It was somewhat late on the night of Friday, August 26th, 1960 when thirty-eight-year-old single mother and office clerk Dorothy Coon set out on an unknown errand from the home in Des Moines, Iowa that she shared with her two teenaged children. Nancy, nineteen, and Dennis, seventeen, had both already gone to bed when their mother walked out the front door for the final time.
Dorothy was clad in a dark green dress and white shoes, and apparently had not told anyone where she was going. The following morning, when Nancy and Dennis awoke to find her gone, they immediately called police and reported her missing.
Days later, on Monday, August 29th, a farmer mowing weeds alongside a road in Lucas County happened upon Dorothy’s body in a ditch, twelve miles away from her home. The road where she was found, significantly, led to the farm belonging to Dorothy’s parents, so perhaps she had been going to visit them when she was attacked by a nameless perpetrator.
Dorothy was still clad in the green dress and white shoes, and her remains showed no obvious signs of violence. Her purse was discovered about a mile away. No further physical evidence could be gathered from the scene, as heavy rains over the weekend would have washed away any potential footprints or tire tracks.
A closer examination of Dorothy’s body revealed fractured neck bones and bruising around her throat that suggested she had been strangled. The post-mortem also demonstrated that she had probably been murdered shortly after leaving her home on Friday night.
The first and only suspect to come to the attention of investigators was Dorothy’s ex-husband, Richard Coon. Dorothy and Richard had been divorced for more than a decade, the split coming about because Richard had started an affair with a widow who had previously lived across the street from the Coons.
A year before Dorothy was murdered, Richard Coon had married the widow and moved to the nearby town of Albia with her and her son. Richard and Dorothy still saw each other on occasion, however, and there were reports that the financially-strapped Richard refused to pay alimony or child support to his former wife, though it is unclear how much bad blood still existed between the pair because of this.
Richard Coon claimed he had been at home with his wife and stepson all weekend. He willingly submitted to a lie detector test, but the results were inconclusive, and no further evidence warranted police keeping him in custody. He was summarily released.
Aside from him, no other persons of interest were apparent, and the mysterious killing of Dorothy Coon quickly joined the ranks of Iowa’s cold cases.
Crime Immemorial 