Unsolved Iowa: The Ila Mae Clark Case

It happened 23 years ago. An elderly widow was attacked in her own home and left for dead by her perpetrators.

73-year-old Ila Mae Clark died in Marshalltown on Aug. 29, 2001. Her killers have never been caught. In the first installment of our ‘Unsolved Iowa’ series, WHO 13’s Katie Kaplan has a new update on the old case.

Time can be a fickle thing. Sometimes it is fleeting and at others it seemingly moves in slow motion. For communities haunted by an unresolved crime, it is often a little bit of both.

“I don’t know why anybody would do this,” a neighbor told WHO 13 in 2001.

It has been more than two decades since that night. Her house is gone. The longtime lead investigator has passed away. But the Marshalltown Police Department said they are not giving up on it. In fact, they are ready to take another look.

“Something awful happened that day,” remembered police Lt. Sadie Weekley in 2024.

It was a quiet Summer’s evening when the call came in just after 5:15. A cheerful display of Christmas decorations left up year-round outside the home was a stark contrast to the horrors of what police found inside.

“Some neighbors had gone over the house,” an officer at the scene told a WHO 13 news crew stationed outside the crime scene tape. “They found the occupant there, who’s a 72 (SIC) year old lady, injured and non responsive.” (Clark was actually 73.)

It was the bloodied and beaten body of Clark, a mother, grandmother and woman fondly known as “sis” around the neighborhood. Police immediately deemed her death as a homicide.

It was a shocking attack that left the community jarred.

“She just, she was nice. She talked to you if you went up to her house and stuff, I mean, she’s polite woman,” said a young neighbor at the time.

Mike Donahey is a veteran reporter who covered the case for the Marshalltown Times-Republican. He remembers the details vividly.

“It was just such a brutal murder,” remembered Mike Donahey. “Here was a woman, 73 years old, just a week shy of her 74th birthday, looking forward to having fun on her birthday.”

An autopsy reportedly found Clark died of blunt force trauma. The killer, police have told newspaper reporters over the years, used a weapon of opportunity. Robbery is the unproven prevailing theory.

Clark’s husband had died eight years before and she lived alone in a small, one-story home managing a seven-unit apartment complex that sat just yards away. She often collected the rent in cash.

Responding officers found signs of a forced entry and evidence of a struggle inside, with $500 missing from the till, said police. Because of a heavily traversed roadway just yards from the house, investigators believe the attack was premeditated and likely carried out under the cover of darkness the night before her body was found.

Clark’s home, and the apartment complex she managed, have since been demolished to make room for commercial businesses. A hotel and fast food restaurant now stand where the murder scene once was.

Donahey said he knows the crime “bothers Marshalltonians,” and made a big impact on one particular young officer who was called to the scene the night Clark’s body was found. Marshalltown Police Captain Brian Batterson doggedly pursued the case for decades.

“I could tell by the tone of his voice when I interviewed him about this, that he was still bothered by the fact that due to incidents, his department was not able to connect the dots and find the perpetrator or perpetrators,” recalled Donahey.

As the years passed and Batterson rose through the police department ranks, he had been able to narrow in on a theory surrounding three people, including a getaway driver. One of the persons of interest allegedly left town for Louisiana immediately after the killing.

“(Batterson) got a search warrant for the car. But unfortunately, Louisiana authorities did not act on it promptly,” Donahey said. “In the meantime, the driver of the car, one of the people of interest, rolled (the car) in a traffic incident, and the authorities threw everything that fell out of the car back into it. So evidence was compromised.”

Police said that one of the persons of interest has since passed away and another has refused to speak with them. Meanwhile, time has proved it waits for no one. Captain Batterson passed away in April of 2023 at 56 years old. He now rests just on the other side of the same cemetery as Clark who was buried on what would have been her 74th birthday next to her beloved husband, Donald.

Over the years, Clark’s case has been surmised on IowaColdCase.org, the only entity that details the collective of missing persons and unsolved cases in Iowa, and Batterson gave sporadic updates to local media. But in the aftermath of his death — not much has been done, until now.

Perhaps in a nod to the beloved Captain, and definitely in an effort to get justice for Clark’s family, a new set of police investigators are re-examining it.

“There was evidence left at the scene,” said Captain Kiel Stevenson of the Marshalltown Police Department. “I’m not going to comment, I guess, on exactly what was there or what piece of evidence we have.”

Stevenson said police believe there is still a chance that evidence could be used to solve the case. He, along with Lt. Sadie Weekly, said they are also exploring how new technology might be used for testing the evidence, and they will be tracking down some alleged witnesses.

However, a fresh look also means starting back at the beginning — 23 years ago. A tough task in itself accounting for the changes in police techniques.

“Nothing was done on a, on a computer based system at all,” said Weekley. “Back then, they would have been using actual 35 millimeter cameras.”

For the first time ever, the Marshalltown PD provided photos from the case file. Stevenson and Weekley will be using the same red binder Batterson put together over the years, hoping that time and advancements in technology will work in their favor this round.

It is a tedious process, one that will take more time to tip the scales of justice.

If you have any information on the murder of Ila Mae Clark, you can make an anonymous tip to Marshall County Crime Stoppers at 641-753-1234, or speak directly with detectives from the Marshalltown PD at 641-754-5725.

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