In the winter of 1974, in Sioux City, Iowa, a sense of unease settled over Harriet Isom when her son, Billy, and his roommate, Jesse Hanni, a 26-year-old Caucasian male, failed to show up for their jobs as boilermakers. On the snowy morning of December 3rd, what she discovered inside their home at 1117 Morningside Drive would become one of the city's most enduring and chilling unsolved mysteries.
The bodies of three young people, including Jesse Hanni, were found inside the residence, their lives cut short by gunfire in what appeared to be a brutal execution.
Jesse Hanni was found fully clothed, his body propped against a door in the hallway. He had been shot twice, once in the back and once behind his left ear, a detail that led authorities to label it an "assassin style" killing. Also discovered in the home were the bodies of his roommate, 27-year-old Billy Isom, and Isom's 24-year-old pregnant girlfriend, Freta Bostic. The house was unusually warm, with the heat turned up to around 80 degrees, a stark contrast to the cold December air outside. There were no signs of forced entry, suggesting the victims likely knew their killer or killers.
The investigation into the triple homicide quickly pointed towards a possible drug connection. Prior to his death, Jesse had expressed fear to his brother, mentioning a dispute with a drug dealer. This lead was bolstered by the fact that both Billy Isom and Freta Bostic had prior arrests for narcotics possession. Investigators explored a tip that Jesse had testified against a major drug kingpin in Denver earlier that year. Despite these ominous clues, the case grew cold.
In the immediate aftermath, police questioned several individuals. Two men who worked with the victims and had abruptly quit their jobs just hours before the bodies were discovered were interviewed but ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing. Another potential suspect was given a lie-detector test, but this too failed to produce an arrest. Even Jesse's own. 357 caliber revolver, found in his car outside the house, offered no answers. The discovery of. 380 caliber bullets at the scene led police to believe that a semi-automatic weapon was used and that there may have been more than one assailant. To this day, the murders of Jesse Hanni, Billy Isom, and Freta Bostic remain unsolved, a lingering shadow over Sioux City with no arrests made and no suspects officially named.
