First-time filmmaker details nine-year journey turning Iowa cold case into documentary

In 2015, while driving past Meyers Lake in Evansdale, Dylan Sires felt a wave of anger wash over him.

At the time, it had been three years after the abduction and murder of 10-year-old Lyric Cook-Morrissey and 8-year-old Elizabeth Collins. The cousins’ bicycles and belongings had been found near the lake. Their bodies were found miles away in a remote wildlife area months later. And their murderer still hadn’t been found.

Sires had been a videographer at KWWL in neighboring Waterloo when news of the missing girls broke. He interviewed family members for the TV station and remembered the police holding multiple press conferences over the following weeks.

“And then the case, kind of slowly over time, just died out. No more headlines. Nothing,” he told IPR.

Today, it’s been over 12 years since the girls went missing, and the murder has joined Iowa’s 400+ cold cases. Starting in 2015 and spanning years, Sires conducted over 100 interviews in order to tell Lyric and Elizabeth’s story in a documentary.

“I was like, ‘Wait, I have a camera,’” he said. “I was like, ‘I’ve got all the tools I need. So why don't I just try to make one?’”

Taken Together: Who Killed Lyric and Elizabeth? premiered on Max on Aug. 8.

Sires is a first-time filmmaker. Other than his television camerawork and one music video he produced for his band, he hasn’t produced any full-length films, or even conducted lengthy interviews.

Kristian Day, a Des Moines-based filmmaker who joined Sires' project as a producer in 2017, said with so many others approaching the family at the time, there was a sense of responsibility to tell the story the right way, and pay respect to the girls and their families.

“I think at some point there was a feeling that we needed to protect the story from someone else doing it, from the wrong people doing this,” he said.

Making the documentary meant learning many lessons along the way, and relying on both a team that Sires built over time and the trust of the people involved. The three-part documentary features interviews with not only members of Lyric and Elizabeth’s family, but also police and investigators, as well as people related to two similar cases that happened in Dayton and Delphi, Indiana.

The documentary was initially difficult to pitch. Sires’ idea fell short of production deals multiple times because the case was still ongoing and didn’t have a clean ending. Max eventually picked it up, after urging Sires to be more present in the documentary as an individual seeking new leads and answers to a case that had gone cold.

Sires narrates certain parts of the documentary, and at times investigates beyond what law enforcement have previously detailed about the case.

Day said that as the years go by, he feels more and more for the families who are left without answers. He hopes the documentary brings renewed attention to the case so it's not forgotten.

“I just want it out there so people know about it and are talking about it, because it might lead to something,” he said. “Anything might lead to something.”