Ashes by Peter Kaufman

Some true crime books feel clean and organized. Nice little timelines. Neatly explained motives. Detectives heroically solving crimes before dinner.

Skull in the Ashes isn’t that book.

It feels like somebody dumped a shovel full of burned secrets onto the table and said, “Good luck figuring this mess out.”

It starts in 1897 when a general store burns down in Walford, Iowa. The next morning they find a charred body in the ashes, and everybody just sort of nods and says, “Well, guess Frank Novak died in the fire.”

Except… did he?

That question hangs over the entire book like smoke.

Pretty quickly things start smelling worse than the burned building. Novak had life insurance policies. Convenient. 

The body might actually belong to a hard-drinking laborer named Edward Murray. Also convenient. 

Two Confessions And No Body in Conway The Murder of Thomas Worm

 

Dorothy Worm and Henry Schmitt standing over the body of Thomas Conway

Thomas Worm, 42, disappeared from his farm near Conway, Iowa, on November 4, 1943. At least that’s how the case started.

 

For over two years, nobody knew what happened to him.

 

Then the story started coming apart.

 

Dorothy Worm said she met Henry Schmitt back in 1938 when he offered her a ride on a saddle horse she “couldn’t quite afford.” Somehow that turned into an affair, and eventually a murder.

 

The Des Moines Register described Dorothy as an “attractive brunette” with a grown son. Henry Schmitt was 63 years old, married, and had four children. Still, he kept showing up at the Worm farm once or twice a week for nearly six years.

 

Schmitt said he wasn’t really in love with Dorothy. He “just loved being with her.”

 

That might have been believable if Thomas Worm hadn’t vanished.

 

Dorothy later claimed she only spent time with Schmitt because he threatened her son’s life. Investigators didn’t completely buy it. They thought Schmitt spoiled her with things her husband couldn’t afford, and Dorothy liked the attention.

Murder At The Roosevelt Hotel

 

Roosevelt Hotel in Cedar Rapids

Byron Hattman, a 29-year-old aerospace engineer with Emerson Electric, was murdered in room 729 of the Roosevelt Hotel in Cedar Rapids on December 14, 1948. The crime scene showed evidence of a violent struggle, with blood splattered on all four walls and knife marks etched into the plaster. Hattman was found face down on the floor, with a stab wound in his lower chest and several gashes on his head, face, and hands.

A maid discovered the body shortly after 7 a.m. the next morning. Detectives noted the door was locked from the outside, but Hattman’s key was found under the bed. The locked door seemed puzzling until a bellhop explained keys from nearby rooms could open others; for instance, the key for room 725 could unlock room 729.

As investigators dug into Hattman’s life, they uncovered several oddities. His landlord, Alvin Steinke, mentioned Hattman had recently been the victim of several “annoyances,” including someone placing a stud-filled plank in front of his car just a week earlier. And his personal life had taken a hit. Hattman, once an active dater, had become more withdrawn in recent months, dating once a month, if that.

Adding to the mystery was a peculiar chicken sculpture found in the trunk of Hattman’s car—two chicken bones attached to a cloth with the words “Lest you forget” underneath. Coworkers Paul Deam and Fred Gaez explained a woman Hattman dated gave him the bones as a playful reminder of a picnic where they enjoyed fried chicken together. That seemed strange and stalkerish.

A Job Offer Turned Deadly: The 1860 Iowa City Murder Case

 

Jerry Boyd and his wife were offered a good paying job in Iowa City

How does that old saying go? If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

Jerry Boyd learned that lesson the hard way back in 1860. Boyd, a free man of color, and his wife, Mary, lived in Galena, Illinois. From all accounts, Jerry was a hardworking man. Twenty years before that, he saved his money and purchased Mary from her previous owner, a man named Vandeventer in St. Louis.

 

Two men, George Goodwin (also known as Wilder) and Peter Boulton offered them good paying jobs if they would move to Iowa City.

 

A few days later, Jerry and Mary Boyd, a fourteen-year-old mulatto girl who lived with them, a younger white girl whom Mrs. Boyd was nursing, and Goodwin and Boulton were headed west in a covered wagon.

The Wild "Party Taxi" Murder That Shocked Des Moines In 1922

 

Party Taxi Thad Mitchell's body was found in

If you wanted to take a walk on the wild side in 1920s Des Moines, Thad (T. W.) Mitchell was your guy. Mitchell ran a prosperous party-taxi business, a smaller version of today’s party buses.

 

He carried a book containing the names and phone numbers of over three hundred clients to whom he acted as a pimp, chauffeur, and guide, so whether you needed a bottle of moonshine, a woman, or a safe spot to meet—Mitchell could hook you up.

 

He ran the Consolidated Taxi Company with his partner, “Bullets” Richart. The partners had a fleet of six Cadillacs that ran from 6 p.m. into the wee hours of the morning, transporting passengers to roadhouses and other rendezvous points. Or just giving them a refuge where they could make out, drink, and take advantage of the extended backseat as they rode along.

 

Off-duty policeman William Winburn found Mitchell dead in his Cadillac sedan early on December 8, 1922. Mitchell was seated behind the wheel, with the ignition on and the gear thrown in reverse. 

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.

The Train Robbery That Put Early Iowa On Edge

 

An early newspaper depiction of the Council Bluffs train robbery

The men who robbed the Burlington Fast Mail Train No. 8 in Council Bluffs on November 13, 1920, didn’t ride horses or wear masks. They didn’t wave revolvers from the saddle or disappear into canyon country like dime novel bandits.

 

They were local boys.

 

Boys who knew the rail yards. Boys who knew the schedules. Boys who knew that one train rolling through town that night carried more wealth than most people would see in ten lifetimes.

 

By sunrise, they had stolen millions.

 

Council Bluffs was built on rails. Freight trains rattled through at all hours. Passenger coaches came and went. Mail runs cut through the darkness. Stock cars groaned. Couplers slammed together like gunshots. Steam drifted across the yards in white clouds. Lanterns swung through the night in the hands of switchmen and brakemen. The whole place smelled of coal smoke, hot iron, grease, mud, and livestock.

 

If a man wanted to vanish into noise and confusion, there were easier places to fail and few better places to succeed.

 

Burlington Train No. 8 looked like any other fast mail run. Cars loaded with sacks. Clerks sorting letters under dim light. Men hauling packages and registered pouches. Nothing about it advertised fortune.

Inside The Drake Park Bank Robbery Des Moines 1921

 

The crowd outside the Drake Park State Bank after the robbery

The four men who walked into the Drake Park State Bank on July 13, 1921, didn’t look like bank robbers. They were dressed like ordinary customers. Men wanting to cash a check or ask about a loan.

The bank sat in a busy Des Moines neighborhood. Inside, it was a normal summer day. Clerks counted money and worked their books. Customers drifted in and out. Nobody paid much attention to the four strangers.

Then the guns came out.

One man covered the lobby with a revolver. Another jumped the counter. The others rounded up employees and shoved them toward the rear, barking orders. Police later suspected “Lucky” Tommy O’Connor was one of the men inside. Several bank employees identified him as the robber who drove them toward the safe.

Inside A Daring Iowa Bank Robbery That Almost Worked

Poke Wells

Poke Wells (Charles Knox Polk Wells) was one of those guys you didn’t want to mess around with. A Jesse Jams wannabe. Some say he was a friend of the James boys. Maybe even rode with them. But there’s no proof of that. What’s certain is that Poke robbed a few trains. Tried his luck at banks, and that’s where things went sideways.

He rode into Riverton, Iowa, on July 11, 1881. Before the day was over, his name was splashed across front pages all over the Midwest.

 

Poke’s autobiography said his partner was a man named Wilson. That might be, but early reports pointed to Bill Norris. That’s how outlaw stories go. People toss out names and wait to see what sticks. In the end, his partner’s name doesn’t change the story, other than he blamed the entire affair on him. “Wilson,” he said, “now insisted on being initiated as a bank or train robber.”

 

Poke and his partner didn’t rush in blind. They spent a day or two looking over the country around Riverton. They inspected horses owned by Mr. Parsley and Mr. Burks, thought better of buying them, then stole a pair from Mr. Anderson instead.