Cold Cases at Library
Iowa Cold Cases made a stop by the Oskaloosa Public Library this week to discuss the 4 unsolved murders in Mahaska County.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – Crime and the solving of a crime are always popular topics for tv shows, movies and the news industry. One Iowa website hopes that the exposure will help it, along with law enforcement around the state, solve cases that have gone cold.
A cold case is when all possible leads for solving a particular crime, in particular murder, have been exhausted. The case isn’t closed, but instead may live on a shelf until, one day, a tip or piece of evidence surfaces that implicates a possible suspect, potentially leading to solving the case.
Iowa Cold Cases, located at https://iowacoldcases.org/, is a clearing house that hosts those cases that have reached the end of leads. The hope is that the information and exposure will help to generate that next lead, which could potentially help solve one of those murder cases sitting on a shelf.
This week, they visited the Oskaloosa Public Library to help shed some light on local cold cases, and to do a bit of self promotion.
Cases from Mahaska County are:
Edward A. Schmidt, a reclusive and eccentric 85-year-old bachelor, was found beaten and stabbed to death in his basement law office in Oskaloosa on February 16, 1972.
On October 27, 1982, Lloyd John Patrick’s body was found in his house after a fire consumed it. The autopsy revealed Patrick died from gunshot wounds and not injuries sustained during the fire.
On Sunday, Oct. 5, 1986 — just 15 days before her 25th birthday — Denease (Monson) Latham of What Cheer, Iowa, suffered blunt force trauma injuries to her head before allegedly drowning in two inches of water beneath a bridge about a half mile north of Rose Hill in Mahaska County.
On September 27, 1987, Mary Ann Green was found stabbed to death in her Oskaloosa, Iowa, mobile home, located in the Spring Creek Mobile Home Park on Highway 23 South in Mahaska County. Mary Ann’s murder fell under the jurisdiction of the Mahaska County Sheriff’s Office, whose solid investigative skills quickly led to the arrest of Green’s stepson, Richard Lee Green, and his acquaintance, David Kelly Yant.
If you want to know more about Iowa Cold Cases you can visit them on their website listed above, or also their Facebook Page – HERE.
To see more events taking place at the Oskaloosa Public Library, their event calendar is listed HERE.
