OkieGranny
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IA IA - Diane Schofield, 21, Des Moines, 7 July 1975
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TedMac
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Diane Marie Schofield
"
On Thursday afternoon, July 10, 1975, a young woman’s badly decomposed body was found in the trunk of a tan 1966 Rambler in a parking lot at Southwest 20th and Porter near the Des Moines airport.
Polk County in Iowa
Des Moines in Polk County
Dr. R.C. Wooters, Polk County medical examiner, identified the victim as 21-year-old Diane Marie Schofield.
Schofield, a divorcée with a 5-year-old daughter, lived at 2931 Cottage Grove in Des Moines and had worked in Des Moines as a waitress and a masseuse.
Wooters said an autopsy indicated Schofield died of strangulation.
In a Des Moines Register article dated Friday, July 11, 1975, Wooters said the victim had been dead for several days and had been strangled with a towel and that her hands and ankles were tied..."
"
On Thursday afternoon, July 10, 1975, a young woman’s badly decomposed body was found in the trunk of a tan 1966 Rambler in a parking lot at Southwest 20th and Porter near the Des Moines airport.
Polk County in Iowa
Dr. R.C. Wooters, Polk County medical examiner, identified the victim as 21-year-old Diane Marie Schofield.
Schofield, a divorcée with a 5-year-old daughter, lived at 2931 Cottage Grove in Des Moines and had worked in Des Moines as a waitress and a masseuse.
Wooters said an autopsy indicated Schofield died of strangulation.
In a Des Moines Register article dated Friday, July 11, 1975, Wooters said the victim had been dead for several days and had been strangled with a towel and that her hands and ankles were tied..."
"Just 21 years old, Diane Schofield was the life of the party, younger sister Twyla Johnson said. “She was just so beautiful with the longest legs you ever saw. You could have 15 girls in the same outfit in the same room and everybody would look at Diane,” Twyla told Dateline.
Twyla and Diane grew up in Iowa, near Des Moines, and on July 4, 1975, they got together and spent the day with a few friends at a nearby lake.
Diane left the lake a little early to go to her job as a waitress, Twyla told Dateline. She didn’t hear from her sister for the next few days, but told Dateline, “Back then, you kind of just did your own thing,” so she didn’t find it strange to not hear from Diane. Diane shared an apartment with friends, who grew concerned, according to Twyla, as they also had not heard from Diane."
Sister still searching for Des Moines woman Diane Schofield’s killer 44 years after murder
Twyla and Diane grew up in Iowa, near Des Moines, and on July 4, 1975, they got together and spent the day with a few friends at a nearby lake.
Diane left the lake a little early to go to her job as a waitress, Twyla told Dateline. She didn’t hear from her sister for the next few days, but told Dateline, “Back then, you kind of just did your own thing,” so she didn’t find it strange to not hear from Diane. Diane shared an apartment with friends, who grew concerned, according to Twyla, as they also had not heard from Diane."
Sister still searching for Des Moines woman Diane Schofield’s killer 44 years after murder
Sister still searching for Des Moines woman Diane Schofield’s killer 44 years after murder
“I don’t need a whole army, I just need one person to help us,” Twyla added. “I have worked every single day trying to find answers.”
Twyla told Dateline she has just one message for her sister’s killer: “The night you killed my sister, you must have thought no one cares. You couldn’t have been more wrong. I care. I still care, and I'll care forever.”
If you have any information on the circumstances surrounding Diane Schofield’s murder, please call the Des Moines Police Department at 515-283-4864.
“I don’t need a whole army, I just need one person to help us,” Twyla added. “I have worked every single day trying to find answers.”
Twyla told Dateline she has just one message for her sister’s killer: “The night you killed my sister, you must have thought no one cares. You couldn’t have been more wrong. I care. I still care, and I'll care forever.”
If you have any information on the circumstances surrounding Diane Schofield’s murder, please call the Des Moines Police Department at 515-283-4864.
FindTheirTruth
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Cold case haunts victim's sister
Forty years is a long time to wait for answers — something that was on retired police Sgt. Clarence Jobe's mind when he got a call this past winter from Twyla Johnson.
Tearfully but articulately, Johnson asked the former Des Moines police detective if there was anything he could tell her about any suspects in the 1975 unsolved murder of her sister Diane Schofield.
Schofield's body was found in the trunk of her 1966 Rambler that July in a parking lot at Southwest 20th and Porter near the Des Moines International Airport. The 21-year-old's hands and feet had been bound, and she had been strangled with a strip of cloth.
Jobe, 68, says he's getting old and he felt pity for Johnson, so he told her the name of the man he always thought was the killer.
"I told her I think we know who did it, but we can't prove it," he said. "That's where it's probably going to stay forever at this point."
Over the years, Johnson says she has tried to pursue leads on her own with the help of her long-time friend Mindy Green, who also knew Schofield as a teen. The two have done research at the library, parked themselves at the police station, reached out to the TNT show "Cold Justice."
She says producers there told her they couldn't do a show unless Des Moines police were willing to be involved, too. "But I really don't think they care," she said.
Johnson approached The Reader's Watchdog because for years, she says, no one at the police department has been willing to tell her what extent they went to track the lead suspect, who police had interviewed or even what evidence remains. She says she's asked Detective Matt Towers questions and he tells her he can't tell her much because the case remains under investigation.
**continued in link**
Forty years is a long time to wait for answers — something that was on retired police Sgt. Clarence Jobe's mind when he got a call this past winter from Twyla Johnson.
Tearfully but articulately, Johnson asked the former Des Moines police detective if there was anything he could tell her about any suspects in the 1975 unsolved murder of her sister Diane Schofield.
Schofield's body was found in the trunk of her 1966 Rambler that July in a parking lot at Southwest 20th and Porter near the Des Moines International Airport. The 21-year-old's hands and feet had been bound, and she had been strangled with a strip of cloth.
Jobe, 68, says he's getting old and he felt pity for Johnson, so he told her the name of the man he always thought was the killer.
"I told her I think we know who did it, but we can't prove it," he said. "That's where it's probably going to stay forever at this point."
Over the years, Johnson says she has tried to pursue leads on her own with the help of her long-time friend Mindy Green, who also knew Schofield as a teen. The two have done research at the library, parked themselves at the police station, reached out to the TNT show "Cold Justice."
She says producers there told her they couldn't do a show unless Des Moines police were willing to be involved, too. "But I really don't think they care," she said.
Johnson approached The Reader's Watchdog because for years, she says, no one at the police department has been willing to tell her what extent they went to track the lead suspect, who police had interviewed or even what evidence remains. She says she's asked Detective Matt Towers questions and he tells her he can't tell her much because the case remains under investigation.
**continued in link**
FindTheirTruth
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COMPLETE SPECULATION*** but connection?
'Waverly stranglings' baffle for 40 years
WHO: Julia Benning
- WHAT HAPPENED: Julia, 18, disappeared on Nov. 28, 1975, and was found dead five months later, stuffed in a culvert in rural Butler County. She had been strangled.
- STATUS: Unsolved.
- HOW YOU CAN HELP: Anyone with information about Julia Benning's unsolved murder is asked to contact contact Special Agent Jon Moeller at the Federal Bureau of Investigation at 712-258-1920.
Thanks for that very interesting article, so who is this guy, what else has he been up to and where is he now!
StarrChance
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This article is about Julie Benning. Comments section mentions a Gary lynn Frazer.
Julie Ann Benning | Iowa Cold Cases
Last edited:
FindTheirTruth
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I hadn’t read the comments, thank you for pointing that out!
StarrChance
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FindTheirTruth
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I really wonder if police were able to talk with him.
FindTheirTruth
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That is really concerning, I wonder if they ever named a POI.
StarrChance
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She went to authorities with information about the massage parlour owner...
FindTheirTruth
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This is just horrible, is there anything about them looking into this claim??
StarrChance
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Interesting, from January 1975
FindTheirTruth
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Very interesting, she would have had to be released immediately almost. Aren’t many reasons for someone sentenced to 5 years to get released so fast even for good behavior. Is it possible she was more than just a “one time drug informant”? There could be much more to that story that could be considered
Sister4
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Diane, Julie (Julia) Benning, and Jolene Haas - SILENCED.
Iowa, 1975
Drug trafficking from Vegas to Mason City to Waverly, to the Anamosa prisons -
Maureen Farley, another Iowa Cold Case - IA - IA - Maureen Brubaker Farley, 17, Cedar Rapids, Sep 1971
Connect the dots.
Sister4
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It is clear that a powerful criminal organization was operating in the area from Cedar Rapids to Waverly to Mason City, from Anamosa State Penitentiary to whistle-blower Patricia Edwards. Those who sought to silence her did so through a man named Ronald Wayne BREWER, who was also imprisoned in Anamosa, and was reportedly assisted by a prison guard named Herbert Pennock.
It starts with bringing the Jaycees into Anamosa in the late 1960s...
How do you get drugs into prison? You use guards, inmates on work release and their wives, family, friends. The guards were using inmates on work release to bring the drugs into the facility. The drugs were muled to the work release inmate by various methods. Family, friends were the best. Family members had reasons to see the inmates. Recruits supplied drugs to the family or friends who in turn gave them to the inmates when they were at work or school. When the work release inmate returned to the prison, a guard was set up to let him in with the contraband. That's how all the durgs were brought into the prison.
One drug route was from Mason City to Cedar Rapids. Area 7 community college was in Cedar Rapids. The inmates on work release attended area 7 Community College. They handed off drugs to the inmate's family. The inmate's family gave the drugs to the inmate. The guards let the inmate into the prison with the drugs. The inmate sold the drugs to other inmates. Lots of money.
All the people running drugs during the late 60s in Anamosa and Cedar Rapids are the same group in Mason City and Waverly in 1975. A few select Guards at Anamosa used the more violent inmates on work release to do their bidding, all the way from running drugs and cash to murder. The convicts got sex, drugs and money for their work.
When prison guard Herbert Pennock was caught for the Edwards murders, to get his immunity deal, he spilled the beans on the whole thing. The BCI moved into Waverly. Craig Beek was at the time the head of the Iowa BCI, in charge of stopping the selling of illegal drugs in Iowa. Herbert negotiated with the BCI for 3 months after the murders to get his immunity. Herbert's cooperating with the BCI would have been happening in May of 1975.
Also in May 1975, Julie Benning began working at The Sir as a cocktail waitress.
Beek ended up in charge of the investigations of Lisa Peak's and Julie's murders.
Farley and his wife Maureen were said to be involved with bringing in the drugs....
CONNECT THE DOTS
Sister4
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Two cold cases, one common element: Anamosa Prison (with its early 1970s history of drug trafficking).
Maureen Brubaker married David Farley -1971
Diane Dalton married Kenneth Lee Schofield -1969
Both men did time in Anamosa.
Schofield told her attorney several months before her murder that she’d been asked to be some type of informant relating to drugs.
Both young women were waitresses. Diane worked at Dave Salem’s Foozin’ ‘n’ Boozin’, a tavern at 1803 Keosauqua Way in Des Moines. Maureen worked at Weida’s Restaurant, 836 First Ave. NE, Cedar Rapids.
See Jody Ewing's case summaries
Maureen: https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/maureen-farley/
Diane: https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/diane-schofield/
Drug trafficking from the Mason City corridor through Waverly and on to Anamosa is said to be the motive for another waitress being murdered: Julie Benning in 1975
Maureen Brubaker married David Farley -1971
Diane Dalton married Kenneth Lee Schofield -1969
Both men did time in Anamosa.
Schofield told her attorney several months before her murder that she’d been asked to be some type of informant relating to drugs.
Both young women were waitresses. Diane worked at Dave Salem’s Foozin’ ‘n’ Boozin’, a tavern at 1803 Keosauqua Way in Des Moines. Maureen worked at Weida’s Restaurant, 836 First Ave. NE, Cedar Rapids.
See Jody Ewing's case summaries
Maureen: https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/maureen-farley/
Diane: https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/diane-schofield/
Drug trafficking from the Mason City corridor through Waverly and on to Anamosa is said to be the motive for another waitress being murdered: Julie Benning in 1975
Sister4
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