Cold Cases in Iowa
ColdCaseIndex documents 8 cases in Iowa, dated 1912 to 2018. 6 are recorded as unsolved. The earliest is Villisca Axe Murders (1912) and the most recent is Mollie Tibbetts (2018).
- Unsolved 6 (75%)
- Solved or convicted 2 (25%)
Homicide clearance in Iowa, 1965 to 2024
A homicide is "cleared" when police make an arrest or close it by exceptional means, so an uncleared case is not always an unsolved one. Source: Murder Accountability Project analysis of FBI Uniform Crime Report data, as published by Project: Cold Case. These are statewide totals and are separate from the ColdCaseIndex entries listed below.
By type
All Iowa cases
Mollie Tibbetts
University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, 20, disappeared while out for an evening run in Brooklyn, Iowa, on July 18, 2018. Her body was found in a Poweshiek County cornfield on August 21, 2018.
Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins
Cousins Lyric Cook-Morrissey, 10, and Elizabeth Collins, 8, disappeared during a bike ride near Meyers Lake in Evansdale, Iowa, in July 2012.
Jodi Huisentruit
Television news anchor Jodi Huisentruit disappeared on her way to work at KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa. Her car was found with signs of a struggle.
Marc Allen
Thirteen-year-old Marc James-Warren Allen II vanished on March 29, 1986, after telling his mother he was walking to a friend's house near his home on Emma Avenue on Des Moines' south side.
Eugene Wade Martin
Eugene Wade Martin, a 13-year-old Des Moines Register carrier, vanished in the early morning of August 12, 1984, while delivering Sunday papers on Des Moines' south side; only his bag of rolled newspapers was found at his pickup…
Johnny Gosch
Twelve-year-old Johnny Gosch disappeared while delivering the Sunday Des Moines Register in West Des Moines, Iowa, on September 5, 1982; his wagon of papers was found two blocks from home.
Michelle Martinko
Eighteen-year-old Michelle Martinko was stabbed to death in her family's car in a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, shopping mall parking lot in December 1979.
Villisca Axe Murders
During the night of June 9-10, 1912, eight people, including six children, were bludgeoned to death with an axe inside the Josiah Moore family home in Villisca, Iowa.