Karen Streed (4 of Spades, Iowa)

Summary

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The Deck — “Karen Streed (4 of Spades, Iowa)”

Date: December 10, 2025
Host: Ashley Flowers (Audiochuck)
Case: Murder of Karen Streed (1971, Iowa)

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Overview

This episode of The Deck uncovers the unsolved 1971 murder of 21-year-old Karen Streed, whose body was found in the Millrace Canal in Amana, Iowa. Using a victim’s playing card distributed to prisoners—Karen as the "4 of Spades"—the podcast spotlights her story, the long-cold investigation, its major suspects, and the enduring gaps in justice. Through interviews with investigators and family, host Ashley Flowers explores the lack of closure and evolving efforts to solve Karen's case even fifty years later.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Discovery of Karen’s Body

• Timeline: Sunday, October 24, 1971, around 5:30 PM
• Discovery: High schooler Lynn Trumphold, duck hunting, finds a woman’s decomposing body floating in the canal.
  • Delay in Reporting: Family hesitates, unsure; the official police call comes in ~7:10 PM.
• Investigator comment: "He immediately drove that little green boat back towards his family's home to get his parents..." (03:26)

2. Identifying Karen and Retracing Her Final Steps

• Victim: Karen Streed (née Casey), recently married, moved from California.
• Last Seen: October 18, 1971. Planned to meet her husband, Ron, but due to car issue, she intended to hitchhike from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City.
• Eyewitness accounts: Multiple people see a woman matching Karen's description hitchhiking southbound on 6th Street between 5:30–6:00 PM.
• Craig Streed (brother-in-law):

  “She would hitchhike quite a bit to get around... she was pretty familiar. I mean, she knew, you know, the dangers of hitchhiking.” (07:42)

3. The Investigation & Initial Dead Ends

• Postmortem findings:
  • Fourth gunshot wounds to the head/face.
  • Blunt force injury (“...indicating someone struck her with...maybe the butt of a handgun.” — Chief Deputy Sauerbry, 10:56)
  • Clear evidence of sexual assault.
  • Decomposition and water exposure destroyed much physical evidence.
• Evidence: Massachusetts driver's license, matches, gold watch, keys—all later reportedly missing from evidence storage.

4. Suspect #1: Larry Slaymaker (Former Local Police Chief)

• Belated Lead: In 1995, ex-sheriff William Spurrier relays that a tipster told him Larry confessed to Karen’s murder soon after the incident.
• Alleged confession:

  "I really showed that b—. I shot her four times in the back of the head with my .22 caliber pistol." (19:23)

• Background: Known "window peeper", accused (but unproven) of rape at knifepoint; known to own a .22 pistol.
• 2008 DNA Submission: Larry voluntarily gives a DNA sample but is never directly questioned about Karen’s murder, even when re-interviewed decades later.
• Missed Opportunity:

  "That's it. All these years later and you don't ask him about the main case you're investigating?" — Ashley Flowers (31:38).

5. Suspect #2: Richard Dean Richison

• Background:
  • Known for two attempted abductions of female hitchhikers in the same area and week as Karen’s disappearance.
  • Owned/managed a body shop with access to many cars (possible fit with the turquoise Oldsmobile described by witnesses).
  • Criminal record includes sexual assault of a minor and selling narcotics.
• Interview in 2008: Vague, claims alcohol-induced memory loss; refuses voluntary DNA, but police obtain a warrant for a buccal swab.
• Vehicle Discrepancies: Victims described different types and colors of cars than the Oldsmobile seen with Karen.

6. Eyewitness & Extraneous Leads, 2025

• Unnamed Call (2025):
  • Colonel Carl Gottsman claims to have seen a woman matching Karen’s description hitchhiking on Highway 218, being picked up by a "white and blue 1950s car" (vs. previously reported turquoise Oldsmobile).
  • Carl suggests serial killer Henry Lee Lucas was the driver, but evidence places Lucas in Michigan.
• Reflection from Law Enforcement:

  "Which is kind of random just to have someone call 50 plus years later..." — Chief Deputy Sauerbry (33:31)

7. Challenges with Evidence and DNA

• Water damage rendered most physical evidence nearly useless in the 1970s, and no foreign DNA was obtained in 2007/2008 retests.
• Key items missing: Karen’s personal belongings are unaccounted for, impeding future testing.
• Hope for advancements: Still, investigators are optimistic that new forensic techniques may provide breakthroughs.

8. Personal Impact & Regret

• Family fallout:

  “You’re never really going to get over it. I mean, you move on...but you still remember it and have regret. Just like you said. It’s like, geez, why didn’t I offer to...hitchhike down with her or something?...you always have those regrets.” — Craig Streed (39:06)

• Karen’s legacy:
  • More than headlines, Karen was a trailblazing woman of her time—educated, working, married, with ambitions beyond social stereotypes.
  • The case's ripple effect on her family, especially Ron, who was deeply affected and eventually left Iowa.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the crime scene’s challenges:

  “Water destroys physical evidence, period. So sheriff’s deputies knew that this would be a tough one to solve from the jump.” — Ashley Flowers (05:22)

• On lost investigation opportunities:

  “There’s no way. That’s right, right. We had to really dig in here because it not even being worth a conversation, sounded bananas to me.” — Ashley Flowers (20:06)

• On the frustration with evidence gaps:

  “Even if we thought they might have some today with DNA, it might be something to find those items. So No, I don’t know where they're at.” — Chief Deputy Sauerbry (37:23)

• On the lasting emotional toll:

  “I feel sorry for Ron...the heartache this has caused him all these years. And his family and Karen's parents.” — Chief Deputy Sauerbry (40:06)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:17] — Case Introduction: Karen Streed, October 1971 disappearance, body found 1 week later
• [05:57] — Identifying Karen, circumstances of last sighting
• [10:23] — Autopsy results: gunshot wounds, sexual assault
• [12:46] — Oldsmobile tip and vehicle description; hit dead end
• [14:13] — Aftermath: Impact on family and years of silence
• [16:58] — 1995: New tip about Larry Slaymaker, former police chief, as suspect
• [22:02] — 2007: DNA testing, evidence review
• [23:59] — Richard Dean Richison: attempted abductions, suspect development
• [31:19] — Larry Slaymaker DNA collected, no direct questioning about Karen
• [33:31] — 2025: Unsolicited eyewitness tip, possible misidentification (Henry Lee Lucas)
• [37:13] — Items untested/lost, blocking future forensic review
• [38:48] — Reflections from Craig, family effect and regret
• [40:06] — Law enforcement reflections and family impact

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Conclusion & Call for Information

The murder of Karen Streed remains unsolved. Despite cold leads, missing evidence, and the deaths of key suspects, investigators—alongside Karen’s loved ones—persist in seeking answers. Advances in forensic science or tips from the public could still break the case.

Contact:
Anyone with information is urged to call Chief Deputy Todd Sauerbry at the Iowa County Sheriff's Office: 319-642-7307.

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The Deck continues to shine a light on cold cases, giving victims a voice and prompting listeners to help seek justice.

Transcript

[A]

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Our card this week is Karen street, the four of spades from Iowa. In 1971, 21 year old Karen tried hitching a ride to go meet her husband after work. She never made it and a week later her body was found floating In a canal nowhere near where she left or her destination. Was Karen a victim of a predator just passing through? Or was a former sheriff with a dark side responsible? And maybe that's why this case has never been solved. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck.

The Millrays canal in Amana, Iowa, is about 20 miles from the nearest big city, Cedar Rapids. It's a perfect spot for walking and fishing, or if you're high schooler Lynn Trumphold, duck hunting. Sunday, October 24, 1971, was calm on the water and it was inching towards dusk, maybe 5:30 or so. And as he meandered through the water in his family's green Monarch flat bottom vessel, he all of a sudden saw a woman in the water. She was fully clothed, but the way she was floating told Lynn everything he needed to know. He immediately drove that little green boat back towards his family's home to get his parents and his father. Melvin didn't necessarily call police right away because it probably seemed unimaginable that his son would find a body in water that they fish and hunt on all the time. It had to be a mistake. So Melvin grabbed a friend and went down to check on things for themselves. But chief deputy Todd Sauerbry of the Iowa county Sheriff's office told us Lynn hadn't given them an exact location and he did not want to go back out there again.

[C]

I think it took them a little bit of time to find her at that point, because, you know, he's just saying, you know, she's in this area. So it was a little difficult. They had trouble finding her at first. It would have probably been getting dark by that time of day. By the time Melvin and William got back to where she was located, she had drifted a little bit. So it, like, said that it took them a little bit of time to figure out where she was, but they found her. That was around 6:30pm by the time they found her, and they tied a rope to her because they didn't want her to float away or sink. One of them must have gone back to middle Amana. And it was at 7:10pm Is when.

Another person actually called the sheriff's office, and that was Carol Zuber.

[A]

In total, it was about two hours after Lynn found the woman, before the sheriff's office arrived on scene. But it was clear just by looking at her that she had been in the water even longer. She was severely decomposed. Her skin was literally slipping off her bones. Water destroys physical evidence, period. So sheriff's deputies knew that this would be a tough one to solve from the jump. But the first question they had, who was the woman? Well, that had an easy answer.

[C]

She had a Massachusetts driver's license on her and was in her maiden name. I think it was Karen Casey. And even from the onset, I think Sheriff Spurrier was pretty sure that this was Karen street, just based off of the bulletins that were probably going out to other counties and jurisdictions of a missing person. She'd been reported missing about a week earlier.

[A]

Karen street was her married name. And a week before, on October 18, her husband Ron street had reported her missing after she failed to show up for a planned rendezvous.

[C]

Karen and Ron had been married for about a year. They were just newlyweds. They had moved from California and she worked at a optical place in Cedar Rapids. She had a job and just living a nice quiet life in Iowa, just the prime of her life, and then she disappears.

[A]

Ron was a student at the University of Iowa, participating in the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop. And that meant on October 18, he was half an hour away in Iowa City when Karen called him from work to talk through their plans. It was right before her shift ended at 5pm that he got that call. Now he was supposed to pick Karen up in Cedar Rapids and then they were going to go back to Iowa City to have dinner. But Ron had bad news. Someone had blocked in his car so he couldn't get back to Karen. And that's when she told him it was fine. She would just find a way to him. Now, before setting off, she made a quick stop by their house. Ron's brother Craig street was there. He lived with them. And she told him about her plan to hitch a ride to Ron. He told us that he hadn't been surprised that Karen was going to hitchhike in California.

[D]

She would hitchhike quite a bit to get around because she didn't have a car. And that was fairly common. So she was pretty familiar. I mean, she knew, you know, the dangers of hitchhiking.

[A]

Karen left her house at around 5:30pm but she never made it to Iowa City.

[D]

So in fact, I was the last. I was probably the last person to see her alive because I was at home when I was washing the dishes. When she left. It's hiketop, I was sitting by.

[A]

Around 7:15pm Karen still had not arrived. Ron was getting worried. I mean, that trip shouldn't have taken Karen more than an hour, tops. So he and a friend drove to Cedar Rapids and looked for Karen along the road. When they couldn't find her they headed back to Iowa City to report Karen missing. But the police department there said that since Karen's last known location was Cedar Rapids, they had to go back there to file the report. So it wasn't until 10:30pm that Ron arrived in Cedar Rapids. He went to his house first just to confirm that Karen wasn't there before he took that last final step of reporting her missing. His brother was there, though, asleep. But when Ron woke him, he said that he hadn't heard from or seen Karen since she left at 5:30. Just 10 minutes later, Ron was already at the police department filing that report on Karen. Now, of course, police looked at him first. They interviewed him multiple times. But after they were able to confirm his alibi via that friend who was with him all night, and they saw how genuine and cooperative he was being, they quickly determined that he wasn't involved in his wife's disappearance. I mean, he was out there every day for the next six days looking for her. With a search party that he organized. They looked everywhere between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, but they hadn't thought to look in Amana, Iowa, where the Millrays Canal was. Why would they? It wasn't on the route that she would have been hitching a ride. I mean, it was 20, 30 minutes west of both big cities, and she had no reason to be there on her own. So once she was found, the question became, who took Karen out to the Milrays Canal and why? Was it just a place to leave her? Or could that area hold more meaning? As the autopsy on Karen got underway, it told investigators a number of things, confirming first and foremost that Karen had been murdered. Our reporter Regine Wright, asked Chief Deputy Sourbri about Karen's injuries.

[C]

She had four gunshot wounds, and one was to the right behind her right ear. I think one was. Another one was in the back of her head, and I think she had two on the front of her face, just above her left eyebrow.

[D]

And the wound that was on the.

[C]

Top of her head, where was it at? They were right on the top of her head. Again, indicating that someone struck her with something right on the top of her head. Some sort of blunt object. If I had to guess, I'd say it was maybe the butt of a handgun.

[A]

The autopsy revealed chilling evidence no one had been able to see. When Karen was in the water of.

[C]

The Millrace, she was sexually assaulted. And there was really no question on that. She was pretty brutally sexually assaulted. Not to be too graphic, but there was no question in their mind she had been sexually assaulted. They did find spermazoa in those microscopic slides that they collected that was noted in those original autopsy reports. So that just tells us she had sexual intercourse with somebody. And Ron street did confirm that they'd had sex the day before. So, I mean, again, we don't know if it's a suspect or if that's Ron's, but it gave us a place to start.

[A]

Problem was, it gave them a place to start, but nowhere really to go. In 1971, there was no way to test if that was Ron's sperm or someone else's. They also couldn't do much else with the other evidence they collected from her, like bullet fragments from Karen's head. I mean, they knew they came from a.22, but that was about it. And they also had samples of pubic hairs and her fingernail scrapings. Now, even though they couldn't tell whose DNA was left behind, they could tell that the crime was sexually motivated. And they had to look for suspects beyond Ron. So investigators paid special attention to any tips that had come in while Karen had been missing. According to the case file, several witnesses saw a woman who matched Karen's description trying to hitch a ride in downtown cedar Rapids on Oct. 18, sometime between 5:30 and 6pm and witnesses said that this woman was hitchhiking southbound on 6th street, the side that went towards Iowa City. One witness even saw a car pull up to the woman who looked like Karen, although the witness didn't see whether she got in the car or not.

[C]

It was described as a 1963 or 1964 four door Oldsmobile 88 or 98 sedan. Green in color. Now it says green in color, but most of the reports I read described the vehicle as turquoise. And what was significant about it was it had left rear quarter panel was spotted with red primer paint between the wheel well and the bumper, 2/3 way back from the bottom. So that's pretty descriptive.

[A]

This tip carried a lot of weight for investigators, and they released all of the details they could to the public in those initial days and weeks after Karen was found. And while they hoped for someone to recognize the car, they worked on the side to put together a list of violent offenders in the area. And it was not a short list. But police couldn't connect any of them to Karen, and no one was able to ID their mystery Oldsmobile or its driver. So pretty quickly, Karen's case hit a dead end. Her brother in law, Craig, remembers just how hard that lack of closure was on his brother Ron.

[D]

After Karen was killed, he worked for a few years and, I don't know, a number of years here in Iowa City. And then he wound up moving down to Missouri. He worked in a plastics plant. I mean, obviously this whole thing changed him.

[A]

All of Karen's loved ones were changed and left without answers or really much of anything. I mean, for years and then decades. There wasn't even an update in her case until November 17, 1995. That's 24 years after Karen's murder. And that's when a former sheriff walked into his old stomping grounds and it turned out that he had something to share about the case.

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[A]

One day in 1995, the former sheriff in Iowa County, William Spurrier, showed up at the sheriff's office kind of out of the blue, and he brought his old colleagues a tip in a case that most of the new guys there probably didn't even know about. Williams said that he had gotten this tip just a few days before, and Chief Deputy Sauerbry says it's the kind of lead that could break Karen's case wide open.

[C]

He came to Sheriff Slockett, who was the current sheriff in 1995, and reported that he had information that Larry Slaymaker was responsible for the murders. He had reported to Sheriff Slockett that an informant had told him that he had admitted to the murders.

[A]

I'm sorry, which Larry did you say? I mean, this was the first time that law enforcement had heard the name Larry Slaymaker connected with Karen's case. But they knew Larry all right. He was a local guy who lived at the time in Maringo. Where's Marengo, you ask? Oh, just a little west of the Millrace Canal. You could actually pass through Amana, where the canal is on your way home to Marengo from Cedar Rapids if you wanted to.

[C]

A little background on Larry. He was the police chief in the city of Maringo until 1968.

He was alleged to be a window peaker at that time, even though he was the chief of police.

[A]

Windowpeeker makes it sound innocent. This man practiced voyeurism. Now, we couldn't find any police documentation to back up those allegations, so I can't go into detail. But according to Chief Deputy Sauer Bry, voyeurism wasn't the only crime that Larry was accused of. He was also accused of raping a woman at knifepoint in Iowa City around the time of Karen's murder. Though Chief Deputy Sauer Bry doesn't have any police documentation from the victim. Investigators only heard about it through third parties. Needless to say, though, this man did not have a good reputation, Certainly not by 1995, when Williams rolling in with the following story. According to him, an informant said that Larry had confessed to Karen's murder to this guy. A short time after Karen's body was found in the canal. Larry allegedly told him, quote, I really showed that b. I shot her four times in the back of the head with my.22 caliber pistol.

Though not actually his. Though he told the informant he'd stolen the pistol from a maintenance room at the Iowa county secondary road department, which wasn't a totally outrageous possibility. Guns were kept there for killing injured animals. And being the sheriff and all, he would have had easy access. Clearly, investigators had to follow this possible connection to Larry.

[C]

So he was first looked at in 1995 by Sheriff Slockett. I don't think a lot of that really developed into anything at that time. We didn't have any ideas of DNA testing or anything like that. So I don't think he was ever interviewed or questioned or anything like that.

[A]

There's no way. That's right. Right. We had to really dig in here because it not even being worth a conversation, sounded bananas to me. But nope, Chief deputy Sauerbright is right. They never made it to a face to face with Larry. Our reporter Laura Frater found that investigators talked with the informant on November 24, 1995. But he just denied the whole thing. He said, yeah, he did know Larry. Yes, he worked with the guy back in 71 when Karen went missing. So, yeah, he would have been around him when she was found. And the informant even said that he remembered when Karen was found. And he always had been suspicious that Larry did it, but he said that Larry never confessed to him. Now, they didn't completely drop it here in the new year at the beginning of 1996, they talked to one more person, Larry's relative, Shirley Slaymaker. Shirley told investigators that, yes, Larry owned a.22 caliber pistol, the same type of gun that was used to kill Karen. And she was confident about that since she'd been the one to buy it for him in the 1960s. Shirley also said that when Larry drank, he would sometimes have blackouts, which made him forget what he did. Now, that didn't give investigators proof of anything, but if you ask me, it also didn't disprove anything. And yet this is where all lines of inquiry on Larry stopped. And it didn't help that no one ever seems to have interviewed Larry about Karen's murder. Laura requested an interview with the investigator who talked with Larry, but He never responded. So 1995 came and went, and over a decade later, I don't know if anyone around knew much about the Larry lore, but they did know about Karen's case. And in 2007, the Iowa County Sheriff's Office, specifically now retired Lt. Tim Walters, decided to take another go at some of the physical evidence.

[C]

By then, everyone was solving crimes with DNA, and we wanted to jump on that board. And so he looked at everything. Anything that we had in evidence. Those hairs, the bullets, the fingernail clippings, the vaginal smears, anything that could be tested, we wanted to test. So Detective Walters first sent those to the Iowa Crime Lab, Division of Criminal Investigations, the crime lab here in Iowa, and submitted all those items for testing. And they all came back with negative results. There wasn't anything found for DNA. There was a partial profile of Karen developed from, I believe, one of her pubic hairs.

[A]

So by February 2008, all Lt. Walters had to work with, DNA wise, was a partial DNA profile belonging to their victim. I mean, it wasn't ideal, but it was more than they had before. At least this way, if DNA technology advanced enough down the line to bind other DNA in this case, they at least now had a way to exclude that new DNA as being Karen's. But that might be a ways away. And in the time it took to get familiar with Karen's case and find the evidence, Lieutenant Walters had gotten invested. He spent about a month going through the case file. And even though he was going to have to wait for science to catch up, he realized that there was a lot of good old fashioned detective work that he could do in the meantime. And right away, he developed not one, but two suspects. All he had to do now was track them down. First stop, Tennessee.

[C]

There was some young females that had reported attempted abductions in Cedar Rapids. And I think Lt. Walters was reviewing some of those reports and just trying to get an idea who might be suspects. And so he developed Richard as a possible suspect. In 2008, when he was looking through.

[A]

The files, Richard was Richard Dean Richison, a curly haired blonde guy originally from Iowa City. Lt. Walters discovered that just six days before Karen went missing, Richard had picked up two hitchhikers on First Avenue in Cedar Rapids who were looking for a ride. The pair of women got into Richard's red Ford and he started driving west. And things were fine for the first 15 miles. But suddenly something terrible happened. According to the two women, Richard tried to push one of them out of the moving car. Now, both women managed to escape, and they Were able to ID their abductor as Richard in a photo lineup, but not before he attempted to abduct a third woman. The day before Karen vanished, A woman was trying to hitch a ride in downtown Cedar rapids When Richard picked her up. According to the police file, as he drove her outside the city, he suddenly turned down a blacktop road, Stopped the car and grabbed her hair, Forcing her head into his. La when he eventually let her go, he told her to get in the back of his car. And this is when the woman took her chance and took off. She told police that as she ran, she heard Richard drive in the opposite direction. And when she finally reached police, she too was eventually able to identify his picture in a photo lineup. So that's two attempted abductions, Both of which happen in the same area that Karen was last seen within days of her disappearance. And all three women involved had positively identified one man, Richard Dean Richeson.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly, Richard was never charged with any of those abductions. And yes, we did check his criminal background just to make sure. Now, the one thing that gave Lt. Walters pause about Richard as he was learning all of this Was that Richard's car was different from the turquoise one that witnesses had described approaching Karen. And as chief deputy Sourbright points out, it's a pretty big difference.

[C]

The two girls said it was a red Ford two door with a hard top. That was October 12th. The other one October 17th with the she was sure it was a Dodge 500 cornet because she remembered seeing that on the car. So some of that didn't necessarily match the vehicle description we were looking for in some of the other reports.

[A]

So for maybe that reason or maybe a different bad excuse, it doesn't seem like anyone talked to Richard Dean Ritchieson Back when Karen went missing and then was found murdered. But if anyone would have done a little more digging like Lieutenant Walters was doing in 2008, they might have discovered an interesting tidbit about Richard.

[C]

But it is noted in here that he, Richardson, worked at a body shop or owned a body shop and would had access to multiple vehicles.

[A]

If the prior attempted abductions weren't enough reason to be suspicious of Richard, his long history with the law was in 1959, he'd been found guilty of sexually assaulting a minor. He'd also been caught selling narcotics, and he had his driver's license revoked on multiple occasions, Though for what reasons the records didn't show. But honestly, Lt. Walters probably didn't care. He just knew that a conversation with this Guy was almost 40 years in the making.

[C]

He, I think he reported that he just didn't really remember anything from that time frame. He didn't give a lot of answers. They did bring him to the police station in the town that he lived in and he voluntarily came in for questioning. I don't think he really knew exactly what this was all about. So Lieutenant Walters had to explain it to him because it was years later. I think he basically said he was a drunk back in the 70s and didn't remember a lot of what he did, was maybe a little not forthcoming with some of his criminal background and criminal history, which is typical. He was probably trying to live a normal life where he currently lived and didn't want his neighbors, you know, the police talking to him. So he agreed to go down to the police station. He did not want to voluntarily give a buccal swab sample, which I think was interesting if you're innocent, you know, on our side of things, we look at that, we wonder why you are not willing to give us a sample. So Lt. Walters did go to the local magistrate with the local PD and he did obtain a search warrant for Mr. Richardson's buccal swab. And he did collect that later that.

[A]

Afternoon with Richard's DNA on file. Lt. Walters knew there was one other person at the top of his list that he wanted DNA from. But here's the thing. His approach to interviewing this second suspect was very different from the first.

[B]

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[A]

After reviewing all of Karen's files, the obvious second suspect who'd been overlooked was Larry Slaymaker. And Lieutenant Walters didn't have to travel far this time. Larry was still in Iowa, living in Cedar Rapids.

[C]

Lt. Walters did find him and interview him briefly. It wasn't. I don't think he even questioned him in regards to the street case. I think he talked to him, more so on that alleged assault and rape in Iowa City. But Larry Slamaker did voluntarily give us a buccal swab for DNA testing.

[A]

That's it. All these years later and you don't ask him about the main case you're investigating? The police file gives no reason for why Lt. Walters decided not to ask Larry about Karen's murder. We wanted to talk to Lt. Walters ourselves, to ask him more about his conversation with Larry, but he never responded. And it's hard to know why Lt. Walters didn't want to have that conversation. But he did want that buccal swab that he couldn't compare to anything at the time. Perhaps it was a way of just gauging how cooperative Larry was. Or sure, maybe it's for that down the line testing when technology advances. But if anyone ever was going to talk To Larry. That opportunity is now gone because Larry died in May of 2014 and then Richard died four years later. So it seems like all the eggs were in that DNA basket. And for the next 13 years after Lieutenant Walters collected those swabs, the department just waited for technology to advance. In 2021, Chief Deputy Sauerbrai reached out to the same lab that Lieutenant Walters had used back in 2007, as well as a private lab, just to see if either one would be willing to retest the evidence in Karen's case. But both labs refused. They didn't think retesting was worth it, given the quality of the evidence. After all, Karen had been in the water for several days before she'd been found. Chief Deputy Sour Bry read up on Karen's case file. Anyway, just in case. And timing is a strange thing. In October 2025, our reporter Laura called the Chief deputy. She was looking into Karen's case and wondered if there were any recent leads. And he said, you know what, this is super weird. But not a single person had called about Karen's case in the last 50 years until about a month before Laura called.

[C]

Which is kind of random just to have someone call 50 plus years later on Karen's case. But he had some decent information. He said he was a student at the University of Iowa at the time. In 1971, he said he recalled going down Highway 218. He was traveling south back to Iowa City, and he remembered seeing a female walking on the side of the road.

[A]

This call came from a man named Colonel Carl Gottsman. He was a student at the same university as ron back in 1971, though there's no evidence that Ron and Carl knew each other. During Carl's phone call to Chief Deputy Sauerbride, Carl couldn't tell him the exact date that he saw the woman on Highway 218. He did, however, remember something else.

[C]

Well, he described it as a two tone. He thought it was a white and blue 1950s car traveling southbound on 218 and that he remembered this vehicle which was in front of him, stop and picked up a female along the road. He recalled that it had either Michigan or Minnesota license plates. And he was fairly descriptive in recounting what he remembered from 50 plus years ago.

[A]

The car color didn't match the description of the turquoise one Karen was seen being approached by, but his description of white and blue was. It wasn't that far off either.

[C]

He felt that he had seen the male driver well enough that he described him as a kind of oily looking, which I thought was interesting to note from that long ago. He kind of described him as someone that maybe worked at a gas station or something, Said she was dressed well. And he. I think as he recalled that this vehicle stopped on the side of the road where the female was walking. And then he kind of recalled the vehicle was pulling off into a restaurant or something along the highway, which he described as. He said it was the press cow, and I've never heard of the press cow, and I don't know anything about where in relation to 218 that was. I tried to do some research on that was a restaurant, but I couldn't find anything.

[A]

Carl said that he saw the car stop on the side of the road where the woman was walking. Carl drove around the stopped car, and he said when he looked back in his rearview mirror, he saw the woman get into the car. And somehow he was adamant that he knew the identity of the driver. He thought it was serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. Now, the problem with Carl's theory Was that Lucas, also known as the confession killer, Was very unlikely to have killed Karen. Records place him all the way up in Lenaway county, Michigan.

[C]

But I guess I questioned why he called, why he didn't call. If he was a student in 1971 at the University of Iowa, he certainly would have heard about this on the radio just like everybody else.

[A]

Skepticism aside and determined to not repeat mistakes of the past, Chief deputy Sauerbrai won't let any lead go unvetted. Now, he's not convinced that Henry Lee Lucas is the guy that killed Karen, but he at least wanted to talk to this Carl guy further. But when he called Carl back, He wasn't able to reach him. And Carl hasn't returned his calls or our reporters.

Despite the lack of foreign DNA found in Karen's case, Chief deputy Sarah Brai is still hopeful that one day technology will advance enough to retest the evidence. But in the meantime, he's trying to hunt down some key items in Karen's case, Items that haven't been tested for foreign DNA yet. Problem is, police don't know where they are.

[C]

She had her driver's license from Massachusetts. She had a couple packs of matches in her pockets. She had a gold watch.

It was a gold watch with a chain. She had a set of keys in her pocket. I don't have a good understanding if they're with us or where those ever ended up. Even if we thought they might have some today with DNA, it might be something to find those items. So No, I don't know where they're at.

[A]

Wherever those items might be and I hope to God they are still somewhere in a very sealed bag. I want you to remember that Karen was more than just the pack of matches or the keys found on her in the canal. In local coverage of Karen's case back in 1971, they reported repeatedly that the body of a Cedar Rapids housewife had been found in the Millrace Canal. One article said that the body belonged to a former Miss New England. Karen wasn't a housewife though, and she had accomplished much more than just winning a beauty pageant. She was one of the first generations of women who were not only getting married but also working outside the home. She was a hopeful representation of what a woman could be, a true multi dimensional person. It's hard to imagine how Karen's husband Ron must feel today. Laura tried reaching out to him, but he didn't respond. And while Craig, his brother, can vividly remember the impact Karen's death had on Ron, it's hard to really measure the true ripple effects that the tragedy has had over the last half century.

[D]

I don't think he even went back to school. He might have, I don't know if he even finished here, but he didn't. He wasn't interested, I guess in going to school anymore. So he was living in the rural. He got remarried and he had a kid.

They had a child and he just, over the years he just heard less and less and just not heard anything about him. So I don't even know if he's still living. When I see people that on TV that have these tragedies and that kind of stuff and they say what happened a week ago? You know, I'm getting over and I, I think, you know, you're never really going to get over it. I mean, I mean you move on and yeah, live your life but you still remember it and have regret. Just like you said. It's like, geez, why didn't I offer to, you know, hitchhike down with her or something? Or you know, you think about those things, you always have those regrets.

[A]

Chief Deputy Sour Bri also hasn't heard from Ron in about two years. He tried giving him a call for us, but Ron never called back.

[C]

I feel sorry for Ron, you know, the heartache this has caused him all these years. And his family and Karen's parents. Karen's parents flew out here a couple days after her disappearance. They flew out here from Massachusetts. Her dad was a police officer in Massachusetts, so this had to be an incredible impact for the family just to have to deal with this and for Ron to have to to deal with this and live with the fact that he didn't go get his wife on that day because the car was blocked in or, you know, whatever that reason was.

They felt it was safe at that time and unfortunately it wasn't.

[A]

If you or anyone you know has information on the murder of Karen street, you can call Chief Deputy Todd Sauerbry at the Iowa County Sheriff's office at 319-642-7307.

The Deck is an audio Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com I think Chuck would approve.

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