The Waverly Strangler: An Unsolved Iowa Mystery
Overview
Between 1971 and 1976, a shadow fell over the small, quiet city of Waverly, Iowa. The community, known as the home of Wartburg College and surrounded by rural farmland, was shaken by the brutal and unsolved murders of three young women. Valerie Lynn Klossowsky, 14, Julie Ann Benning, 18, and Marie Lisa Peak, 19, were all abducted and strangled, their bodies left in remote locations outside the city. The striking similarities in the cases led investigators and the public to a terrifying conclusion: a serial killer was likely living among them. The murders, which became known as the "Waverly stranglings" or the work of "The Waverly Three," triggered intensive investigations involving local, county, and state law enforcement. Yet, decades later, the identity of the killer remains a mystery, and the cases stand as one of Iowa's most haunting cold case files, leaving generations of families and an entire community without justice or answers.
The Murder of Valerie Klossowsky
The terror began in the summer of 1971. On Sunday, June 13, 14-year-old Valerie Lynn Klossowsky spent the afternoon having a picnic with a friend in a local park and strolling around town. Valerie, a student at Waverly-Shell Rock Junior High, was described as a quiet, creative girl who wrote poetry and played the guitar. Despite her young age, she was tall and athletic. Later that day, she reportedly met another friend to go swimming at the public pool. According to her friend, Valerie spoke to someone in a car outside the pool, telling her friend she would catch up, but she never entered the facility. Her belongings were later found outside.
There were several conflicting sightings of her that evening. Her sister thought she saw her walking alone on a highway around 8:50 p.m. When Valerie failed to return home, her father reported her missing at 10 p.m.
A search began, but it ended in tragedy two days later, on Tuesday, June 15. Two young boys walking along a creek near a gravel road bridge three miles west of Denver, Iowa, and about ten miles from Waverly, discovered her body. Valerie was partially nude; her upper garments had been pulled up around her shoulders. The autopsy confirmed the cause of death was strangulation, executed with such force that her larynx was fractured. Investigators could not determine if she had been sexually assaulted or if she was killed at the location where her body was found. The discovery launched a massive investigation, with officers from at least seven agencies interviewing hundreds of people, but no viable suspects or concrete leads emerged.
The Disappearance and Death of Julie Ann Benning
For more than four years, the fear in Waverly subsided, but it never disappeared. Then, in the fall of 1975, it returned with chilling familiarity. Eighteen-year-old Julie Ann Benning was a creative and independent young woman who had graduated from high school that spring. She loved to design and sew her own clothes, write, and paint. The eldest of five sisters from a farm near Clarksville, she was staying with relatives in Waverly while working as a waitress and taking money at the door of a local gentlemen's club, the Sir Lounge, to save money for college.
On November 28, 1975, the day after Thanksgiving, Julie was seen walking toward her job on Bremer Avenue in Waverly. She never arrived. When she did not make contact, her father, Lowell Benning, reported her missing. He was certain his daughter would not have vanished on her own and personally went to area newspapers and radio stations to plead for the public's help.
For nearly four agonizing months, her family waited for news. The search ended on March 18, 1976. A Butler County road maintenance worker, Roscoe Hulbert, was clearing debris from a culvert under a gravel road near Shell Rock, a few miles from Waverly. Inside, he found the badly decomposed body of a young woman. It was Julie Benning. She was completely nude, and her clothing was never found. The spring rains had apparently washed her body out from where it had been hidden. An autopsy eventually confirmed that Julie, like Valerie Klossowsky, had been a victim of "homicidal violence" caused by strangulation. Due to the condition of her remains, it could not be determined if she had been sexually assaulted. The parallels to the Klossowsky case were immediately apparent to investigators.
The Murder of Marie Lisa Peak
Less than six months after Julie Benning’s body was found, the killer struck again. Marie Lisa Peak, who went by Lisa, was a 19-year-old sophomore at Wartburg College. The daughter of a prominent veterinarian and former city councilman from Knoxville, Iowa, Lisa was a bright and ambitious journalism major. She was also exceptionally brave. Earlier that year, she had become a key witness for the FBI, helping to bring down a man named John Joseph Carmody who was running a sex and extortion ring in Mason City. Lisa had been one of his victims but had escaped and gone to the authorities. Her testimony helped send him to prison. She and a reporter for the Des Moines Register were planning to co-author a book about the scheme.
On Labor Day, September 6, 1976, Lisa had just returned to her dorm at Wartburg for the start of the school year. She told friends she was walking to the nearby Willow Lawn Shopping Center to buy school supplies. She had a date scheduled for later that evening and said she would be back soon. She never returned.
The following morning, September 7, her nude body was found by a farmer in a ditch under a lone cottonwood tree. She was on a gravel road just a quarter-mile outside Waverly’s city limits, only six miles from where Julie Benning’s body was discovered. The autopsy revealed a brutal attack: Lisa had been sexually assaulted, beaten, and had suffered a broken neck. The official cause of death was listed as suffocation and strangulation. Her clothing and personal belongings were never recovered. The town was now certain that a predator was hunting its young women.
The Victims
- Valerie Lynn Klossowsky, 14 — A creative and quiet junior high student who disappeared on June 13, 1971. Valerie enjoyed writing poetry and playing her guitar, and her life was cut short before she could enter high school.
- Julie Ann Benning, 18 — An artistic and independent recent high school graduate who vanished on November 28, 1975. Julie was the eldest of five sisters and was working to save money for college, with interests in writing and journalism.
- Marie Lisa Peak, 19 — A courageous and aspiring journalism student at Wartburg College who was murdered on September 6, 1976. Known as Lisa to her friends and family, she had recently played a crucial role in dismantling a dangerous extortion ring.
Investigation and Cold Case
The three murders sparked intensive, yet ultimately fruitless, investigations. In each case, local police, the Bremer County Sheriff's Office, and the Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) pooled their resources. Hundreds of interviews were conducted, and countless leads were pursued, but no arrests were ever made.
Investigators were struck by the similarities that strongly suggested a single killer. All three victims were young, attractive females abducted from or near Waverly. All were strangled and their bodies dumped in rural areas along gravel roads, either nude or partially clothed. The murders of Benning and Peak were especially close in time and proximity, leading Craig Beek, the BCI director in 1979, to state, "The Peak and Benning case(s) were identical. We definitely think they are related." Many investigators, like Bremer County Sheriff's detective David MacDonald, came to believe all three were connected.
Over the years, various leads and suspects were examined. In Lisa Peak's case, investigators looked at John Carmody, the man she helped imprison, but he was incarcerated at the time of her murder. Authorities and her family came to believe her killer was not connected to Carmody but was perhaps someone who became obsessed with her after her role in the case was publicized.
Decades passed, and the cases grew cold. In 2009, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) formed a dedicated Cold Case Unit, and the "Waverly Three" were among the 150 unsolved homicides selected for review. Hopes were raised that modern DNA technology could finally break the cases open. In May 2010, authorities exhumed Lisa Peak's body with the goal of finding her killer's DNA. Tragically, her casket had deteriorated over the decades, and her remains were too degraded to yield any usable evidence. The DCI Cold Case Unit itself was disbanded in 2011 due to a lack of funding, though some officers continued to work on the files.
A strange development in Julie Benning's case came decades after her death. A man, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, came forward to her family and to the website Iowa Cold Cases. He claimed he was at the Sir Lounge the night Julie disappeared and witnessed her in a struggle with several men. He said he later saw her slumped over in a pickup truck in the parking lot, with one of the men's hands on her throat. He also claimed her clothes were later planted in his garage, but he threw them away before realizing their significance. While police took his statement, this new lead has not resulted in any charges.
Aftermath and Legacy
The Waverly stranglings left an indelible scar on the small Iowa community. The sense of safety was shattered, replaced by a lingering fear and suspicion that lasted for years. For the Klossowsky, Benning, and Peak families, the murders brought a lifetime of unresolved grief. Parents and grandparents went to their graves without knowing who stole their daughters from them or why. The families endured not only the loss but also the pain of seeing the cases grow cold and public attention fade.
The three young women have become collectively known as "The Waverly Three," their stories intertwined in one of Iowa's most infamous unsolved mysteries. Their murders serve as a grim reminder of the evil that can lurk even in the most seemingly peaceful places. Law enforcement agencies, including the Bremer County Sheriff's Office and the Iowa DCI, still classify the homicides as open and active cold cases. They maintain hope that a new piece of evidence, a new technology, or someone with a long-held secret will one day come forward and finally bring justice for Valerie, Julie, and Lisa.
