By MIKE DONAHEY

MARSHALLTOWN TIMES-REPUBLICAN

MARSHALLTOWN – Ila Mae Clark’s grave marker at Rose Hill Cemetery is sadly, perhaps the only physical reminder of her Marshalltown years.

Family, former coworkers at Grandview Heights Nursing Home and the Iowa Veterans Home have memories.

As do her friends at the local American L egion and VFW Auxiliary.

Tragically, Clark, 73, was found beaten to death in her home 116 Ave. West on Aug. 29, 2001.

The one-story house was demolished years ago to accommodate a business development.

The nearby apartment complex which employed Clark as manager and was once a motel, is also gone.

However, yellowed Times-Republican newspapers bring the incident to life as if it were yesterday.

“Motive determined in local murder,” was the headline below the fold on a front page T-R article published Sept. 13, 2001.

“Based on our investigation to date in this unfortunate murder, it appears as if at least $500 in cash is missing from Mrs. Clark’s home,” said former Marshalltown Police Department Chief Lon Walker. “Based on this, and the fact that there was forced entry into her home, we are assuming robbery was the motive in her murder.”

Police made the grim discovery at Clark’s after receiving a 911 phone call about an injured and unresponsive woman. When they arrived, Clark was dead and they immediately began treating the case as suspicious.

Later, Walker did declare the cause of death a homicide and the Polk County Medical Examiner ruled Clark had died of multiple head wounds by a blunt instrument.

Finding the suspect or suspects, was the job of then-Det. Brian Batterson and team at the MPD.

Batterson is now a captain, and clearly remembers the crime.

He was on his way to execute a search warrant in a drug bust when a diverting call came, said Batterson in a T-R story published Aug. 28, 2011.

Another officer was requesting assistance after responding to the 911 call at 116 Iowa Ave. West. Batterson entered the house and found an elderly woman had been beaten to death.

Batterson would soon learn her name – Ila Mae Clark – and many other details about her life. It is the details of her death, though, that Batterson wishes he kne w more about.

A “cold” case

The case remains unsolved.

Clark, who was less than a week away from her 74th birthday, was killed late on the 28th or early the 29th inside her house.

Robbery, Batterson believes, was the original motive.

“She was a feisty old lady, and from what we see inside the (house) she may have confronted the people and that confrontation led to her death,” he said.

Clark managed a seven-unit, L-shaped apartment complex. Many of the residents paid cash. About $500 was missing from her house, which was less than 100 yards from the apartment building.

No fingerprints and no DNA evidence were found. One of the few pieces of evidence found is the object used to beat Clark. Batterson would not say what the object was, noting that it is one of the few ways to confirm the truth in a potential confession or witness account, but called it a “weapon of opportunity” likely in the house at the time of the break-in.

Clues at the crime scene lead him to believe that at least two people were in Clark’s house, and possibly a third waited outside in a getaway car.

There were drug busts and loud parties at the apartment complex and a neighboring trailer court, “But nothing would even come close to this,” Batterson said.

There were no witnesses.

“Nobody heard anything, nobody saw anything,” Batterson said.

Clark would

help anybody

Clark, who everyone called her “Sis,” was born Sept. 4, 1927 in Wright County, according to her T-R obituary. She married Donald Clark, her second husband, on April 14, 1962 in Princeton, Mo. She moved to Marshalltown where she worked as a cook at the Iowa Veterans Home and at Grandview Heights Nursing Home. She was also a member of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars auxiliaries.

“She was a caring person. She’d help anybody,” neighbor Sandy Park said in a T-R story published Sept. 1, 2001. “I can’t understand why anybody would do this to her.”

Larry Barcus, one of several foster children the Clarks adopted, asked the same question. Barcus was a self-admitted troubled teen when he met the Clarks. He’d been in 17 previous foster homes, but, “This was the only one that I felt more or less taken in by,” Barcus said. “They put me temporarily, they said, into Sis’ place but I stayed there until I graduated (from high school).”

During his four years with the Clarks, the three would load-up the Clarks’ pick-up camper for weekend fishing and hunting trips.

Clark not only knew how to use a shotgun, but she also could lift or pull heavy objects, said Shelley VanDraska, one of Clark’s five grandchildren. She recalled Clark helping her husband Scott on several occassions.

“She’d go out with him. After he’d shot a deer she’d help him drag it out of the timber and get it up in the truck,” VanDraska said.

VanDraska, did not recall how Clark picked up her nickname, but she has a theory.

“It’s something she had ever since I was born,” VanDraska said. “I think it was because was kind of a sister to everybody.”

Clark, then a widow, hadn’t slowed down in her 70s. She spent the last days of her life canning tomatoes for relatives, and preparing for a birthday trip to Meskwaki Casino.

She shopped for groceries at Fareway on the 28th a receipt found in her purse was time-stamped 5:21 p.m. and hours later someone came to her house walking past a gas grill, a red swing and a sign bearing the image of a smiling St. Nick and the words “Santa Stops Here” forced open the back door and ended Clark’s life.

Promising lead?

The most promising lead in the case involved a man and a woman that had been living at a hotel on Iowa Avenue. The day after the murder, one member of the couple (Batterson did not want to release their names fearing that would cast unfounded guilt on them. “I’d hate to make their life more m iserable,” Batterson said) suddenly left for Louisiana. Interviews conducted with others said that person was “freaking out” and wanted to leave Marshalltown quickly.

Marshalltown Police obtained a search warrant for their car, which Batterson feels may have been involved in the crime. Local officials in Louisiana did not immediately act on the warrant, and a few days later the car was involved in a rollover accident.

“Obviously there was blood from the people in the car, and the (local police) took all the stuff that flew out of the car in the accident and piled it back in the car, which made (the investigator’s) job of looking for trace fibers very difficult,” Batterson said.

Nothing helpful was found in the mangled car.

One of the most harrowing experiences of the case, Batterson said, was calling VanDraska to tell her about the car but then later making a second call to tell her that any evidence that may have existed was lost.

“There could have been someth ing there. We’ll never know,” Batterson said.

Batterson stopped short of calling the couple suspects.

“We just had circumstantial evidence,” Batterson said.

One half of the couple died years ago; the other once lived in Marshalltown, based on his or her last known address, but consistently refused to speak to the police.

After 12 months and more than 50 people interviewed, Batterson put the file away. It stayed in his desk for a few years until a man who was in a jail near Chicago told authorities there he had information about Clark’s murder. Batterson and another detective interviewed him, but he only provided speculation about the couple that had refused to talk.

“It was just fingerpointing,” Batterson said. “Nothing significant.”

Still waiting

The items found in Clark’s house, including the weapon, are boxed up and sitting in an evidence room at MPD.

VanDraska’s logical side is doubtful justice will be served, but her emotional side hasn’t clo sed the door.

“It’s probably never going to happen, but I hope that it does, if that makes sense,” VanDraska said. “I guess I’ve kind of accepted it, but I do hope that somebody would come forward.”

“We are again asking if anyone has information about the last few days of Mrs. Clark life they should call the police department,” said Walker 14 years ago.

That call has gone unheeded.

“Someone, somewhere, knows more about this,” Batterson said. “But they have not come forward.”