In the early evening of June 2, 2022, a sense of community and fellowship was shattered in the parking lot of Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa. Eden Mariah Montang, a 22-year-old White female, was arriving for a weekly service, a gathering popular with Iowa State University students like herself. She was in the company of two friends, walking towards the church building, when a pickup truck pulled up.
The driver, 33-year-old Johnathan Lee Whitlatch of Boone, was a man from Eden's past.
What happened next was a sudden and targeted act of violence that ended two young lives. Whitlatch, armed with a 9 mm handgun, opened fire on the group. Eden and her 21-year-old friend, Vivian Renee Flores, were fatally wounded. The third young woman with them managed to escape to safety and was physically unharmed. In the immediate aftermath, as chaos unfolded and emergency calls flooded into the Story County Sheriff's Office, Whitlatch turned the gun on himself, taking his own life at the scene.
The investigation that followed quickly revealed a grim backstory. Authorities determined that the shooting was a domestic-related homicide, stemming from a recent breakup between Whitlatch and Eden. In the days leading up to the tragedy, Whitlatch had been arrested and charged with harassing Eden, which included impersonating a public official. He had been released on bond with a court appearance scheduled for the following week. The shooting was not a random act of violence but the tragic culmination of a domestic situation that ended in a devastating murder-suicide.
