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I was randomly poking about the other night, searching for accounts of unsolved child murders in the 1920s midwest, when I came across the site Iowa Cold Cases. There's an account there of the truly horrifying rape, torture, and murder of two year old Donna Sue Davis in 1955, http://iowacoldcases.org/case-summar...nna-sue-davis/. Someone has put a lot of work into researching and writing the article - it's a minute by minute account of the child's disappearance, brazenly lifted from her crib and spirited away (one can't help but think of the Lindbergh baby), only to be found several days later, abandoned in a cornfield north of town. It's pretty obvious from reading the case that someone knew the family's habits - the murderer was seen walking directly to the window by which the toddler's crib was placed, and he climbed in through the window, grabbed her (trusting her parents to be in the front part of the house while she was left to go to sleep, as was apparently their habit), and making his escape on foot through the streets, alleys and backyards of the neighborhood. This wasn't a complete stranger.
Interestingly, on the same site, there's a much shorter account of a child abduction and murder that took place about a mile away the previous summer, of 8 year old Jimmy Bremmers http://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/jimmy-bremmers/. The two abduction sites are connected by a straight drive down Villa Ave. His body was also found in a field to the northwest of town, although a month had elapsed and the body was badly decomposed, so little could be said about his treatment beyond the fact that he had been decapitated and his hands cut off (the head was lying nearby, so it apparently wasn't an attempt to conceal his identity). In Bremmers case a mental patient was convicted of the crime, and was in custody the following summer when the Davis murder occurred. The Bremmers conviction seems to have been shakey from the start, however, and was eventually overturned.
It's hard to avoid wondering if the same murderer committed both crimes. They're physically close together, both were against children, both crimes contained elements of shocking cruelty, and the bodies were disposed of in a similar fashion. The Davis case was almost certainly someone who knew the family's habits and the layout of their house, and several witnesses got a look at the man, albeit in the dusk. In the Bremmers case, an 8 year old boy was abducted in daylight from his own neighborhood. One assumes it to have been someone he knew and trusted, since he apparently went along without a fight. The killer had access to an automobile.
I'd never heard of either of these murders, but they're the sort that seem designed to catch one's attention, and encourage speculation. These seem like the sort of cases that, even 60 years on, might perhaps be solvable.
Interestingly, on the same site, there's a much shorter account of a child abduction and murder that took place about a mile away the previous summer, of 8 year old Jimmy Bremmers http://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/jimmy-bremmers/. The two abduction sites are connected by a straight drive down Villa Ave. His body was also found in a field to the northwest of town, although a month had elapsed and the body was badly decomposed, so little could be said about his treatment beyond the fact that he had been decapitated and his hands cut off (the head was lying nearby, so it apparently wasn't an attempt to conceal his identity). In Bremmers case a mental patient was convicted of the crime, and was in custody the following summer when the Davis murder occurred. The Bremmers conviction seems to have been shakey from the start, however, and was eventually overturned.
It's hard to avoid wondering if the same murderer committed both crimes. They're physically close together, both were against children, both crimes contained elements of shocking cruelty, and the bodies were disposed of in a similar fashion. The Davis case was almost certainly someone who knew the family's habits and the layout of their house, and several witnesses got a look at the man, albeit in the dusk. In the Bremmers case, an 8 year old boy was abducted in daylight from his own neighborhood. One assumes it to have been someone he knew and trusted, since he apparently went along without a fight. The killer had access to an automobile.
I'd never heard of either of these murders, but they're the sort that seem designed to catch one's attention, and encourage speculation. These seem like the sort of cases that, even 60 years on, might perhaps be solvable.
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