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Two days before Wanda Jean Morrow of Cedar Rapids would have celebrated her 15th birthday, a hiker stumbled upon her badly decomposed body in a mountainous region north of Tucson, Arizona.
The young teen — found on Mount Lemmon near a campground 30 miles north of Tucson on Sept. 6, 1976 — had died from multiple stab wounds to the back.
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On June 12, 1976, Mrs. Morrow and her two daughters, Tammi and Wanda, had traveled to Washington, D.C., to visit Larry Goodall, Mrs. Morrow’s brother.
According to a Cedar Rapids Gazette article dated Oct. 26, 1976, Mrs. Morrow returned to Cedar Rapids eight days later, but Wanda, 14, and Tammi, 16, remained in Washington with their uncle.
The campground area near where Wanda Morrow’s body was found. (Courtesy KCRG-TV9)
On Saturday, July 24, the sisters — just 11 months apart in age — met a boy named Joseph.
According to the Gazette, the girls met up with Joseph again the following Tuesday, and Wanda and Joseph seemed to get along well.
Joseph told the girls he’d been kicked out of a military academy and had been on his own since age 12. He told them he’d been thumbing his way around the country.
On Sept. 8 — what should have been Wanda’s 15th birthday — Nancy Morrow waited for the phone to ring at her Cedar Rapids home, but the hoped-for birthday call never came.
On Wednesday, July 28, Tammi and Wanda took their uncle’s Great Dane for a walk through Georgetown around noon. Tammi said she turned to say something to Wanda, but she wasn’t there.
Mrs. Morrow said she believed Joseph was a Texas native, though she didn’t know his last name. She also believed he and Wanda had hitchhiked to Tucson.
On Sept. 8 — what should have been Wanda’s 15th birthday — Nancy Morrow waited for the phone to ring at her Cedar Rapids home, but the hoped-for birthday call never came.
Tammi Morrow later told her mother she’d seen Joseph back in the Washington, D.C. area, which prompted the family to file a missing persons report.
After learning about the body discovered in Pima County, Ariz., they’d mailed Wanda’s dental records to the sheriff’s department.
While the family waited for news, Mrs. Morrow spoke to the Gazette about the chain of events leading to Wanda’s disappearance from D.C. and why she felt the body found in Pima County might be her daughter.
“On Sept. 14, I found out Joseph had dumped Wanda and left her in Tucson,” Mrs. Morrow is quoted as saying in the Gazette’s Oct. 26 story.
By the next evening, the Morrow family had their answers when Cedar Rapids police detectives knocked on the door.
Wanda Jean Morrow | Iowa Cold Cases