Crime Immemorial

Eighteen-year-old Sheila Jean Collins was originally from Evanston, Illinois, but moved to Ames, Iowa shortly after graduating high school to attend Iowa State University, where she was a freshman in the early part of 1968. By all accounts, she was a well-liked and studious young woman who worked part-time in the cafeteria in her dorm, and also participated in a few extracurricular activities, such as the school’s synchronized swimming team.

Sheila’s boyfriend was studying to be a teacher at the University of Northern Illinois, and Sheila was actually planning on transferring there later in the year to be closer to him, after which he was going to propose to her.

On Friday, January 26th, 1968, Sheila’s boyfriend had intended to drive to Ames to visit her, but had to cancel at the last minute because of car troubles. The couple arranged to meet at a later date, but then Sheila decided that she would surprise her boyfriend by traveling to his college campus in DeKalb herself, and then perhaps the pair of them could go on to Evanston to visit her parents for the weekend.

Sheila did not have a car of her own, so she did what a lot of ISU students did: posted her information to a ride-sharing board in the student union. “I need a ride to: DeKalb, Ill., or Chicago area,” she wrote. “Date leaving: any Friday.” She then provided her phone number and hoped for the best.

Not long after pinning her card to the ride board, Sheila fielded a phone call in her dorm room. According to later testimony from a friend, Sheila said that a man had offered to drive her right to her destination, though she did not mention his name. The caller apparently told Sheila that he wanted to leave as soon as possible, so Sheila quickly packed her things and headed out to the intersection of Beach Avenue and Lincoln Way, where the man had told her to meet him.

Several witnesses later reported seeing Sheila at around eight-thirty p.m., standing on the corner near the outskirts of the campus, suitcase in hand. She was thereafter spotted getting into a small, dark-colored vehicle which some eyewitnesses thought might have been a Volkswagen. She was never seen alive again.

By noon on Saturday, Sheila’s parents had begun to worry. Sheila had phoned them Friday evening and told them that she had gotten a ride on campus and would be coming to visit, but after that, the Collins’ had heard no word from their daughter. Early Saturday afternoon, they called the police and reported her missing.

For more than twenty-four hours, the family would remain in a terrifying limbo, uncertain as to the fate of Sheila Jean. But Sunday, tragically, would bring a grim resolution.

At about two in the afternoon, a man named Dr. Roger Hogle, who was out fox hunting with his eight-year-old son near the town of Colo, Iowa, discovered the body of Sheila Jean Collins after his son pointed out something that appeared to be a foot sticking out of a ditch.

Detectives descended on the scene, which was situated on a somewhat remote gravel road. Sheila’s remains had been left in a squatting position, with her wool overcoat partially draped over her head and shoulders. The killer had strangled her with a length of nylon cord, which was still knotted around her throat and which had likely been tightened using a pipe.

Her sweatshirt and bra had been yanked up and left around her neck, while the rest of her clothing and belongings had been placed in a field only a few feet away from the body. Investigators believed that Sheila had likely been murdered elsewhere and dumped in the ditch where she was found.

A post-mortem examination determined that Sheila had not been raped, though the state of undress in which she was found indicated that the slaying probably had a sexual motive, and some contemporary newspapers report that she had indeed been molested.

From the beginning, it appeared that the police had very little to go on, and it didn’t help matters that there was a great deal of infighting and dirty politics going on behind the scenes that might have hampered the investigation. Evidently, one department would withhold information from another, and the Story County Attorney was discovered to have leaked false leads to the media which suggested that Sheila’s death had been attributable to her alleged drug connections or “radical politics.” According to everyone who knew her, Sheila had not been involved in either drugs or politics, but as the Attorney was planning a bid for Iowa Attorney General, he wanted to appear “tough on crime.” Despite his machinations, he would go on to lose the election.

Though a few suspects were considered in the murder of Sheila Jean Collins, the investigation eventually went cold, and no arrests were ever made. For a time, authorities were seeking to establish a link between Sheila’s murder, the May killing of Christine Rothschild, and the so-called Michigan Murders, a series of seven slayings of young women committed between 1967 and 1969, which would later be attributed to serial killer John Norman Collins (no relation). It appears that this line of inquiry, however, would ultimately lead nowhere.

Some more recent researchers into the case have also speculated that Sheila might have fallen prey to serial killer Ted Bundy, who was thought to be in the general area at the time and had a very similar method of killing his victims, but no solid evidence has ever been found to support this hypothesis.

As of this writing, the case remains open.