THE INCIDENT AT LINDEN PARK

May 31, 2018

THE INCIDENT AT LINDEN PARK

Photo: Cedar Rapids Gazette archives.

John Rose, 14, and brother Roy, 3, standing in Linden Park on the edge of West Union, Iowa

in May of 1957 - three years before John would shoot his father to death.

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THE INCIDENT AT LINDEN PARK

Doug Koempel | Memory Brothers Newsletter | May 31, 2018

On May 13, 2018 an article appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette titled: Time machine: A rare chestnut tree in West Union, and a man's murder. This piece has stirred up some memories and online chatter regarding the murder of 49-year-old Noel Albert Rose by his 17-year-old son, John Rose.

My mother, Alice Koempel, and grandfather, Edgar Traeger, were investigators for this 1960 murder; and this recent article has prompted me to ask my mother what she remembers of this incident. As a kid growing up in a family of lawyers, I'd heard snippets of the story.

As we'd sit around the supper table, my grandfather and grandmother would talk about "shell casings" and "dust on the window sill;" but it all never really registered in my adolescent mind.

So, I thought this might be a good time to get the story straight from my mother (who incidentally still practices law at the same firm, Traeger & Koempel Law Office.)

Here are a few of her present-day recollections regarding the murder investigation and subsequent trial:

In 1960 she and her father were a father-daughter team practicing law in West Union, Iowa. Her uncle, Fred House, was the Fayette County sheriff.

Inasmuch as county attorney Mark Buchheit was out of town at the time of the murder, Sheriff House recruited Alice and her father to help him with the investigation. The three of them pored over the murder scene with a fine-toothed comb.

Here's what had happened:

Noel Rose's son, 17-year-old John Rose, had been charged with murdering his father - gunning him down with a single shot to the head from a .22 rifle in the driveway of their 50-acre estate known as Linden Park on the west edge of West Union, Iowa on May 24, 1960.

John Rose claimed that he had been shooting at a sparrow when his father stepped in front of the gun and was accidentally shot and killed.

My mother and grandfather searched the driveway and surrounding grounds for shell casings. None was found. The search eventually moved from the driveway to the house - specifically a coatroom. This small room was situated to the immediate left upon entering the side entrance.

They noticed that this coatroom had a window with a broken pane of glass that overlooked the driveway. My mother detected that the dust on the middle portion of the windowsill had been wiped clean as though someone had possibly been leaning on - or had brushed against - the ledge. A thorough search of the coatroom revealed a wadded-up jacket in a bushel basket near the window.

Upon removing the jacket from the basket, a shell casing dropped to the floor. Therefore they hypothesized that John Rose had lain in wait in the coatroom - rifle aimed out the window with his forearm resting on the windowsill.

This scenario directly contradicted John Rose's contention that there had been an accidental shooting outside in the driveway.

During the course of the trial, John Rose had compiled a "hit list." He'd vowed to eventually exact vengeance upon all those who testified against him - including my mother who testified regarding their findings.

Midway through the trial, Rose made a deal and pled guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to six years in the Iowa Men's Reformatory in Anamosa, Iowa.

After his release from Anamosa, he lived a very turbulent life - including being arrested for armed robbery, receiving a degree in cinematography, spending time in a mental institution, earning a master's degree, pursuing doctoral work in criminal justice and ultimately dying violently.

In 1978 he was murdered - his bullet-riddled body found dumped in a ditch three miles north of Vinton, Iowa. It's an Iowa murder case that still remains unsolved.