Gary Lee Wilson, 27, a male from Waterloo, was found just before 2 a.m. on August 2, 2014, lying in the 200 block of Jackson Street with a grievous wound to his abdomen. Officers began CPR at the scene, and Waterloo Fire Rescue rushed him to UnityPoint Health–Allen Hospital, where he died of his injuries.
In the hours leading up to the shooting, Wilson had been at the home of an acquaintance, Roderick Ward Jr.
An argument flared, and according to prosecutors and court records, Ward followed Wilson outside and fired a shotgun multiple times, striking him in the abdomen. Ward was first arrested and charged with first-degree murder; a Black Hawk County jury later found him guilty of second-degree murder.
The case moved swiftly through the courts the following year. In January 2016, Ward—then 28—was sentenced in Black Hawk County District Court to 55 years in prison for second-degree murder and a weapons charge stemming from Wilson’s killing. News accounts and court summaries describe Wilson and Ward as friends whose argument turned deadly in the early morning darkness on Jackson Street.
Wilson’s name endures on public memorial rolls documenting lives lost to gun violence, fixed to the date and place where his story stopped: August 2, 2014, Waterloo, Iowa.
