A 90-year-old man found dead in his Cedar Rapids home two weeks ago was beaten to death, officials said Thursday. Matthew J. Owen died of multiple blunt-force injuries, according to Chief State Medical Examiner Dr. Julia Goodin. The death has been ruled a homicide, and no arrests have been made. Owen, who went by the [...]
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Edward Cusic said his mother was holding a gun and said, “I’ll send you straight to hell,” before he hit her with a crowbar inside the house they shared in Cedar Rapids. In a 25-minute jailhouse interview Wednesday, Cusic said he only meant to injure his mother the night she died and claimed he was [...]
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An attorney for a young man charged in a double-homicide in Manchester wants part of a police interview kept out of his client’s trial. Brandon L. Ahlers, 20, is charged with two counts of aiding and abetting first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of Richard Sweet, 55, and Janet Sweet, 62, both of Manchester. He is [...]
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IOWA CITY — After closing George’s Buffet early Nov. 10, 1962, owner Edward Kriz, his wife and a bar tender walked to the Hamburg Inn No. 2 for coffee and a sandwich. It was a common routine for the 43-year-old Iowa City businessman and his wife. But this time was different. This time, their early-morning [...]
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Reggie Williams sat on his porch on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, one month after his daughter was shot and killed. He has grown tired of the rumors, and would rather not listen anymore. All he wants to know is why. “I ask myself that question every day of my life,” Williams said. “Why did it [...]
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Investigators returned Thursday to the Cedar Rapids neighborhood where a teenage girl was shot and killed. Latasha N. Roundtree, 19, a standout basketball player during her time at Cedar Rapids Washington High School, was shot around 10 p.m. Saturday in the 600 block of 16th Street SW. She died at an Iowa City hospital a [...]
continue »By The Gazette Editorial Board —- Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sentencing minors convicted of homicide to life prison terms amounts to cruel and unusual punishment barred by the Eighth Amendment. The ruling in Miller v. Alabama states that “a judge or jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances [...]
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UPDATE: Investigators are looking for clues after a man was killed Monday morning at a southwest Cedar Rapids club. Police arrived at Woody’s Show Club, 9395 Sixth St. SW, at about 12:45 a.m. to find a man suffering from a gunshot wound. Emergency crews rushed him to a local hospital. The victim died shortly after from his injuries. Investigators [...]
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The Iowa Supreme Court denied further review Thursday of a Hiawatha man’s vehicular homicide conviction in 2010. Troy Fox, 36, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for vehicular homicide Oct. 22, 2010 in Linn County District Court. Fox was intoxicated, over three times the legal limit, when he drove himself and his friend Ruben [...]
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The apparent progress in one Cedar Rapids homicide case this week has another victim’s family asking “what about us?” In the early morning hours of June 26, someone shot Dexter Meeks, 22, near the corner of 15th Street and Second Avenue SE. Meeks died later at a Cedar Rapids hospital and police have made no [...]
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