The Brutally Batted Bartender - West Liberty, Iowa - Part 1
72m 29s
In a chilling small-town murder case from 1992, 22-year-old bartender Cory Wenikie is found dead in his home in West Liberty, Iowa, after being beaten with blunt force trauma. The victim, known for his social charm and multiple relationships, was reportedly asleep when attacked, with injuries including a fatal skull laceration. No forced entry or missing items were found, indicating a targeted, planned crime. A blue aluminum softball bat, purchased for $13 at Walmart, was discovered nearby with visible bloodstains and no fingerprints, raising questions about its use as a weapon. Despite extensive investigation, no definitive suspect emerged. Key figures like Jody, his fiancée, and Missy Morrison, the wife of a known abusive man, were considered, but alibis and lack of evidence weakened their cases. The investigation faced limitations due to the era’s forensic technology, such as blood typing only and no DNA analysis. In 1995, Bob Morrison, who had a history of violence and abuse, was theorized as the killer, though he later died by suicide. The case ultimately went cold, with no prosecution, and remains one of the most perplexing unsolved crimes in the region due to the lack of conclusive evidence and the absence of a clear motive or suspect. The story highlights the dangers of unchecked personal behavior in small communities and the challenges of solving crimes without modern forensic tools.
Hello, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express! Yeah, and choo choo! Yeah, indeed, Jimmy. Yeah, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us again today on another crazy edition of Small Town Murder Express. Really packing ten pounds of murder in a two-pound bag here. This is a wild story that's been kind of trickling on and on, and weird things have been coming out about it. It's very interesting. So, all aboard the murder train, pulling away from the station. Let's get to this. First of all, head over to shutupandgivememerder.com. You need tickets, guys. You've got to get your tickets. Tickets to live shows here. It's starting with the 18th of September in Milwaukee. I think a few left we released all of our holds and stuff, so I think there's a couple left for that, but I don't know how many. Also, the 19th of September, state, theater, Minneapolis, get those tickets. 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So the story is getting crazy, so check that out patreon dot com slash crime in sports is where you get all that and you get every show we put out crime and sports, your stupid opinion, both small town murders all ad free with your Patreon as well. That's and you get a shout out at the end of the show, how much more could we give? That said, let's do this, everybody. I think it's time to sit back clear ones here. What do you say? Arms to the sky. Let's all shout shout out and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip. Shall we? We are. Yeah, we're going. We are going to Iowa this week. You can hear the excitement. You can feel my voice trembling. We're going to West Liberty, Iowa, which is in far Eastern Iowa. I'm like the Illinois border there. West side of the town on the east side of the state. Exactly. Exactly. Well, yeah, because there's a there's a Liberty in Ohio that they named it after. So this would technically be West Liberty. You'd have to skip a couple states to get there, but it's super West. Oh, it's super West. Yeah, there's two states over. But it's there. It's about. It's almost called California, West, New York. Well, anything I heard, yeah, I heard West Nebraska was kicked around a little bit but they decided against it. 50 minutes to see her happens about three hours to Chicago and about three hours and 45 minutes to our last Iowa episode, which was early Iowa. That was cold-blooded quote hero that episode, episode 687. That's a fun twisty one. So check that out. It's a regular length episode. This is in Muscatine County, area code. We all know old Muscatine County, area code 319 population here, 3,847. So very small, small little town here, median household income, little below the national average. It's $58,488, so not too high. But lucky for everybody there, the housing is about half of the rest of the country, too. Very cheap. Yeah, median home cost here, $180,600. So yeah, with 60 grand a year, you could actually afford that house. That's not bad. A little bit of history. It was first known as the Wapasana, Wapasani, Sonyaak, Wapasana Niak, Wapasana Noniak, Noniak. Noniak? You're getting there. Something like that. I'll get this to you and see what you do with it. I'm not going to get there. You are. No, I'm not even there. I'm not there either. That's the point. I'm nowhere near it. The American language is so, it's so confusing because there's so many SSPs and I'm fucking all I'm confusing. A lot of times it's like Japanese though. It's pretty phonetic, but this is just a hard one for me for some reason. It means smooth surface to meandering stream. So that was the original town. It was the first village was located a little northwest of the present day town, and it was laid out by a guy named Simon Bagley. His niece, Louisa, they let her name the town. They let her name the post office for some reason. Let's let a kid name it. She said they wanted it to be West Liberty because she liked Liberty, Ohio. This is what happens when you let a nine-year-old name your town. Yeah. You end up with this. They want to name it Liberty and I wouldn't do that. At least they didn't name it after they're puppy or something, you know what I mean? Kids want a name like weird things. Her dog. Her dog. Let your four-year-old name the dog and see what the fuck. I've seen that before where you're like, "What's your dog's name?" They're like, "I let my four-year-old name and they'll, "Oh, okay, I got it." Yeah. My friends have a dog name. Tarter sauce? Because of the same reason. Yeah. That's what I mean. Tarter sauce. You can name the kid and they go, "Tarter sauce." And you go, "Never mind." "Never mind." Get the hell out of here. We're going to name the dog a name. We'll handle it. Yeah. Reviews of this town. Okay. There are two that are extremely similar and I don't understand either one of them. Okay. Five stars. It's a very pacific town, P-A-S-I-F-I-C. Pacific? Do they mean Pacific? You're supposed to. What? We'll get there. It's a very pacific town with no disturbances. People are friendly and kind, furthermore rent is affordable. There's also a turkey plant, which offers a lot of jobs for newcomers in town. Oh, okay. But parting out poultry is the job. Everyone desires it. I get it. You need a job. You need a job. But that's not like a, you know, "Oh, my career. I can't wait to do that." That's a rough, gross job. It's a hard job. Field foul, slaughterhouse. Yeah. That's a dirty, nasty, gross job. It's tough. It's a tough one. Even though it's a small town, it offers great opportunities for family entertainment such as public parks and a small, affordable theater. Now, here's another five-star one from a year apart, so they're not even like next to each other. It's a very pacific place to live, meaning, and this is spelled, this is spelled like the ocean with a sea instead of an S like the other person. It's a very, I don't know, and I tried to figure it out. It's just these two people with very friendly people habitating. It has tons of trees around its house with makes, with makes the town look beautiful during spring and fall. It is safe and quiet. Furthermore, it has nice places to go have fun at such as a small theater, car races, several restaurants that have delicious food. That person. Lots of small words. That's a person who named their dog, tartar sauce. Three stars. Everything is connected, which I like, but, of course, with preference kind of families. You got me. I love this. It's going on. So, no, I love the support with sports and the academic success, which I hope you didn't have because that would, that would bow and negate this whole thing. Exactly. Three stars here. It's a pretty small town. You can meet everyone and make easy connections with families. Two-spensive, S-P-E-N-S-I-V-E. Two-spensive to be a small town, but is a quiet town with great sport support for our students. You need to get English support for your students, sports. It's got to be specific. It's got to be the other word they're trying to use. Two different people said Pacific and spelled it differently. That's what I didn't get to. When I saw the first one, I said, "Yeah, that's what I thought too," but then I saw the other one. I'm like, "No, this is crazy. Things to do here. The Muscatine County Fair, everybody, let's do it." By the way, I went to the Duchess County Fair, so I could help make fun of it on the show here. It was worth it. There was a guy. I went with Sarah and we did the Squirty Things. It was having fun. We're going around eating hot dogs.
looking at cows and shit. - Those are scam somehow and I don't know how. - We did the square and we're like, yeah, we'll do it, we sit down and they're like, oh, we need like three more people before we can start. We're like, okay, so then we sat there for 10 minutes while this guy, parties need to, dude, parties used to be good. They used to be like, hey, come over here, I go in that lady, come on over here. No, they'd give their pitch. This guy was literally going, we need three more people. Come on, come on guys, we need three more people. And Sarah and I are like looking at each other like, this is the worst pitch of all time. Like, give us a stuffed animal. We'll fucking do the pinch, but it took a while before we actually, dude. - I did that with my daughter and my son. I won once and then I kept sitting there trying to win, 'cause I got two kids. I can't leave here with one fucking stuffed animal. I'm gonna be the worst dad ever. Eventually, I just bought all of the seats just so that my son could get it to my toe. I was like, I can't leave with this. And they made me do like six rounds of it and I kept losing. Like, you're scamming me and I don't know how. - I know, it's making me really mad. I was like, watch, I'm gonna scam you. I'm buying all the seats, give me a box. - I've been to scam you, here's all my money. (laughing) And they're like, boy, he sure did get us, didn't he? - Boy, boy. - By the people on over there on us. - Man, he figured it out, boy. (laughing) We're gonna have to start making rules against that. You know what I mean? (laughing) Anyway, this place has a queen and princess contest, which is always uncomfortable. - No kings. - No kings, no. Bacon buddies, which is actually kind of nice. It's, they get developmentally disabled children and help and they show pigs. They do the pigs and there's a pig show. They like teach them how to do it and they're, they get into it. - Oh, that's fun. - That's a nice thing to do. It's really nice. - I don't know, I hope they explain to those children but we're gonna slaughter these. (laughing) - Like you like bacon? Bacon buddies, that's, they sure they get the kind of, I don't know how to, delayed you have to be but you're gonna get that reference, you know? Trailer race, there's a trailer race. I don't know, to get your house and pull it on down. And a Bill Riley talent show, not Bill O'Reilly, Bill Riley talent show, don't know what happens there. And the lineup musically will be Confederate Railroad, which, that sounds, no, I don't know, okay. - I'm not listening. - Josh Ross, which sounds kind of plain. And Mark, oh God, Jesus Christ. I assume that's chess nut. I put Mark chess butt, which is not the case. - Yeah. - VB in the internet. - Mark chess butt's good. - Where's he? How about Mark chess butt? Is he any good? (laughing) Do you look like an old guy? - Yeah, I think, I feel like he's trying to think, 'cause there's a chess nut. I don't know if it's Mark chess nut. It's got to be Mark chess nut. If that's who they've got to get. - Who the fuck knows? - Like 90s, early 2000s. - Yeah, it's gonna be a race fine. - That kind of thing. There's also the Great Plains Puppet Train, Regional Puppet Festival. You know what they have there? Puppets? - Fuckin' puppets, moving on. Let's talk about some murder. Who's care? We're gonna talk about puppets. They do Marionette shows. They literally have a workshop on shadow puppets there. A workshop on-- - Yes. - Show you how to-- - Which is a great skill when you're eight. And there's a film strip, but I don't think they show film strips anymore. So it's really a lost art at this point. - There's a guy on Instagram that I watch. It's amazing at it. - Yeah. - It's kind of fun. (laughing) - Okay, there you go. Maybe he's teaching the workshop. So that said, let's talk about some murder here. - Let's talk about it. - Okay. - Let's talk about a young man first here. Cory Lee Wenikie, or Wenikie. W-I-E-N-E-K-E. - Cory. - Cory's born March 25th, 1970. He's the only child of James and Susan Wenikie. He went to West Liberty High School, played center on the football team. It was a starting center. - Out of play. - He's only like five nine, but he's over 200 pounds. He's a sturdy, like thick dude. - Wow. - But not like a fat guy. And there's like a real thick guy. - Right. - One of those like soul, you know, fireblood guys. The team went all the way to the class, double A. Yeah. Team went all the way to the class, double A. Semifinals. He graduated from high school in '88. His dad said this about him. Cory was just like a big brother to everybody in the whole neighborhood. He's very good socially, and he's very kind of an outgoing guy. Cory. - All right. - Another friend said this. He was a fun guy. He was friendly, outgoing, charming. Everybody was his friend. I mean, I didn't know anybody that didn't like Cory. That's high school Cory. Nobody didn't like him. Good guy. Now, his job when he graduates is, I think he went to college or anything. Instead, he worked at Wink's tap, which is a bar that his family owns. His grandmother, Betty owns it. So it's kind of the, it's in downtown West Liberty. It's the bar in downtown West Liberty. - Yeah. - Wink's, Wink's, like Wink. - No, Wink. Wink's tap. Yeah, he's because it's winnicky. He started, I guess it's Wink-y probably. He started there as a kid, you know, just doing the ice and that kind of shit. And then he ended up on his 18th birthday. Maybe that's the law in Iowa. I don't know, but that's when he moved behind the bar. When he was 18, he came to the bartender. And within by the time he's 21, he's like, you know, he's a hugely popular guy in town. He's the bartender of the downtown bar. - He serves the beers every night. - Everybody knows him. He works the late shift. So he's the guy that's there, a closing time, becomes real popular. He's got a, by 1992, he's bartending. He drives a blue Cadillac, a big old, like a '70s Cadillac from what I gathered. - Yeah. - Like one of the boats, like my grandmother had, where the doors, when they slam, they're like, (whooshes) like it sounds like a bank fault closure. - Yeah. - Yeah, one of those. - He's got a 450 floor in it, it's a big one. - Huge monster. So this means everybody knows his car. It's a bright blue, enormous Cadillac. - Yeah. - So everyone, there's Cory driving by. You can't miss him, basically. By 22, he's also into partying. I mean, he's a bartender, and he works till two in the morning, and he's into partying. - He knows where they're at. - He smokes some weed, he does some coke here and there too. Like some coke, smokes some weed, does some drinking, and apparently, too, there's a bunch of different guys. He gets drugs from. There's a guy named Slim Zamora, which is the best drug dealer name of all time. Slim Zamora, that sounds awesome. - Not bad. - Another guy way less cool of a drug dealer name, Ken Hammond, that's not fun. That's like a sitcom, dad, that's no fun. - Yeah. - And a guy named. - Slim at least sounds Mexican, he might get a good shit. - At least he's got a nickname, you know what I mean? Slim, Slim's got, you know, does so much cocky slim, I don't know, something, but then there's Otis Sanders, which is kind of in between, as for a drug dealer name, not here or nor there. No, he's not really selling drugs or anything, Corey, but he's the bartender that if you want something, he can make a phone call and get it for you. He's that guy. - Yeah. - He might make a 20 here. - Yeah, he'll make a 20 extra 20 bucks off an eight ball or something, but he's, the bartender knows everything, everybody, the bartenders have connections. I know there's a lot of, whenever I mention working in restaurants, people explain, I work in a restaurant, and I never had those experiences. Good for you, that's great, and I'm sure you didn't, but every restaurant I ever worked at, and I grew up working in restaurants and my family had, like everybody there knows how to get drugs and does drugs. It's just one of those things. If you worked until two in the morning, you'd have to do more likely that you're doing drugs. Don't know why, you're just bored. - There's a difference between working at an actual restaurant with a sous chef than working at fucking Panda Express. That's not a restaurant. - Yeah, no, no, that's not a restaurant. Well, it's a restaurant. Jesus, 'cause I got yelled at for making, I never mind, forget it, I'm not even gonna bother. - What? Not belittling your career. However, you know that it wasn't your first choice. You didn't, on career day, you didn't say, I'm gonna work the fries. - Yeah, exactly. - You didn't say that. - You thank you, you say, 'cause they treat you like a special Olympian or something, so they do. They treat you like your, he's brave to come out here, and it's like, - He's so brave to put himself out. - That's how they treat, it's fucking so. Don't worry, guys, they don't parade me out with the bacon bunnies. - Gonna get Jimmy a bacon bunnies when it sounds like some guys, and I'm like, stop treating Jimmy like that. He's a grown man, and he's a, he's such a grown man, and he's a dick sometimes too, unlike special Olympians, which is why I love him. That's the point. That's why I love you, 'cause you're a dick sometimes, and that's great. That makes me laugh. - That's so nice. - We get along right. - It's so nice. - I get up so. - That's a lot. - Yeah, yeah, no, they treat you like, well, Jimmy doesn't know any better. It's like, what are you talking about? (laughing) - Technically, he has finished a higher level of education than I have, so. Make me the guy who doesn't know any better. It's more fun, I think, it sounds like. Just 'cause I have to talk, and it's like, I don't want to do all this talking. This is just, I read better, I'm sorry. (laughing) So, anyway, back to-- - I'm bad at that. (laughing) - Cory, Cory ran a, also, a little gambling operation out of Winx as well. - All right. - Cory's making a buck or two here where he can. He's a small town bartender. He's also got some, some, some, some,
girlfriends here. Let's talk about first of all, several, huh? Well, here's one named Jody Hots. She's 22 and 92 same age as him. She and Corey went to school together, started dating when they were like 17. She works at a bank in Iowa city. He works nights so they don't really see each other that often. But that the fall earlier into the fall of 91, they announced their engagement. She had an engagement ring on. So they're engaged. It's a great relationship. Yeah. They live in a small two bedroom house on a piece of land on a gravel road about three miles outside of West Liberty. That her father owned. So they're, you know, not really worried about the rent. You know, it's kind of not a great kind of a fall in a part kind of a house, but you're both 22. It's your first place. Who cares? I lived in a horrible apartment when I was at age. So the other thing though, he has at least four relationships going on. That's the problem. Sexual relationships. Wow. Oh, he gets around the small town. The later on a police officer will say there was Hots. That's Jody. The one he was with there. HOTZ. A woman named Wendy Marshall. A net, a woman named Annette. And then there's also a fourth relationship too that we'll talk about here. The thing is Jody knows about all this shit. Jody seems to know he's Tom Katten around West Liberty. She knew. Yeah, she knew there was another woman, other women, and she was still planning the wedding. She thought, oh, this is just him getting his wild oats. And then once we get married, he'll settle down and we'll have kids. So John love it. Just like it. Yeah. We had a long John love its conversation before that. That's a fun job for us. And you're like, what are you talking about? Other people don't know. John's done well. He's done well. There's also Wendy Marshall. Wendy with an eye. She's 20 at this point. In July of 92, she gave birth to a daughter. Guess who the father is? Is it mine? It's Cory. Yeah, Wienke. Wienke. He did not formally acknowledge paternity and his interactions with the baby were limited. So he was saying, I don't think that's my kid basically. Really? Now, Wendy wanted a future with him. And she was really like, she thought they were having a relationship. And we're going to, you know, we have a baby. Things are going to happen. Then there is the mystery woman. And we think the mystery woman is a woman named Missy Morrison, who was married to a farmer named Bob Morrison, who lived near where Cory and Jody live. So some. So he comes to the mouth of the bar. Yeah. Or shit. It's just some local farm wife from down the road from him. So who knows? Well, they did meet the bar though. She would frequent local bars and have affairs with the younger men. The farmer's wife is coming in from the field. Yeah. One of them, according to a witness, was Cory. So if there's a woman around thrown in around everybody, Cory's going to catch a piece of it, put it that way. He's going to be one of his guys. He's going to reel in some. Yeah. Sure. Then there is a net D Hazen. D is not the initial D. It's D and net D Hazen. Later on, McCrab, later on, Kay Hill. So lots of names for her. She's done well too. Yeah. Well, she's not doing too great here. She's about seven years older than Cory. All right. So she's the older lady, which is, you know, 29, I don't know, lady by any stretch. She had been married and divorced and has two kids at this point. Oh, so totally different life than Cory at this point. After the divorce, she moved in with her brother, her brother, Denny Hazen and his wife, Jackie, with a cue, by the way, I was calling her Jacques in my head the whole time. I'm like, I'm like, it's her brother, Jacques. And then I'm like, wait, Denny. His Jacques is married to a chick named Denny. And then I'm like, wait, that's Jackie. They Jay, Jay, CQ or CX, Jay, CQUE. That's Jacques. That's Jacques. That's Jacques. Right. It's like, I thought, look up Cousteau. I'm pretty sure it's exactly how you spell that. That's fucking, it's more Jacques, Jacques than Jackie than Jackie. I'll tell you that much. Um, Jacques, is it Jackie? Jacques, I'll call her. I don't know. So he lives with Denny and Jacques in their two story farmhouse, farmhouse, a few miles from West Liberty. She brings her kids to live there. She and Jacques, you become close to sister-in-law's here. Perfect. They like each other. Now she worked basically when she needed money and that she's not really, uh, don't really have a career or anything going on. Yeah. I don't know. She, but she has, doesn't have her career like steady career. She worked at Winx on and off. She would open some mornings. She would cover some shifts here and there, but she's not like a staple. And she went out at night and hung out and party. She liked to drink and do Coke. That's her, that's her jam and that, yeah, she sounds fun. Yeah. Um, an investigator said, and that was living, uh, day to day, going to work when you need, you needed money going out at night, partying, still trying to live that lifestyle that Corey's living, which Corey's 20-year-old stuff. Yeah. Corey's 22. That's the difference. You're not. You're almost 30 and you have two kids. So, um, it's interesting though. Other thing about a night, she's never been despite kind of going out at night, drinking, doing a little Coke here and there. She's never been arrested for anything or anything like that. She's not. Okay. That's the white lines. Yeah. Now the thing about her is, this is why I was kind of like, and that's not that great here. They knew each other. She and Corey, before she came to work at the bar, that's because she met Corey when he was 16 and she was 23. Oh, what are they? How'd they do that? Uh, they were fucking all that. She said they didn't have sex at that point, which I'm not sure about, but they just messed around. In other words, I molested the 16-year-old is what she's saying. Yeah. A 23-year-old was hanging out with romantic ideas with a 16-year-old. Yeah. I mean, for the guy, if you're 16, you think that's jackpot times a 23-year-old, but also, if you're 23, that's pretty pathetic. Honestly, that's sad. Incredibly, either way. No matter which way the sex is going, obviously, with the male, that's fucking disgusting, but it's, yeah, it's really fucking pathetic. Get a life. Yeah, this is, you're not going to fuck a 16-year-old boy's psyche up by fucking him. That's not, you're just not. We've been, and people go, oh yeah, no. Maybe some, we've been 16-year-old boys. There is very little that anyone could do to you that your friends already haven't done to you. You know what I'm saying? To make you feel awful. Your friends are there to kick you in the balls when you're feeling good. So the majority of 16-year-old boys are trying to put that in something, all right. Anything at a 23-year-old. Real care how old she is. That's great. Yeah, yeah. That's terrific. Fuck if she's 55. I'm trying to put it in something and see what it's like. Younger than your mom. Awesome. That's basically, you wouldn't care. Perfect. Perfect. There you go. So, but this is, it shows poor judgment on anyone who's 23 and has any sort of relationship with a 16-year-old. Never mind the legalities of it or just the moral grossness of the whole thing. Fucking bizarre. Yeah. Then three years later, once he's like 19, it became an on-again, off-again thing where they would fuck here and there, basically. By 92, they're fucking pretty consistently. So he's got living with the chick he's engaged to, banging some broughty has a kid with. He's got this one and also the farmer's wife when she comes in from the fields once in a while, too. Cory is dipping his wick, my friends. So the summer fall 92, he and a net are having sex several times a week at the bar in cars in an apartment above the bar at the farmhouse at her brother's farmhouse. She lives in. They drink. They do coke together. You know, they're having a good time. So by fall of 1992, here is the way it works. Wendy Marshall, the one he had a baby with, knows about a net. Okay. Yeah. A net knows about Wendy Marshall. As well. So they know about each other. Jody Hots, the one he's living with and engaged to, had heard about both and sort of knew about both. So they all kind of know about each other at this point, which is not great. They should because he should be saying, I can't fuck yet because I just fucked in a house today. I'm raw. I'm down to a car. I've taken two layers of skin off my penis. And I feel like I need to let it heal for a minute. Wow. That's a virile, young man. He's 22 year old. That's what it's about. He's out and you're looking for everything. So later on, an investigator summed up Corey saying, quote, he was involved in drugs. He was involved with a lot of different women and some of these women women even knew about each other, but some of them didn't. Wild-style life. All right. October 12, 1992. A net here opens Wink's tap that morning. She opens the bar. She works a shift and then stays the rest of the night. So she just ate all night. So her whole day is this bar. Yep. Now Corey came in to work the evening shift and a net stayed at the bar while he worked and he drank and they
Basically, she spent 14 hours inside this tavern that day. Yeah. Now, her plan was the bar's gonna close it too, and then they're gonna go hang out together. She tells people that they're gonna move to Branson together next week is what she's telling people. - Really? - Okay, yeah, that's it. So she's thinking, this is the last week, and she's gonna spend an eye, well, we're going to Branson. She said that they were going to take off the following weekend, and that they were gonna look for bars for sale in Branson, Missouri. - Oh, yeah, we're gonna buy one. - Yeah, she said we had talked about skipping town. In fact, the following Monday, we were supposed to go, or Saturday, I'm sorry, we were supposed to go to Branson to look at bars for sale. I loved Corey deeply, I really, truly did. I didn't think it was going to last, to be perfectly honest, he was so much younger than me, and he slept with anything that walked through the door. He wasn't for one person. - No, 22-year-old bartender is not the guy to marry. I'll tell you that right now. - It's just not, you know. - I just, I still don't understand as much as you don't. - It's taken you from fresh out of college with a degree. I don't think that's the person to marry. I don't think you should be getting married until you're after 30. It's just, it's, I assure you, you don't know who you are. - And you sure as fucks shouldn't be having kids until you're after 30, until you're that much. So, I mean, you can, I did. This is, we both did, so this isn't like a, we're not judging anybody. This is more of a, from our experience, it's easier if you were up to 30. Just put it that way. - I was barely not 30, but I was still not 30. - Yeah, not 30. Well, we were shit. You were, they were mid 20s when your son was born. Were you 26? - 29. - Your son's, that's the math. Yes, you're 45. - 28, I was 28 when he was born. - Okay, all right. Yeah, I was like that, that's. Okay, wait. - Was I 27? - I think you were 27, probably. And I was, yeah, I was 23 when my daughter was born. - Yeah. - Which was 27. - Yeah, I must've been 27, 'cause that's 18. - Yeah. - He's 18, I know that, I know that. - I was born. - 23 and 28 when my kids were born. And you were like 27 and 30, I think, so yeah. It's, yeah. - That's exactly what it was. I know I was 30 when she was born. I know that for sure, so. So, Corey, apparently the whole evening, Corey's treating her kind of shittily in the bar, basically. - Okay. - Late evening, October 12th, Annette is tanked. She's fucking hammered, everybody says. Multiple people. - Afterwork. - Yeah, she's been in the bar since it opened. So yeah, she shit faced. At some point, before the closing of the bar, she left the bar, but she didn't go home. She went out to Corey's Cadillac, opened the passenger door and just sat there and waited in the car for him. Okay, so October 12th, this is the same night. Well, same night now, 2 AM, so technically the 13th, with that night. Okay, the bar closes. Corey comes out of the bar with Wendy Marshall with them, the mother of his child. Okay, now, Wendy, they're leaving the bar together. They get to the car and there is fucking Annette sitting in the passenger seat. Now, luckily, they all know about each other, so it's a little less awkward than it might have been. It's not who's this bitch. It's, oh, this bitch, which is better. - Yeah. - It's better than who. But she wouldn't leave and that's what I'm not getting out. So Corey says, okay, let's get in the, when do you get in, I'll drive in at home first and then we'll do our thing. Okay, so they're driving, they go down. Apparently, Annette said she was incredibly mad at this point, super pissed, okay? 'Cause she thinks they're running away together. So they drive down the road a little bit and Annette reaches for the door handle and she's like, acting like she's jumping out of the car while it's moving. - Oh boy. - Like, I'm done here. So Corey stops the car. They get out on the side of some farm road and Iowa somewhere in the middle of the night and have a fucking screaming match with each other while Wendy sits in the back seat, which is even funnier. Okay? So they get done arguing, they get back in the car. Corey then drives Wendy Marshall back to her car, which is parked at Winx Tap. - Yeah. - And he tells, and that's there too, and he tells Wendy, I will come to your house after I drop a net off. I'm gonna drop a net off quick, okay? So Corey drives Annette to the farmhouse where she lives, the Hayes Farmhouse with her brother. By Annette's description, she said, quote, we argued, got back in the car, took that girl, whoever she was. She had a child by Corey. - That's who she was. - You fucking know who she is, too. You know her name, there's 3,000 people in town. - I don't care about her name. - You just gave a very specific fact about that makes it why being in his car is fine. - Whoever she was, random, dropped her off somewhere, drove back to the farm and we had sex that night. I think it was angry sex. So they have angry farmhouse sex after that. - He fucked a 14 hour drunk. - Post 14 hour shift drunk lady. - He's like, nah, shut her up, okay. - Take that. - Take that. So about 3, 4 AM, he leaves the farmhouse, still doesn't go to get Wendy or go where his fiance is sleeping at his house. He instead then finds an after hours birthday party for his friend. These people party in the middle of the night in Iowa, man. This is awesome. - That's a level of party and I'm incapable of. - That's wild at these days, yeah. He meets up with Slim Zamora at the party, too. He's there, one of his drug guys. Then he went to Wendy Marshall's apartment as he promised about four o'clock in the morning, woke her up, which I'm sure she was thrilled about with Pussy on his breath. That's what you want. - Pussy on his breath and coke on his face. - They talked, he didn't stay long. He left, before he leaves, he puts a brown paper bag in her refrigerator. Inside the bag is a six pack of beer and two shotgun shells, which I think just comes with a six pack in Iowa. I'm not sure. - Empty ones are like ready to be shot. - I don't know. - Just ready to be shot. - Unfired. - Unfired shotgun shells. With beer, all of the paper bag put in the refrigerator for some reason, okay? - Couple of winter posters. - We never figure out why he has two shotgun shells in the refrigerator, by the way. That is the mystery of this entire story. Well, one of them, okay. By seven a.m., he gets home, lets himself in, gets in bed and falls asleep next to his fiance, who's waking up because she has to go to work at the bank. - Oh, wait. - Now, during about this same time, four or five miles away, a guy named Lester McGowan pulls up and picks up a net, okay? She slept for like two hours and she got in his truck and drove, they drove to a roofing job site in West Liberty, where Lester McGowan ran a roofing crew. By the way, he used to fuck a net too. They used to have relationship. This morning he picks her up and he takes her to do roofing work today for some reason. - She just worked 14 hours. - Well, work is a, yeah, she just drank and she did a lot. So drinking filled cups for a while. - This is the only day in her life that she's a roofer and she's a roofer today for some reason. She tears some shingles off a roof. By the way, Lester was married to a woman named Cynthia, but his affair with the net destroyed his marriage. So, yeah, okay, well done, Lester. Now, 8 a.m., Jody, Cory's fiance, gets up, gets ready, takes off for the bank in Iowa City. All right, 8.30 to 9.30 a.m., a net set the job site. You know, he was surprised to see a woman that he didn't know arrived to start doing roofing work that people like the, all the people like, who the fuck is this chick? Is she on our crew now? - Where are the guys in work boots? - Yeah, so this guy was told teacher had a tear off a roof. She didn't know what she was doing. And basically, they said she spent about an hour and a half doing a shitty job of pulling shingles off a house. And then that was it for that. Now, about 9 a.m., a local farmer drives down the gravel road that Cory and Jody live on, passing their house on his way to into West Liberty. He sees two people standing outside Jody and Cory's house next to a stop vehicle, doesn't recognize either one of them and doesn't really stare or anything. It just sees notes to people I don't know and doesn't really get a good look. About 9.30, 10 a.m., something like that. Jacques arrives in her car, old Jacques K, after discovering a new crab today. Pulse up at the roofing job site. And that gets in and takes off. So she had her pick her up there. Jacques and Annette, this is according to Jacques, Jacques Annette, or Jacques Annette, they stop by Cory's place on the way to Iowa City. Now, Jacques, he said Annette wanted to drop off a letter she had written or a book about something. Annette said she knocked on the door, nobody answered. They left, they were there two minutes tops. Okay. Farmer, remember that farmer who drove into the West Liberty? Well, now he's driving back up the road, gravel road. He didn't see anybody outside the house this time, but about a half mile further along on the north edge of the road. He saw an aluminum softball bat lying in the gravel. Oh. Okay, it had not been there that morning. So all of a sudden there's a bat there. He didn't stop though. He just remembered, oh, look, there's a bat. Maybe some kid dropped it, who knows? Now midday in Iowa City. Annette and Jackie spent the middle of the day in Iowa City. It's about a half hour away. Jackie had a doctor's appointment for a knee problem.
and all this type of thing. Then after that, they went shopping, had various transactions around town. She did a three-day typewriter rental. - Oh. - I don't think that's been done in a long time. - Three days? - I'm gonna rent a typewriter as long time. - Look, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta novel in me. I just gotta flush it out. Flush it out? I gotta get it out. - Yeah, I gotta get it. Three days, 72 hours at this typewriter's all in there. - Should do it. - I should do it. I'm gonna screenplay burning a hole in my fingertips. I need to get it out. - I know I can get it out. Lightning speed. - I can do it. - Got lightning in these hands. - I can do it. - So they do the whole day. They have one receipt timestamped, 125 or 145. It's not been established. So they're in Iowa City at that point. The knee for Jackie turned out to just be pulled muscles and she ended up going shopping at multiple locations in Iowa City that afternoon. But Annette was doing the driving 'cause it's her gas pedal knee that hurts. Okay. In the afternoon, Annette and Jackie drove back from Iowa City, they said to be at the farmhouse when her children got home from school. Annette also described driving past Corey's area on a parallel road about a mile away, but didn't stop. Then they stopped in town and called the house from a pay phone to try to reach him, but he didn't answer. Okay, six o'clock PM, Jodi gets home from the bank. Right away, she has a rye for her. The dog, they have a golden retriever, I believe, or a lab, I'm not sure which one. The dog's outside and off her leash, off her chain. So that's not normal. The screen door is open to the house also. Ann Corey's Cadillac is in the driveway, which he was supposed to be at work two hours ago. Oh, so she's like, what's going on here? So she walks into the house. It's a small house. It's just one of those tiny houses. So she walks into the bedroom, and she sees Corey. He is lying face down on the carpeted floor next to the bed and is underwear with his face turned toward the bed. And she couldn't see it. She couldn't see his face. She said, I couldn't see his face. His face was turned toward the bed, but I could see the rest of him. There was blood. She said, I touched him and said his name, and of course, nothing. Uh oh. So she calls 911. She said, I need someone to come out to my house. I think my fiance is dead. They said, okay. She said, he's all bloody and he's not breathing and he's cold. Oh my God. So she said, he's on his, uh, she's on the side of the bed. There's a lot of blood around it. It looks like he's been beat pretty bad. And they said, is he dead? What she's been saying over and over, he seems dead. She said, yeah, pretty much. Which is the, I don't know how to, I mean, you're in a weird spot and I answer that. But yeah, pretty much is a real weird way to say that. Okay. Pretty much is a weird thing to say after any question, especially something super final. Like if someone goes, did you get enough to eat? You go, I had pretty much, yeah. I mean, I get to desert or something, but I'm pretty, pretty good, but dead is dead or not. That's it. There's not a lot of, he's cold and he's dead, she says. So police arrived and the first officer said, you could immediately tell this was blunt force trauma type of crime and the beating had taken place. He had injuries to his back, obvious bloody injury to the back of his head. There's quite a bit of blood on the bed. Blood spattered on the wall and on the side of the bed and of course on the floor where he'd been laying. All over. He said, right away, the one detective said, the house wasn't burglarized. There wasn't chairs or tables overturned. So I think the motive was very specific and was there to do harm. So nothing's missing. Nothing's disturbed. Jody or the cops, nobody can find a single item missing from the house, nothing. - Really? - Not a dollar. They looked for fingerprints, nothing. Footprints, ugots, tire impressions and the gravel in the yard. Not a thing. - Not a goddamn thing. - A goddamn thing. They said they've seen, yielded very little helpful evidence. Now also it's 1992. So evidence, you need like a puddle of blood or a clump of hair. This isn't like, oh, we can do some touch DNA stuff and figure out it's totally different. So what they think happened here is about 10, somewhere between 10 a.m. and 130 p.m. is the murder window here. Somewhere in there, someone walked into the house. There's no forced entry. But you could like push your way through the house. They said near the door knob, there was a pain of glass missing that had been covered by a piece of particle board. So you could usually just open the door if you wanted to. After the murder to the particle board was found removed and sitting alongside the house. So somebody just opened the door. - Somebody pulled that out. - Yeah, it was just like leaned up. So they said he must have been in his bed, a sleeper close to it. The first blow landed on the back of his head. The forensic evidence, the blood on the bed, position of the body, the bedding still wrapped around his legs, indicates he was struck while he was still in bed, and that he rolled or fell to the carpeted floor beside it. Okay, he was hit 13 times. - Wow. - Head back shoulders. Four of the blows were to the head. One of them split the back of his skull open in a large eight shaped laceration. - Oh, fuck. - They said that was the fatal one. They said that the other 12 injuries were inflicted before death, and that was the kuda grada there, at the end there. No bruises on his hands or forearm. So there's no defensive wounds. This happened caught him asleep. He's a big, he's 225 pounds been in fights before. He's a bartender. He's played football, played on the offensive line. He's a rough, he could definitely, at least to make an effort to fight you off for sure. And it's a golden lab, the dog by the way, and it's known as being pretty protective as well. They said this isn't a dog that if you come in the house and it doesn't know you, it's not going to let you in. It's going to bark at you. It's going to try to bite you. It's going to keep you out. They said this was, the dog was let outside and unchained at some point. So that's odd. So that evening, a net goes to work at Winx and they say she and Jackie both say that's when they learned Corey was dead from the people at the bar. That's how she heard. And that's that. So they got into the car, Jackie and a net and drove to the police station to volunteer a full account of their day. This is what we did yesterday. Just so you know, we didn't do it. It's kind of a strange thing to do. Preemptive. They're just real weird. So Wednesday morning, October 14th here, the officers still have a section of the gravel road that Corey and and Jodi live on, blocked off overnight. Okay, because this is the next day. There's a news crew out there from Cedar Rapids. Rapids came all the way over here. This reporter named Mike Wagner was trying to get his car started on this road and couldn't. So he decided to walk up the gravel road toward the residence. So he does and about a quarter mile east of the house, he said, and we never know exactly where it is, but he said he looked down at the north edge of the road and saw a metal bat. He went and told the cops who came and looked at it here. The bat had white tape wrapped around the handle. Well, it's an aluminum bat. It's a blue aluminum bat stamped on it. The words power flight heavyweight, you know, aluminum bats. The white lettering had what appeared to be blood stains on it. It's a a youth-sized aluminum softball bat is what it is. Still has a barcode sticker affixed to it as well without the corners being torn off or anything. It's pretty, pretty no. They later confirmed the bat had been purchased at Walmart. That particular blue had shipped to the area a year before this, but it could have been left over from the previous year's inventory. They didn't have everything on computer back then where they could go, oh yeah, that came from here and that. But it's a $15 softball bat. It had been bought on sale for $13. Imagine that. $13 murder weapon. 13 bucks. Pretty efficient. Kill people, that's crazy. So there's a criminologist that takes the bat off the road. And actually we have the exact picture of this toe here. Also in that picture is the musketeen county sheriff, Ron Hazen, who happens to be a net's uncle. Oh my, this is a small town, man. So that's crazy, right? So the bat goes to the state crime lab. They put it, you know, they do the super glue fumes and all that to try to figure out what's going on. The fumes adhere to shit. It's, it's the Beverly Hills cop too. Remember that? Yeah. In the fish tank or the turtle tank with the, yeah, same thing. Put it in the bucket and put some super glue and get it real hot and it goes to fingerprints. So there's no fingerprints on the bat. None. No fingerprints at all they found, which, I mean, there's tape around the handle part. Yeah. I'd wear gloves if I was going to do this probably. But it's probably that's, yeah, for sure. Yeah, but it's probably that sport tape that fucking old shit, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd get yourself a batting glove. Get a frank one. You'll be fine. I'm a Zuno. You'll slap it on. So now the blood testing capability in 1992 in rural Iowa is blood type. That's it. That's all they got. Yeah. There is DNA that happens, but it doesn't happen around here quite yet. So, yeah. The blood on the bat was the same type as quarries. And by the way, Jody said neither she nor Cory owned any bat of any kind. from the house. Okay so people.
People, obviously there's a ton of people saying this sucks what, you know, we like Corey's a good guy. There are a few people though talking about how sometimes he rubbed people the wrong way and there's a lot of people that might have wanted to kill him. One person, a family friend said he had a foul mouth and a lot of people didn't like him around town on that account. They said he was generally a good kid but people got mad at his foul mouth. A neighbor who knew him a long time said that sometimes Corey would say things that made people angry and it was never the type of thing that would cause someone to want to kill him probably. He said he was a pretty nice guy. He had problems once in a while but everybody does. He wouldn't hurt a flea and then he goes on to flee. This town's devastated. I'm still not thinking straight. The guy says I could have come up with a better analogy. I just said a flea. I don't know. Yeah. I'm sorry. I go with fleas. I'm so distracted, honestly, but this whole thing was the last time you even saw a flea to hurt it. Yeah. I'm saying we've pretty much rid the fleas out of here with collars and the sprays. It's all gone. Somebody's been hurt and fleas and somebody's been up to something. So now here are the theories. There's basically four theories. Maybe drugs. Maybe he owed people money. Okay. That's possible. They looked at Slim, would party with Corey, that's a workout. He gambling. He was running a little book out of the bar. It's possible. No, not really there. Maybe a bar fight that escalated. Maybe he got in a beef with somebody earlier in the night and they were seeking revenge or some shit. But they said nothing really happened that that night or even close to that. Maybe it's a woman or a woman's husband they thought possibly because he's banging everybody. One investigator said usually start with the spouse or boyfriend, girlfriend, whoever it is and then you work it out. If Corey, it's a bit more difficult because he had more than one relationship going on. Some of these women that he was having sex with, had boyfriends, had husbands. That made it a bit harder than normal. He said it easy. One thing that bothered him here, he said Corey was a strong young man and for that type of crime to have committed it, I think a lot of people scratching their heads asking for one who could have done this and for two, how could they have pulled it off because it did not appear that Corey had fought back. Well, they walked in and found him sleeping, beat his skull and it's pretty easy. They believe that he knew the killer though because of the dog, the way the dog was allowed on to the person. Yeah. If he was barking, barking, that would probably woke Corey up and it would have been different story. Now, the suspects, first of all, he lives with Jody, so she's suspect one. She has a total alibi. He was dead, forensically well after she left, so couldn't have been. Bob Morrison, now, member Missy's husband, Bob, they called him a workaholic who did tons and tons of overtime. He took Tuesday, October 13th off, which is the day after the murder, the day of the murder. They said that he's a powerfully built man and how it was about the right height to have committed the homicide based on some forensic shit and some spatter shit they were talking about. They also quote, say that people said he was quick tempered and known for his quote, "remorseless abuse of both animals and his wife." Okay. Let's capable of anything. What if he didn't do this? Let's keep an eye on him for a while. We should probably just put a car on him anyway and then work from there. Let's follow him around here. God, we are so far. Shit. I don't know how we're going to do this in time. Okay. A net then. Number a net. Remember last time we left off with her, she was on the way to the police station here. She showed up. They walked into the police station and one investigator said it did seem a little strange that she come up with all this stuff and that she wanted to present it willingly. Like she had receipts. This is where I was today. But then I also kind of got the feeling that she was doing that because she was afraid. She really didn't want to go sit down in front of the cops. She was afraid of something, them finding something out. So she told them, "Yes, I went to his house. I went to the door where the, you know, the particle board thing where you can get in all of that is." She told them all of that. This is pretty close to when the murder is supposed to be happening, too. She says, "I stopped there." What are stuff on the scene? But I mean, that's the truth. Now the cops say she knew the farmer saw her and she was trying to get out ahead of it because remember the farmer saw them outside. But also the farmer didn't, why would you, why would you put yourself at the murder scene before the farmer says that they saw you? So it can go either way. She gave them her coat, her shoes, fiber samples from the interior of her vehicle, her fingerprints, her pom prints, her blood. She gave them everything. They tested everything, nothing matched. They asked her to take a polygraph and she said, "Okay, fine." And she passed it. Okay. They said she took the polygraph examination on that day and basically passed the polygraph. There was no conclusive evidence that they could say after she took the polygraph that would lead you to believe that she was guilty. So they said at that point, they started working other leads because she passed. Yeah. That's how you eliminate people. So the case goes cold here. Wow. They said that we interviewed some people and really didn't get a lot. We're getting the same name, same information and it just went cold. Same debt ends. A year later that they, it was this big announcement in the Iowa City of some Gazette or some shit. One of the papers there that said like new information, blah, blah, blah, and then the next day it was like, there's no new information. That was a bad. Same old shit. A net keeps checking in with the cop. She goes to the police station on her own every once in a while repeatedly. Okay. They said she was unusually interested in the investigation. She would come to the police station of her own volition and check on things. She also started handing them other suspects. They said there's, investigators said there's always red flags, but the big, giant red flags, the ones that are like on the top of a building screaming at you that this is a person is when your suspect starts coming forward, providing alternate suspects. Yeah. Like that's not a good source. Not me. No. By the way, 1995, remember Missy and Bob Morrison? Yeah. Well, Bob shot and killed Missy in 1995, amid accusations that she was fucking other people and was going to leave him and then he killed himself. Bob. That's a dead end now, Bob and Missy, yeah. Incredibly dead end. That's the guy that beats animals and his wife. Yeah. Shocking end. You never would have thought. Right. Not a bad guy. What a dickhead. So October, 1995, they have a meeting, all the investigators. It's been three years and they theorized it's probably, it was probably Bob Morrison who killed Cory. That would make the most sense. So they do all of that and they said, I mean, he was dead. Now there's nobody to prosecute though. So they kind of, he was their main suspect right now and now he died. So they lost interest in the case pretty much. They were like, well, that was that. So over the years, they get more suspects. A guy named Dennis Stromer, a guy named Cory, a guy named Robert Steven Burke, William James Wade. These are all the ones they named. Steve Young. Hey, Steve Young was there. Is that right? He's a scrambled one lefty. He's a scrambled man. I don't think you did it. No, there's a bunch more. There's a guy named Jeff Murdock, who according to an interview with a guy named Scott Payne, Jeff Murdock was bragging about killing Cory at two different local bars on two separate occasions. Jeff was never interviewed once by the cops for this murder. And he died in 2004, having never been interviewed. They're doing a bank job, Jay. This is great. There is no way we can finish this fucking story. I don't know how we're going to do this. Okay. Um, there's a lot left. Really? And it's juicy. And there's a lot to talk about. Can we do a two-parter on an express that seems weird, right? We have a long show for that. I don't fucking see why not. We can. We can do whatever we want. It's our show. But like, if I'm a listener, I'm going, "Hey, stupid's. Maybe you should have made that your regular length show. You do have a longer show." The point of this is a short story. I don't know. I think dead man with a cop police force doing a bang up job of fucking this up is a beautiful place to stop. It's pretty goddamn great. Yeah. We'll do a little bit more and then we're not going to rush through it and not tell the story, basically. Yeah. Let's do that. Let's do that. I mean, if there's an hour to go, still fucking see you next week. All right. Fuck it. Then we're in. So let's continue this then. So the, uh, yeah, Jeff never got, never got fucking interview. Never got the early guy who people say were were actually like, he was actually admitting to people here. Um, then there's a guy named Joey Brockert, who lived in West Liberty at the time of the murder here. The following year, he was convicted of beating a man to death. Oh. Okay. A different guy, a beating, but a blunt force trauma murder. So he was a guy who was on the suspect list to begin with and then gets beaten fucking horribly. Okay. Wow. There's a guy named Mark Rodriguez here. Mark Rodriguez is implicated by an ex-girlfriend named Megan Kaufman, who told investigators that Rodriguez and Brockert, the guy who beat a guy to death the next year.
We're both members of a local group called the clan with a sea. Okay. How do you name your group the clan? There's already one of those. That is a connotation. I mean, there's a Wu-Tang one, but if you're a, if you're nine black guys, fine. People are probably understand that you're probably not going to go burn across on anybody's law. And they, and they qualified that clan with the Wu-Tang part, that part differentiates it tremendously. Huge. That's right. Yeah. Huge. And they got some pretty great names, each guy. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think there's a lot of guys in the Ku Klux Klan. In the clan? The Ghost Face Killer, probably. I don't think there's a lot of the, they don't think there's a lot of old dirty bastards in there. They are bastards. I'm sure that's true. They are. So a local group called the clan and were involved in dealing drugs. I got to know what the clan is all about. What do they do? I don't know if I want to know. Oh God. Um, I mean, I want to know, but I'm going to be regretful when I find out. Not going to be thrilled with the results of it. Yeah. So that's Mark Rodriguez there. So his ex-girlfriend told on him, so we have several people going, this person's, I heard this person say that they killed it. That's Joey Brockert. They heard about it. They heard about Mark Rodriguez. They heard about Jeff Murdock. Um, then there's a guy named Kenny Hammons. Um, Kenny Hammons said that there's a guy named Jeffrey lob, lob Dell. And Jeffrey lob Dell said that Kenny Hammons admitted to me that he dropped Cory off at home on the morning of the murder. So he's saying he put Cory, no, I don't know why. How would Cory's car be there then? That's, that doesn't make any sense. That, so that one of you discount just because we know Cory had a car when he left the bar. We know Cory had a car at several locations, including angry sex with a net and the birthday party with slim. And, and then he stopped off at the other one's house too, Wendy to talk to her and then got his car home because it's in the fucking driveway. So yeah, he got home at seven a.m. and went to bed and his girlfriend went to work. What he went back out, yeah, it's, I mean, it makes no sense. So we know that's not right. They might have their days mixed up too. That's the other. I mean, that, we were talking about years later too, but yeah, we drove him home one around then. Who knows? You know, then there's a set of drug dealers from Missouri whom Cory reportedly owed money. That's according to a woman named Brenda Peterson, Cory owed out of town drug dealers money. And there's that. So we have a lot of shit going on here. We have Jeffrey Blabdel and Kenny Hammond. We got Brenda Peterson saying they, they did that. We got the Mark Rodriguez guy who's in the, who's drug dealing in the clan. And his ex-girlfriend says that he told her they did that, that he did that. Joey Brockert here, who beat a guy to death, Jeff Murdoch, who's been heard in several different bars bragging about the murder as well. But in addition to Morrison, who's dead, and Missy, who's dead, and basically Jody, Annette, Wendy. I mean, anyone they have may be on the Wu Tang clan. Yeah. This is a Wu Tang, a veritable Wu Tang clan of Suspects is what we have here. This shit is crazy. Yeah. This is, there are so many suspects. That's what I mean. And so then and 2002 is the 10 year anniversary announcement of the case here. 10 years have gone by. It went a decade without solving a man beaten to death in his bed and his own bed in his own home, which seems wild. On the 10 year anniversary, a sergeant told the Associated Press that no motive has been developed and that no one has been identified as a suspect. There's like 20 suspects, but none of them are, you know, can really grab onto and pull onto here. And the fact that no, they don't even have a fucking motive yet. So drugs, angry boyfriend, duty pissed off at the bar, could literally be anything. The same now Susan, his mother said, I can't imagine that somebody had had something as awful against him. We didn't know he had any enemies at all, which I'm sure he didn't know he was banging 18 women and doing coke at night either. So you don't have to tell your mom that so no, not at all here. And then there's the dog. They said that, you know, a lot of these people that are suspects are strangers in terms of they've never, they don't hang out at Corey's house. So they're like, this dog, it has to be someone that this dog knows pretty well, like pretty goddamn good. Like they have to have been over there 10 times. So she wished a dog knew English. Please look at Adam and he's a staring at you with love. Who did it, boy, oh, tell me, don't you just wish dogs have seen so much over the years, so much so much. I'm glad mine can't talk. They've seen me naked so much. Oh, God. Tell you everything. Every divorce case, all they would ask is just, let's bring the dog in. That's the dog to be the witness. You too. Yeah. Well, listen to that. He was a dick. Well, well, but she, well, she was, she was, she would bitch and bone a lot. So I'm going to get out the milk bones. I guess the question to do is to say after every question, you got to give him a little piece of a bone. He's like, and you get my dogs and tell you everything, you can recall and testify, but must be blind with treats. That's the greatest part of my dog witnesses, sell me out so fast. Oh, God. Forget it. Forget it. Oh, fuck. They got the, got the dream bones. Oh, no. Two of my three dogs would fuck me in a second, in a second. Frankie keeper mouth shut. Frankie's hardcore. Both of these fucking assholes, they're so food-securegent. I've never had dogs where I can put food down and they'll still stare at me because they know that food's going to be, it's not going anywhere. It's there. There's always food. Yeah. Two dogs all eat out of the same bowls. They even have separate bowls. The two shared ones started to all share and want to like take a bite and then step back and let the other one come eat a little bit and then we gave Frankie a little bit of steak last night because we had some leftover and put it on the floor because she's real old and losing weight. And she actually, a plate of steak, medium rare fucking steak, backed away. So Oscar could get a piece and then went back and that's how nice they are to each other. They would tell on us so badly, Jimmy. It would be so quick. It's so quick. They don't understand the amount of food that's here is because I love you. There are so many houses that this shit doesn't exist because they don't give a shit about their dog and I'm doing all I can. I feed you before I eat you. Yes. Here you go. Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. Are your dogs everything? Are your dogs grazers or all at once eaters? Grazers. Yeah. Mine too. I think it's the security thing. Mine are all of them. It's food security. Well, we started off, Frankie was like that and then the other dogs just took her example I think from that. We don't have to just go up everything up. All right. Cool. I think that's definitely part of it. They got to go by example because some dogs, they're just scared because there's another dog in the house and they'll just wolf it all down. But if they see one, take a few nibbles and walk away, they're like, oh, he's not going to take my shit. He didn't care about his own exactly. Oh, we got Benny. We put him down. He was eating his food and Frankie was a year old. She came over when he was a puppy and he growled at her and we went, no, no, when we pulled him away from the food and then she took a couple bites and then we put him back and he's never done it again. After after that, they started eating the gather out of the bowl. That's it. It's been these two never grow each other on what's trace steps on his fucking face. That's the only time they hate each other when crowds yeah. Mine too. They love each other. It's fucking awesome. So I guess that's where we'll we'll have to leave this off here. Yeah. I'll leave it off with this. 2009. Okay. Because then yeah, the next thing is when the case blows open. Okay. 2009. 17 years, 17 years, the Iowa DCI set up a cold case unit finally. They figured, hey, we might have some cases that are old. Cory's murder was one of the roughly 150 cases that they hope to revisit with new DNA technology now. We'll run all this evidence again and get some answers. Unfortunately, that takes a long time and by 2011, the federal grant funding ran out in the unit. What? There they were. That's that because the state couldn't afford it. So that was that. We have no money now. We have the technology. No way to run it. Nope. So there you go. That's where it stops. And then it's going to be the most unlikely thing people you haven't even fucking met yet are still to come in the story and a suspect that you do know emerges and it's so fucking crazy. And I want to give it the time it deserves because there's also very much question of the verdict and everything like that huge questions there. So it's become kind of a cause this case. So we'll get to that on the next express. So you're going to listen to another three hour episode and then do that. So check that out. Keep coming back and listening to us. If you're enjoying this story or enjoying any of the stories that we've ever told, get on whenever app you're on. Give us five stars. It helps so much. We can't even begin to tell you how much it helps. And two thumbs up on Netflix. Do it right now. Netflix thumbs up to of them. If you got them. Three if you have them. I don't know. Just use your have so do that. 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Podcast Summary
Key Points:
A murder occurs in West Liberty, Iowa, in October 1992, involving bartender Cory Wenikie, who is found dead in his home with multiple blunt force injuries, including a fatal laceration to the skull.
The crime scene shows no forced entry, no missing items, and no defensive wounds, suggesting the victim was asleep and struck while in bed, with no signs of a struggle.
A youth-sized aluminum softball bat with bloodstains is found on a gravel road near the home, purchased for $13 at Walmart, and tested with no fingerprints, leading to speculation about its role as a weapon.
Summary:
In a chilling small-town murder case from 1992, 22-year-old bartender Cory Wenikie is found dead in his home in West Liberty, Iowa, after being beaten with blunt force trauma. The victim, known for his social charm and multiple relationships, was reportedly asleep when attacked, with injuries including a fatal skull laceration. No forced entry or missing items were found, indicating a targeted, planned crime.
A blue aluminum softball bat, purchased for $13 at Walmart, was discovered nearby with visible bloodstains and no fingerprints, raising questions about its use as a weapon. Despite extensive investigation, no definitive suspect emerged. Key figures like Jody, his fiancée, and Missy Morrison, the wife of a known abusive man, were considered, but alibis and lack of evidence weakened their cases.
The investigation faced limitations due to the era’s forensic technology, such as blood typing only and no DNA analysis. In 1995, Bob Morrison, who had a history of violence and abuse, was theorized as the killer, though he later died by suicide. The case ultimately went cold, with no prosecution, and remains one of the most perplexing unsolved crimes in the region due to the lack of conclusive evidence and the absence of a clear motive or suspect.
The story highlights the dangers of unchecked personal behavior in small communities and the challenges of solving crimes without modern forensic tools.
FAQs
The episode is set in West Liberty, Iowa, a small town in far eastern Iowa near the Illinois border.
It has a small population of 3,847, affordable rent and housing, a turkey processing plant, and local entertainment like the Muscatine County Fair, trailer races, and a queen and princess contest.
Cory Wenikie was a 22-year-old bartender and football player known for being outgoing and popular. He had multiple relationships, used drugs, and ran a small gambling operation from his bar.
Cory was murdered in his home after being beaten 13 times, including a fatal blow to the back of his skull. The crime occurred while he was asleep, with no signs of forced entry or robbery.
A youth-sized aluminum softball bat with blood stains was found on a gravel road near the house. Blood type testing matched Cory’s, but no fingerprints or DNA were found on the bat.
The main suspects included Jody Hots (his fiancée), Annette Hazen (a woman he had relationships with), and Bob Morrison (Missy Morrison’s husband, known for abusive behavior).
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