Pod Insights Criminology Ila Mae Clark About this episode In 2001, 73-year-old Ila Mae Clark, who was just one week away from celebrating her 74th birthday, was killed inside her Marshalltown, Iowa home. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murder of Ila Mae Clark. Ila's house was next to both an apartment complex and a mobile home park. She managed the apartment complex and collected rent payments. Could this have had something to do with her murder? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
0:37 Speaker 01 Hello everyone and welcome to episode 344 of the Criminology Podcast. This is Mike Ferguson.
0:43 Speaker 02 And this is Mike Morford.
0:45 Speaker 01 Mr. Morford, how you doing this week, man?
0:47 Speaker 02 I'm doing good. How you doing?
0:48 Speaker 01 I'm doing amazingly, to be honest with you. I had my yearly checkup, right? I never go see the doctor, but they make you go once a year or they won't fill your prescriptions. You know, you have to do a checkup and my numbers were great and my doctor was thrilled. So, hey, what else can you ask for?
1:10 Speaker 02 And I'm just the opposite. I had to postpone mine because I had something come up. So now I've got to, you made me think that I've got to do mine and go get my numbers. Hopefully they're good.
1:19 Speaker 01 You know, those numbers become important the older you get.
1:22 Speaker 02 Yeah, when you hit our age, every, every number counts.
1:26 Speaker 01 No doubt about it. All right, Morf, let's go ahead and do our Patreon shout outs. We had Renee Nikanen, Saunt, Sina Savage, and Donna Davis. So a lot of great new support, man. We really appreciate it.
1:41 Speaker 02 Uh, thank you to all of you that help support the show. That really means a lot to us. For anyone else that would like to head over to patreon.com/criminology to get started.
1:51 Speaker 01 All right, it's time to jump into this week's case and we're dealing with a real head scratcher here. It was suggested to us by a listener who thought it had some similarities to the murder of 74-year-old Stephanie Coyle that we covered back in episode 333. She was murdered in her home and her case involved a strange symbol carved onto her body by her killer. In this episode, we're covering the murder of 73-year-old Isla Mae Clark, who was just one week away from celebrating her 74th birthday when she was killed in 2001. Like Stephanie Coyle, Isla Mae Clark, who was often called sissy by those who knew her,
2:33 Speaker 01 was killed in her home. But there are no bizarre symbols or occult angles. Instead, Isla's murder appears to be a very obvious burglary that got interrupted and turned into a murder. But Isla's case remains unsolved. And over two decades later, the question remains, who would want to harm this sweet 73-year-old grandma?
2:57 Speaker 02 In the summer of 2001, Ila Mae Clark was living alone in Marshalltown, Iowa. Marshalltown, located in the south-central portion of the state, has a population of around 25,000 people. Isla's home was a white, one-story bungalow-style home with a detached garage located at 116 Iowa Avenue West. Isla had been on her own for eight years by then, since the death of her second husband, Donald, in 1993. She was in her late 60s when Donald died. And while many other people might have gone downhill or pulled back and withdrew after losing a spouse, Ila Mae kept her spark. She stayed very active in the community and was a member
3:38 Speaker 02 of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary. Ila Mae also kept busy managing a small apartment complex less than 100 yards away from her home. It was walking distance, literally a stone's throw. Some articles describe this complex as apartments. Others say it was a motel, but essentially it was a seven-unit L-shaped apartment complex.
4:01 Speaker 01 For her upcoming 74th birthday, Isla was planning to go try her luck at the Meskwaki Casino in Tama, Iowa, about a half an hour away from her home. She may have slowed down a bit compared to what she was capable of in her physical prime, but she still worked, drove, and lived alone with no issues. Isla, even as a senior, was in pretty good shape physically. Her grandchildren recall that she used shotguns during hunting trips and also remembered a time they saw her help drag a deer from where it ended up tangled in the brush, and Isla even helped load it into the pickup truck. She was obviously strong and a pretty tough woman.
4:45 Speaker 01 Isla also was thrifty and canned her own food. Shortly before her murder, she finished canning tomatoes that she planned to give out to her family. She also kept an inviting home. She really loved Christmas and kept a small display of decorations in her backyard year round. There was a sign that said, "Santa Stops Here," in a small Christmas tree. There was also a little swing set and a gas grill so that she could entertain family and friends. So I'm not about you, Morph, but I'm getting the picture of Isla May that, you know, she was a little bit of a firecracker. You know, she had a fire to her. She was spry.
5:27 Speaker 01 I mean, she's dragging deer through the woods and, you know, loading it into a pickup truck in her 70s. She's not playing bingo, or she might have been playing bingo, but she wasn't only playing bingo.
5:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think it really says a lot about her, and we're getting a visual too of, you know, her home, yard, what it looked like. It, it, it sounds almost like my grandma's place, or maybe many listeners' grandma's home, you know, just that inviting feeling where nothing bad should happen and you should only have good memories. But as we're going to find out, that's not the case here.
6:02 Speaker 01 The other thing that struck me was this idea of canning. I don't know if people in your family canned. My family, coming from Kentucky, it was a big deal to can food. I remember that. They were always canning something, green beans, or there's a lot of canning that went on in my family.
6:24 Speaker 02 Yeah, my grandma had lots of mason jars filled with different things and labeled and. She'd break them out every once in a while and use them for dinner.
6:33 Speaker 01 It just seemed like it was a, you know, a different generation. Now, I'm sure people still can today, but I don't know anybody that does. Nobody in my immediate family cans. It's maybe something that does not happen as much.
6:50 Speaker 02 And getting back to the layout of her property, that house and the videos and photos are available online if anybody wants to look, but you can see that the apartment complex that she managed was really just on the side of her yard. She could walk to it in a minute or two. And so that was a good job for her to have managing that apartment complex because it was so close to home. She could see the apartments right from her window. So I think for someone keeping busy at her age, it was kept her busy enough, but wasn't a far walk or a far drive that she needed to worry about.
7:28 Speaker 01 And, you know, maybe gave her, you know, a little money that she used then to head to the casino with.
7:37 Speaker 02 We don't know if that was a regular thing that she did, but it seems like a fun way to spend a birthday at least. On August 28th, 2001, Isla went shopping for groceries at the fairway about three miles north of her home. She purchased her items at 5:21 PM. Investigators later found this receipt in her purse, which was still at the crime scene. After shopping, Isla headed home and that shopping trip was the last activity that investigators could confirm. The next day, August 29th, at about 5:59 PM, the Marshalltown Police received a frantic 911 call. One of Isla May's neighbors had gone over to her house and found her unresponsive and clearly badly injured. First responders rushed to the scene, but there was nothing they could do.
8:23 Speaker 02 Isla May was dead and it didn't look like she had died from natural causes. Instead, it looked like foul play was involved. The Polk County Medical Examiner would determine that Isla was killed by multiple blows to the head with some kind of blunt object. There was no evidence of sexual assault.
8:40 Speaker 01 Investigators taped off the area around Isla's home is interested in concerned neighbors, gathered around the perimeter, wondering what was going on. Police began talking to neighbors, but apparently no one heard or saw anything suspicious. After Isla May got home from the fairway the day before, police then contacted Isla's friends and family to alert them to the murder and to see if they could add anything to help the investigation. But unfortunately, no one had anything helpful and they couldn't think of a reason someone would do this to Isla May. Absent any clear motive for the murder, police began to theorize that Isla was the victim of a home burglary gone wrong.
9:24 Speaker 01 She was an incredibly easy target, an elderly woman living alone, who was known to regularly collect multiple people's rent money in cash. And more if we mention that Isla May, you know, had this job managing this kind of small apartment complex, what part of her duties was to collect rent? And it was made very apparent that oftentimes that money was collected in cash. You and I talk about predators a lot. And unfortunately, we end up having to talk about the targets of predators.
10:05 Speaker 01 And here you have a 73 year old woman who is known to collect money, probably on a somewhat predictable basis. That money is thought to be largely in cash. Okay, how hard would it be for someone to know of that? Learn her routine and start to think that there's an opportunity there to get their hands on that money?
10:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, Isla's routine, and we don't know exactly how long she managed those apartments, but there's a good possibility that the people there all knew her. Anyone that might want to do her harm or try and rob her probably knew her movements. They were 100 yards away if they were living in that apartment complex. There was also a main road right there, so not hard for anyone to come in off the road. But I'll say this, we talked a little bit earlier about Isla May being spry and being, you know, pretty strong for her age, you know, hunting and stuff like that. So although we don't have all the details about what kind of scene was inside the home,
11:18 Speaker 02 I'm willing to bet that Isla may probably put up more of a fight than her killer was intending or was expecting. Investigators were able to figure out that there was at least 500 hours missing from Isla May's house. Her purse hadn't been taken, though it's not specified whether any items had been stolen from inside it or if it had been rifled through. Brian Batterson, who was a detective with the Marshalltown Police Department at the time, has indicated that plans may have gone terribly wrong. There were signs of a struggle inside the home as if Isla May had interrupted or surprised someone and possibly even tried to fight them off. He told the Southern Illinoisian that he believes that Isla May unfortunately may
12:01 Speaker 02 have confronted the people and that confrontation led to her death. She didn't just catch them trying to steal from her. She may have tried to stop them too. It was a burglary that turned into a murder when the suspect grabbed an unknown object and used it to bludgeon Isla May. Because of the location of her home on a busy main road, investigators believe that whoever killed Isla May broke into the house sometime during the night when the darkness would help protect them from any prying eyes driving by.
12:29 Speaker 01 In news footage from the crime scene, many of the windows have the blinds either pulled up or slanted open, and you can see through them very well when the lights are on. In the windows where the blinds were shut and closed, you could still see the shadows of investigators as they moved around the crime scene. This just proves that it would have been extremely easy to learn Isla May's routine if this burglary was planned out in advance. It also shows how easy it would have been to spy on her movements inside the home, and someone may have been able to look in and see if Isla was handling or counting cash, especially after receiving a rent payment in cash.
13:11 Speaker 02 Speaking of rent payments, police questioned tenants of the apartment complex to see if anyone saw anything, but nobody did. They also took a look at some of the people living there to see if there's anyone that stood out for having records for burglaries, BNEs, or more violent crimes. But as far as we can tell, they didn't find anyone who looked like a solid suspect living in the complex. You had to pass Isla May's house to get to the apartment complex from Iowa Avenue. It was a small complex, but still presented the possibility of multiple witnesses passing by during the time of the crime. There was also a mobile home park next door to Isla May's house and the small apartment complex.
13:52 Speaker 01 So to summarize, you have an apartment complex right there. You have a mobile home park right there, and Isla May's home kind of sits on this main road. You would think there would be a really good chance that someone would have seen something with all of those residents there, but somehow nobody did. And if people knew Isla, you'd think that they would certainly pay attention to someone that didn't belong there being on her property, but that didn't happen either. The fact that police couldn't develop a single witness was frustrating. Detective Brian Batterson told the Freeman Journal, "Nobody heard anything and nobody saw anything during the window of time in which Isla May
14:36 Speaker 01 could have been attacked." And to me, Morf, this is a little bit shocking. You know, we've kind of talked about the layout around her home. The apartment complex, you get this mobile home park. There's quite a few people living right around her home. Now, did this attack occur at a time where everyone else was sleeping? Very possible. I think for detectives, it's frustrating when out of all these people, not a single one can say they heard or saw anything.
15:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, we've talked about cases where there were multiple witnesses that saw strange people and police couldn't identify them and they were working tied them. Here, there's nothing to go on. So I think police were really starting behind the eight ball here. After Alimay's murder, one of the residents living near her home described things in the area to WHO 13 news as kind of scary and described how she and her neighbors stay safe. She said, we lock our doors at night and make sure cars are locked. We mentioned a lot, but many of these small towns, especially years ago, didn't take extra precautions or do things like lock their doors until something shocking happened.
15:58 Speaker 02 And it scared them into doing so. And Ila's murder certainly had that effect.
16:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think we see it all the time. You have these communities where people have a sense of security. They think, oh, this is a very safe place to live. And it is until it's not, or until something happens that makes people really kind of stand up and take notice to the fact that bad things can happen anywhere.
16:29 Speaker 02 It had to be a rural wake up call for this community.
16:33 Speaker 01 And we should point out that Iowa's community wasn't off the charts with its crime rate, but it was no stranger to criminal activity either. Detective Batterson told the Freeman Journal that the apartment complex in the mobile home park often had their fair share of police calls, but he said that nothing would even come close to a murder. Most of the law enforcement encounters there were noise complaints due to late and rowdy parties or the occasional drug bust. Batterson was actually on his way to serve a warrant in one of these drug busts when he got the call about Ila Mae's murder. Knowing that there were some issues with drug use and parties right in Ila Mae's backyard,
17:15 Speaker 01 so to speak, combined with the fact that whoever killed her was able to do so without drawing the attention of any of her neighbors, you have to wonder if this was someone who lived nearby and had been planning this all out, or at least the burglary part. And perhaps they knew Ila Mae's routine and when she would have a lot of money at her home. And I would think in a mobile home park, you're going to have a fair number of noise complaints and things like that. I mean, you know, a lot of those mobile homes are very close together.
17:50 Speaker 02 And I had a good friend that lived in a mobile home and I remember times being inside of his home or outside of it and noise would often carry well, you could hear things outside quite well or things from the inside when you're out in the yard. So, you know, that noise level seems like it wouldn't take too much to, to, for someone to complain about somebody having a party or playing loud music.
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19:34 Speaker 02 Interestingly, in a broadcast from August 30th, 2001, WHO 13 reporter Lori Groves specifically mentioned rent was due today, but points out that someone else had to collect it. This could be a pretty big clue about which direction investigators should be looking. If a resident of the apartment complex Isla managed, wanted to rob her, it would make sense to wait until after rent payments were due, which is generally a date that someone living there would know, and not rob Isla May the day before the rent was due. But it could also be possible that Isla May collected some rents before the due date, and maybe her killer knew that. But it still seems like the better chance for a big payday would be to wait until the next day to rob Isla.
20:17 Speaker 01 And I know more for speculating here that the attack on Isla May had something possibly to do with her collection of rent money, but I think it's a pretty good speculation. It doesn't mean that it's absolutely the reason for the attack on her, but it's hard not to think that a lot of people knew she collected rent, a lot of it being in cash, and at some point, that money would be inside her home.
20:48 Speaker 02 It definitely seems like something the police paid a lot of attention to. But of course, it could be a red herring. You know, maybe someone driving down the road just happened to see Ilo unloading groceries and thought she looked like an easy target. And, you know, maybe it doesn't have anything to do with the rent. That's the frustrating part for police.
21:07 Speaker 01 Authorities to this day have remained very tight lipped about the actual weapon or object that was used to bludgeon Ilemae. All we know is that according to the Southern Illinoisan, that weapon is believed to have been a weapon of opportunity that was likely already inside the home when the killer broke in, not something they brought with them. The exact object, if police know what it was, is being held back from the public so that authorities can verify any potential witness statements or confessions that may come in the future. Unfortunately, there were apparently no relevant fingerprints found at the scene and there was no DNA to collect for analysis. And this comes up in so many cases, right?
21:51 Speaker 01 The police have information, some of which they feel they can disseminate, but some of those things they have to hold back for the reasons that I just mentioned, right? If somebody comes in and confesses, which does happen, the police have to be able to figure out, is this confession real or not? And how do they do that? They have to compare what somebody says to the known facts. Well, if all the facts are public, it makes it really tough to do that. But if somebody comes in and says, you know, I hit her with X and police know what X is and nobody else does.
22:35 Speaker 01 Well, that's a pretty good indicator that this person might be telling the truth.
22:41 Speaker 02 It sounds like there's very little physical evidence from this crime scene and that accurate details will be crucial to knowing that the case has truly been solved someday. These details wouldn't be as important to keep private if there were other things to go off when a suspect is identified. It doesn't seem like this is going to be a case that forensic genetic genealogy can crack unless some new DNA evidence has developed. We should point out, we don't know how recently evidence in this case has been tested or retested for potential DNA. So maybe newer techniques and developments can give police some DNA clues to work with. For example, touch DNA can sometimes yield clues. We don't know if that was tried. DNA gathering tools like the M-Back system can sometimes reveal DNA that was missed.
23:26 Speaker 02 And even a rootless hair can now be used to create a full profile. So hopefully, police are up to date with all of these latest advancements.
23:33 Speaker 01 And I think there's some good points that you're making, Morf. You know, when you talk about a case and you're looking at articles that are talking about what the police said that are, you know, 30, 35 years old. Okay, they're saying they don't have any DNA. And at the time, I'm sure that was accurate. But as advancements in DNA technology are made, it is possible that they have evidence that at some point, maybe now, maybe later in the future, could yield DNA evidence. I think what's frustrating in some of these cases is you don't get a ton of updates.
24:17 Speaker 01 And so you don't always know what they've tried, what they haven't tried, what is still on the table that can be done.
24:27 Speaker 02 The good thing about the timeframe this crime happened in is police knew about the name by this time. So they likely started out trying to preserve it, trying to find it and work with it to see what there was. But if they did that initially in 2001, when this crime happened and haven't done it since, it's like a night and day difference between now and then. Every, I think I read every two to four years, there's so many major advancements in DNA, science and crime fighting tools that they can use to work with that DNA, that just because they tried something back then, doesn't mean they can't retry it now with the latest technology and
25:11 Speaker 02 get positive results.
25:14 Speaker 01 The home that Isla May lived and died in has been demolished. The apartment complex that was right next to it has also been torn down. So has the mobile home park that was next door. It looks like they were all torn down together sometime between 2007 and 2009, going off of Google Street View photos, in their places, gas stations and fast food restaurants have been built, all but erasing. Any chance that some missing piece of evidence or clue left behind by the killer will be found and one day help solve this case? Although the scenery has changed, residents in the community haven't forgotten what happened
25:57 Speaker 01 to the kindly 73-year-old Ila Mae Clark. Ila's neighbor Sandy Park told the Southern Illinois, "I can't understand why anybody would do this to her."
26:09 Speaker 02 There wasn't anyone that knew Isla May that had anything bad to say about her. Isla May has been described as a caring person who would help anybody. This is evident throughout her life and the jobs she chose to do, as well as the way she treated other people. After Isla May and Donald Clark moved from Princeton, Missouri to Iowa, she worked as a cook at a few different local places, including the Iowa Veterans Home and at Grandview Heights Nursing Home. Pretty much everyone who knew Isla May called her sis, even the children that she and Donald fostered. Her grandchildren don't know how she got this nickname, or why it stuck, but her granddaughter Shelley Vandraska offered an idea to the Freeman Journal, saying, "I think it was because she was kind of a sister to everybody."
26:54 Speaker 01 Isla May and her husband Donald were eager foster parents and adopted several of the children they took into their home over the years. Larry Barkus, who was later adopted by the Clarks, had been in almost 20 foster homes. Before living with Donald and Isla May, he told the Southern Illinois, "This was the only one that I felt more or less taken in by." He lived there for four years, only moving out after he graduated high school. Barkus is just one of multiple foster children that Isla May and Donald would go on to adopt on September 4, 2001. Instead of celebrating at Isla May's 74th birthday party, her friends, family members,
27:38 Speaker 01 and other loved ones attended her funeral services. Now she and Donald are buried side by side at Rose Hill Memorial Garden Cemetery around one mile away from the home on Iowa Avenue where she was killed.
27:54 Speaker 02 Although police didn't have a lot to go on as far as physical evidence or eyewitnesses, they continued digging into the case in the years after Isla May's murder. Detective Batterson did come up with some good suspects for the murder. There was one couple in particular that he was suspicious of. At the time of Isla May's murder, they lived together at a hotel nearby on Iowa Avenue. One of them took off quite suddenly the day after Isla May died and ended up moving to Louisiana. According to The Times Republican, other people in town would later tell Detective Batterson that the same person was freaking out about wanting to get out of town and fast.
28:30 Speaker 01 And I can understand why detectives would be suspicious of this couple, especially the one person who was said to have been freaking out, wanted to get out of town, and ended up moving to Louisiana. Okay, is that because they did something horrible and felt as though they needed to get out of town? Also, if it's a couple, it seems strange to me that one person is taking off, just leaving the other behind?
29:00 Speaker 02 You know, speculation here, but maybe if they were involved in the murder, they had different opinions on what they should do next, and it caused some kind of friction that caused one of them to take off. We just don't know.
29:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's certainly possible, but from my way of thinking...
29:18 Speaker 01 Those kind of actions in the wake of a big murder in town, it's going to get you on police radar. It's going to put you there. But despite suspicion of the couple, there was nothing concrete tying them to the crime scene. As we've talked about, there was really no physical evidence linking anyone to the scene. Investigators only had circumstantial evidence causing them to suspect the couple. There must have been something to that circumstantial evidence because Detective Batterson was able to obtain a search warrant for the car that the person took with them to Louisiana. Since the car crossed state lines,
30:01 Speaker 01 he had to ask local authorities in Louisiana for their assistance in serving and executing the search warrant. In the time it took Marshalltown authorities and Louisiana authorities to communicate about the warrant, and then for officers in Louisiana to find the car, it had been involved in a car accident.
30:22 Speaker 02 During the crash, it rolled over at least once, and items from inside of it were flung all over the street. Some of the belongings ejected from the car were collected and tossed back into the car together. The interior of the car was bloody due to injuries sustained by passengers hurt in the accident. So you just imagine if there was anything as far as evidence in that car, it could have been lost or tainted. We don't know if every item ejected from the car was even placed back into it or left lying on the ground at the scene of the accident. Unfortunately, all of this, the time passing, the blood and the cleanup process, compromised the integrity of any evidence that would have been found. According to Detective Batterson, in an interview with WHO 13 News,
31:06 Speaker 02 it all made looking for trace fibers very difficult. And in the end, nothing relevant to Ilame's murder was collected from the car. Batterson said, "There could have been something there. We'll never know."
31:18 Speaker 01 And I think things like this, you know, they have to be so very frustrating for detectives. You think you're on to something, and maybe they were on to something. And it just so happens that this car they want to search is involved in this accident. People are hurt. There's blood. And like the detective said, maybe there was something there, maybe not, but it's, you know, unlikely that they'll ever know. A few years after Isla May's murder, Detective Batterson heard that an inmate in Illinois was claiming to have information about Isla May's murder. Batterson and one of his colleagues traveled to the Chicago area about four and a half
32:03 Speaker 01 hours away from Marshalltown to interview this informant. Nothing came from it. The informant didn't give them anything solid and everything he knew had been mentioned in the news. But reportedly, this informant pointed the finger at the same couple that Detective Batterson suspected. The couple he suspected never cooperated when questioned. Batterson never named his suspects publicly because he couldn't prove their guilt. And just in case they were innocent, he said to the Times Republican, he'd hate to make their life more miserable. This seems to paint a picture of a couple down on their luck, living in a hotel, possibly
32:46 Speaker 01 looking for a quick and easy score. So the detective has a very strong suspicion of this couple, but that's really all it is. And he doesn't feel like it's the right thing to do, to publicly name them. And I get that. I mean, how many times have we talked about individuals named as persons of interest or even suspects who later are found to have had nothing to do with the crime? But maybe that's years later that it comes out. So for many years, they walk around with this really heavy cloud of suspicion hanging
33:31 Speaker 01 over them. That's not good for anyone.
33:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's never easy to get your reputation back. I mean, look at Richard Jewell, the Olympic bombing that happened. He was a suspect and his name was soured for years.
33:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's happened to a lot of people. Jewel obviously is a very high profile case, but there are many that don't make the news or, you know, hit the headlines the way that his did. It can ruin somebody's life. There's no doubt about that.
34:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, especially in a smaller town like this. If your name gets out there, you know, it's probably gossip all around town and you probably never get your name back. We don't know how old this couple was back at the time of the murder. We do know that one of the suspects passed away many years ago, and the other has repeatedly refused to cooperate with the investigation. We don't know how recently this surviving suspect was talked to, or if they're still alive. If the person who took off to Louisiana was telling others how much they wanted to leave Marshalltown so quickly, maybe they told someone why they wanted to leave. Maybe there's someone out there who can name the weapon Isla May was killed with, how the perpetrator got into her home, and the exact time of the attack.
34:48 Speaker 02 Detective Patterson told The Times Republican that someone, somewhere, knows more about this, but that they just hadn't come forward yet.
34:56 Speaker 01 And I truly believe in a lot of cases that that is a true statement. I do think there's often people who know something about a crime that never come forward. And most of the time, it's because it's not in their best interest to come forward, whether they were somehow involved themselves, or fearful of retribution of what will happen if they roll over on the person who actually committed the crime.
35:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, and a lot of these cases, the person that committed the crime just can't keep their mouth shut, and then they brag about it, or they break down and tell somebody about it. And then, you know, those people are wondering what to do and how to come forward, or maybe they're afraid, like you mentioned.
35:49 Speaker 01 Well, I think the fear factor has to go up when someone tells you that they've killed someone. Okay, they've already done it. They're obviously capable of it. What's going to stop them from killing you if you try to, you know, give them up or give information on them?
36:12 Speaker 01 Detective Batterson did reveal one clue that may back up his suspicions. He has publicly mentioned that there were two intruders in Isla May's home when she was killed. He also believed it was possible that there was a third person involved, though they never set foot inside the home. The third suspect would have been the lookout and getaway driver. Aside from the couple, we don't know if Batterson ever came up with an actual suspect for the third person that he believed was involved. We also don't know what roles. Each person is thought to have played.
36:49 Speaker 02 I think this is a very big clue because if it shows that a third person was involved, that that could be proven and they were some kind of getaway driver, then maybe that eliminates anyone that lived very close by because they probably wouldn't need to drive there. So if it could ever be proven that there was a car involved and that the killer killers drove there, I think that would be a big clue.
37:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, I get where you're you're going because as we talked about, the apartment complex was so close, the mobile home park was so close. If it was someone who lived in either of those two locations, there's really not a huge need for a getaway car. I mean, you're talking about 100 yards, hundreds of yards. It's an easy walk, right back to where the person lives. I also had a thought that although not impossible, it's very brazen and ill advised to target someone who lives so close to you. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
38:00 Speaker 01 It doesn't mean it didn't happen in this case. But obviously, the people who live right around there are going to be questioned, are going to be, you know, some of the first suspects.
38:13 Speaker 02 As of 2015, the evidence from Isla May's house was still at the Marshalltown Police Department. In 2016, the Marshalltown Crime Stoppers announced a $5,000 reward for information. Marshalltown Police Chief Mike Tupper told The Times Republican, "The reward will certainly bring attention to the murder and might bring about evidence which will help us. The $5,000 might motivate a person or persons, perhaps in Marshalltown or elsewhere, to come forward."
38:43 Speaker 01 And while that statement is true, and $5,000 is, you know, it's a chunk of change, it's a far cry from what we see in other cases, especially in other countries, who seemingly place a much higher value on reward money. You know, I think about cases like in Australia. There, the rewards that they offer are so significantly higher than what we see here in the US. And I get it, is there someone who is in need of $5,000? Yes, obviously, who wouldn't want $5,000?
39:25 Speaker 01 But is that enough money for someone to give someone up? And I think a lot of times, maybe not. But I get it, there are financial constraints that differ in locales and, you know, and every situation is different.
39:45 Speaker 02 And that $5,000, as you mentioned, may not be enough to give someone up, especially if, like we talked about, they're afraid of that person and they don't think it's worth going to the police, telling them what they know over $5,000.
39:59 Speaker 01 In June of 2023, Brian Batterson, who was by then captain of the Marshalltown Police Department, retired from the force. Less than one year later, he passed away at the age of just 56. According to his obituary, he had ALS and dementia. Like Donald and Ila Mae Clark, he is buried at the Rose Hill Memorial Garden Cemetery. Despite the lack of leads to work with, He never gave up on trying to solve Isla May's murder. Since Patterson's death, there hasn't been much movement in the investigation or news on the case.
40:39 Speaker 02 Just a few months ago, in September 2024, a new article about the case was published by WHO13.com. Keel Stevenson, the current captain of the Marshalltown Police Department, has offered a small glimmer of hope, telling the news outlet, "There was evidence left at the scene. I'm not going to comment, I guess, on exactly what was there or what piece of evidence we have." The first photos from the scene were also released just a few months ago. In one of them, there's a long strip of wood tangled in the cord from the blinds in one of the windows. It's hard to tell whether this is part of the door frame, or if it's a piece of one of the window frames, but this would be a very obvious sign of forced entry either way. However, this ended up broken,
41:22 Speaker 02 it's likely that Isla May would have heard the commotion and gone to check on things, which backs up the burglary gone wrong theory.
41:30 Speaker 01 As far as whether there was forced entry, investigators have never actually disclosed what the signs of forced entry were, or how exactly they believe Isla May's killer got into the house. This may be another piece of information they're holding back, so that if the time comes, they can verify a confession. One article does mention that an intruder kicked in her back door, but it's important to note that it's not a quote from an investigator or an excerpt from a document. Putting this together with the photo of that broken wood tangled in the blinds cord, I think this might be the correct point of entry.
42:11 Speaker 01 Investigators may have decided this piece of information didn't need to be kept secret after all.
42:18 Speaker 02 You have to wonder if Isla May's family holds that much hope of her killer or killers being identified. Even years ago, closer to the time of the murder, her granddaughter Shelley didn't have any strong belief that this case would be solved. Telling the Freeman Journal of her expectations, "It's probably never going to happen, but I hope that it does, if that makes sense." She's mostly resigned to the idea that she and the rest of her family will never have answers about what happened to Ila Mae Clark in 2001. Shelley added, "I guess I've kind of accepted it, but I do hope that somebody would come forward."
42:52 Speaker 01 And I always think, you know, it's very tough for a family. You want to hold out hope. Right that the case will be solved, that your loved one will get justice. They'll catch the person, there'll be a conviction, that person will serve time. But I think as the years go on, and you heard Shelley say it, a lot of people kind of get resigned to the fact that, well, most likely it's probably never going to happen.
43:22 Speaker 02 And it's got to be frustrating too, because those same family members probably seeing the news, all these cases being solved, it seems like there's one every week at least. And for their loved one's murder to still be unsolved, it's got to be a real tough feeling.
43:37 Speaker 01 And there has been some movement, you know, recent movement in the case, if not movement, at least some hope, I think for the family. You know, you have the current captain saying, there was evidence left at the scene. He's not revealing exactly what the evidence is that they have, but just the fact that he's coming out and saying that, you know, does that give the family more hope than what they had before? And I would say probably so.
44:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, and it could be just a case of, as we talked about earlier, just retesting, reexamining things with new techniques, new technology. And maybe they found something that they didn't find earlier on when they first started the investigation.
44:27 Speaker 01 According to a 2015 Freeman Journal article, in 2001, Captain Walker gave a statement to the public, pleading for information related to the murder. He said, "We're asking again, if anyone has information about the last few days of Mrs. Clark's life, they should call the police department. It seems like nothing has come of this plea. Over the last 23 years, the case remains unsolved, and we're approaching a quarter of a century with no answers for her family. Investigators working the case throughout the years have always seemed optimistic that an answer was out there."
45:08 Speaker 01 Police Chief Mike Tupper in 2016 told the Times Republican, "We believe the Clark case can be solved." And I would be disappointed more if, you know, I heard that the police were not optimistic. They almost have to remain optimistic that a case can be solved. If they said anything else, well, then what are you doing? Now, there might be a difference in what, you know, they say to themselves at the station and what they tell the, the papers, but at least publicly, you have to show that optimism, right? The case can always be solved.
45:49 Speaker 02 And at least they have that public, that public optimism. You know, we've discussed cases before where, according to family members of the victims, the police have put the case up on a shelf someplace and just don't work it. And it's just sitting there collecting dust, probably because they feel that it's not easy to solve, but at least here, at the very least, they're saying the right thing. Brian Batterson likely would have continued investigating this case even today if it weren't for his medical issues and his death at such a young age. The case definitely seemed to weigh on him even years after it was handed to other detectives. Mike Donahue, a reporter for the Marshalltown Times Republican, who covered the case multiple
46:32 Speaker 02 times in the years since Isla May's murder, told WHO 13 News, "I could tell by the tone of his voice when I interviewed him about this, that he was still bothered by the fact that due to incidents, his department was not able to connect the dots and find the perpetrator or perpetrators."
46:49 Speaker 01 And this wouldn't be the first case that we've covered where an unsolved crime has weighed heavily on a detective. I think a lot of detectives take some of these cases.
47:05 Speaker 01 So very seriously, you know, they put so much time and effort into them that the ones that they're not able to crack kind of haunt them even after they've retired. You know, I've been watching a lot of Lieutenant Joe Kenda recently, a lot of the shows that he's done throughout the years, and he often talks about the number of unsolved cases and how much that they've really haunted him throughout the years.
47:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think if you ask a lot of investigators, while they're happy about the cases they solved and they're able to give family members answers, I think it's those unsolved cases that really stay on their minds that that really bother them.
47:55 Speaker 01 The latest article from local news agencies regarding Isla May's murder reveals that two investigators have taken the case and they're starting over from the beginning. We can only hope that fresh eyes will see something new or someone will finally decide that it's time to come forward. In a smaller community like Marshalltown, it's always interesting to see what the locals have to say or what their theories are. And one interesting thing that we wanted to include in the discussion of Isla May's case came from one of those residents on Facebook. In reply to a news article about Isla May's case, a woman referenced a robbery of a gas station in town
48:40 Speaker 01 that she thought happened either the day of Isla May's murder or within 24 hours of it. According to this Facebook poster, a worker at the adult book movie store east of Isla May's home was robbed and beaten over the head. And this poster thought that it was too much of a coincidence to not be related. We checked, but really couldn't find any details about this attack on the adult bookstore worker. So we don't know if it's accurate or if police checked into it, but it's certainly interesting, especially if this statement is accurate.
49:17 Speaker 02 If you have any information about the murder of Ila Mae Clark, you can call the Marshalltown Police Department at 641-754-5725 and ask to speak with detectives.
49:28 Speaker 02 If you wish to remain anonymous, you can call the Marshall County Crime Stoppers at 641-753-1234. And if you feel more comfortable just texting your tip, you can send a message to 274-637. Just make sure Marshall is the first word in your text.
49:47 Speaker 01 I mean, Morpheus, we wrapped this one up. It's a tragic case. I mean, you have a 73 year old woman who by all accounts was loved by many people. A lot of people really liked this woman and it sounds like she was just, you know, living her life. She wasn't hurting anyone as far as we know. There were no indications that, you know, she had crossed someone. So who would want to kill her? And I go back to this angle of her having this job of collecting cash, rent payment. Okay. Is there something to that? Does that mean
50:28 Speaker 01 that it was someone who lived close to her because they knew about that? But then you have the idea that there was two, possibly three individuals involved and one of those was a getaway driver. Okay. Why do you need a getaway driver unless you don't live anywhere close to where Isla May lived?
50:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think there's a lot of avenues you can go down to, a lot of avenues you can go down with this case. A lot of questions you can ask and there's unfortunately, there's just not many answers. We talked about it a lot. There's no witnesses. There wasn't a lot in the way of physical evidence, prints, that kind of stuff. So the police really had an uphill battle from the beginning, but to their credit, they seem to have stuck with it and continue to pursue it even though it's a harder case to solve.
51:20 Speaker 01 Well, I think the one thing that does give people some hope here is that just very recently, right? Late last year. The current captain of the police department talked about a piece of evidence or evidence that they have that was left at the scene. Now, we don't know what that is because he didn't go into details, but it sounds like they could have something that either could be tested, could hold DNA, could break this case open. So I think maybe we'll be hearing more about this one as time goes by. And hopefully it's not a lot of time.
52:05 Speaker 01 Maybe they'll have a big break in the case.
52:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, we definitely hear a lot of cold cases and old cases being solved every week. So hopefully Isle of Man is is one of them.
52:15 Speaker 01 But that's it for our episode on Isle of May Clark. If you love the show, but I haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five star rating, leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends that word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out.
52:31 Speaker 02 If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle at criminology pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com/criminologypodcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans.
52:47 Speaker 01 So that's it for another episode of criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike.
52:57 Speaker 02 And Morph.
52:58 Speaker 01 We'll talk to you next week.
52:59 Speaker 02 Take care, everyone.
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