Ever wonder what evil lurks in your hometown? Spine-Chilling Murders in Iowa takes you behind the scenes of some old-time killings in Iowa.
Nettie Schwab married Jerome Hoot in Kansas City in 1899. When she woke up on the second day of her honeymoon, she found him bending over her, holding a handkerchief laced with chloroform close to her face. Another time, Hoot tried to drug her with a tablet, but she spit it out when he wasn't watching. Not long after that, she received an infernal machine in the mail.
The Saturday Night Murderer butchered eight people overnight in the sleepy little town of Villisca in June 1912. Investigators believed the killer rode the rails into town, then once his bloody work was done, hopped back on the train.
"Tonight, I'm going to hold up the Handy Store," bragged Floyd Sheets. "If there is any resistance, someone is going to be filled with lead. So, watch tomorrow evening's papers if you think I'm kidding." Sure enough, he killed the owner's son at the Davenport, Iowa grocery store.
No one was particularly surprised when they learned Earl Throst killed schoolmarm Inga Magnusson near Dorchester, Iowa, in 1921. When captured, Throst told detectives he planned to marry Magnusson the following week even though she was engaged to another man.
Myrtle Cook's death contained all the elements of a good murder mystery—rum runners, and an estranged husband who fumbled some of the details of his alibi. Cook, age 51, was shot to death in her Vinton, Iowa home on September 7, 1925.
Read them if you dare!
