William E. Terry, a 47-year-old Black/African American man from Ames, Iowa, died on July 22, 2021, during a rapidly unfolding police investigation at his residence. Terry had worked as an associate principal at Marshalltown High School during the 2020-2021 school year. Earlier that month, Marshalltown police had received allegations involving possible sexual exploitation and inappropriate sexual contact between a former school employee and a former student.
The complaint was reported to police on July 6, and the Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education accepted Terry's resignation during a special meeting on July 12.
On July 22, Marshalltown police traveled to Terry's residence in the 3700 block of Columbine Circle in Ames to execute search and arrest warrants connected to that investigation. As officers entered or approached the residence to carry out the warrants, they heard a gunshot from inside. Officers subsequently located Terry dead in the basement. Authorities reported that no police officer had fired a weapon and that nobody else at the residence was injured. Ames police said their initial investigation indicated that the fatal gunshot had been self-inflicted. The circumstances therefore did not point to another person having shot Terry, and available reporting does not identify a suspect in connection with his death.
At the time of his death, police were attempting to arrest Terry in connection with two counts of sexual exploitation by a school employee. Investigators said the allegations had come from a former student and had been investigated for several weeks before authorities obtained the warrants. Marshalltown Police Chief Michael Tupper said investigators believed there had been an ongoing pattern involving inappropriate communications that eventually progressed to inappropriate physical contact. Those allegations had not been resolved in court when Terry died, and his death prevented the criminal case from proceeding to an arrest, trial, or conviction.
Police nevertheless continued examining the underlying allegations after Terry's death. Tupper said investigators still had leads to follow and wanted to document their work and answer outstanding questions before closing the investigation, even though prosecution was no longer being pursued. He also stated that investigators had identified no other suspects in Terry's case. The other sexual-misconduct investigations involving Marshalltown school employees that became public around the same period were described by police as separate and unrelated cases rather than evidence that another person was connected to Terry's death.
Accordingly, there were no reported arrests of another person for Terry's death and no homicide prosecution, trial, or conviction stemming from the fatal shooting. The significant law-enforcement action surrounding the incident was instead the attempt to arrest Terry himself on the sexual-exploitation allegations immediately before the gunshot was heard. His death brought that potential prosecution to an end, while investigators continued their work primarily to establish a complete record of the allegations and determine whether any additional issues or individuals needed to be examined.
