MochaMama18
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NOTE: I did not write most of this, the credit goes to, Jody Ewing. Copied from
Matthew Owen Iowa cold case site
Police discovered the body of 90-year-old Matthew John Owen, who went by the name M. John Owen.
According to Chief State Medical Examiner Dr. Julia Goodin, Owen died of multiple blunt-force injuries.
Police Chief Wayne Jerman said authorities believe Owen knew the person who killed him.
“Our investigators firmly believe that this was not a random act,” Jerman said in news release issued the Wednesday after Owen’s death.
Owen, who lived alone, had resided in Washington County prior to moving to Cedar Rapids and had purchased the quarter-million dollar house across from Kirkwood Community College just two months before his murder, according to a Gazette article dated Jan. 30, 2013.
The Gazette also reported that between the time Owen moved in and the day of his death, police made seven visits to the house; officers investigated reports of two burglaries, two thefts, a suspicious person, and also made two welfare checks.
Jewelry, cash and a television were reported stolen, according to police reports. No arrests were ever made.
Investigators initially had no motive, but a Gazette investigation uncovered a number of factors that may have led to Owen’s death.
According to a report published Feb. 3, 2013 by the Gazette’s Jeff Raasch, Owen often bragged about his finances, was known to wear tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry on his hands, and even boasted of spending $4,000 on the oxygen machine that kept him alive. Raash’s article also stated: The only thing Owen talked about as much as his money was women, according to multiple sources. Court records and interviews indicate Owen had relationships with at least six women between the ages of 18 and 23 in the months leading up to his death.
“He wanted to feel like Hugh Hefner,” an 18-year-old former stripper told The Gazette. “That’s who he wanted to be. He loved going out with young women.”
Owen had married his third wife, Ruth, in 1956, and after 52 years of marriage, filed for divorce in May 2009 while Ruth was in a nursing home.
Ruth died about six months later, before the divorce was finalized.
An estate battle followed, and showed that Owen had withdrawn at least $150,000 from joint accounts without Ruth’s knowledge and deposited the money into an account only Owen and his son could access.
The Gazette said Owen continued to lead a lavish lifestyle in the three years after his wife’s death.
During that time period, a number of individuals — some who asked the Gazette not to identify them as sources due to fear of retribution — conveyed the following information about the octogenarian:
The night before Owen’s murder, one young woman told the Gazette she and her 2-year-old niece were at Owen’s house the night before he was found dead. She said they were eating Chinese food when Owen got a call from a young man he knew.
Wrote Raasch:
According to the 18-year-old woman, the young man told Owen he had the stolen jewelry. She said Owen had arranged to pay the young man to get the jewelry back. The woman said the caller told Owen he was coming over to the house and to be home alone.
“We didn’t even get to finish eating our meal,” the woman said. “He told us to go, and then I didn’t hear nothing from him.”
The woman returned to the house the next morning and found a crime scene.
Chief Jerman said he had no knowledge that Owen was ever involved in any illegal activity in Cedar Rapids, and while alluding to the case’s depth, declined to answer specific questions posed by the Gazette.
“All cases are unique, and they need to be treated that way,” Jerman said in the Feb. 3, 2013 story. “This case has some uniqueness to it.”
Owen’s grandson, Brandon Owen, said police asked him not to speak publicly about the case and declined to comment about his grandfather’s homicide.
“It’s a very active investigation, very fluid,” Jerman told the Gazette. “Investigators are following the facts and the evidence, and they go where the evidence leads them to.”
Matthew Owen Iowa cold case site
Police discovered the body of 90-year-old Matthew John Owen, who went by the name M. John Owen.
According to Chief State Medical Examiner Dr. Julia Goodin, Owen died of multiple blunt-force injuries.
Police Chief Wayne Jerman said authorities believe Owen knew the person who killed him.
“Our investigators firmly believe that this was not a random act,” Jerman said in news release issued the Wednesday after Owen’s death.
Owen, who lived alone, had resided in Washington County prior to moving to Cedar Rapids and had purchased the quarter-million dollar house across from Kirkwood Community College just two months before his murder, according to a Gazette article dated Jan. 30, 2013.
The Gazette also reported that between the time Owen moved in and the day of his death, police made seven visits to the house; officers investigated reports of two burglaries, two thefts, a suspicious person, and also made two welfare checks.
Jewelry, cash and a television were reported stolen, according to police reports. No arrests were ever made.
Investigators initially had no motive, but a Gazette investigation uncovered a number of factors that may have led to Owen’s death.
According to a report published Feb. 3, 2013 by the Gazette’s Jeff Raasch, Owen often bragged about his finances, was known to wear tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry on his hands, and even boasted of spending $4,000 on the oxygen machine that kept him alive. Raash’s article also stated: The only thing Owen talked about as much as his money was women, according to multiple sources. Court records and interviews indicate Owen had relationships with at least six women between the ages of 18 and 23 in the months leading up to his death.
“He wanted to feel like Hugh Hefner,” an 18-year-old former stripper told The Gazette. “That’s who he wanted to be. He loved going out with young women.”
Owen had married his third wife, Ruth, in 1956, and after 52 years of marriage, filed for divorce in May 2009 while Ruth was in a nursing home.
Ruth died about six months later, before the divorce was finalized.
An estate battle followed, and showed that Owen had withdrawn at least $150,000 from joint accounts without Ruth’s knowledge and deposited the money into an account only Owen and his son could access.
The Gazette said Owen continued to lead a lavish lifestyle in the three years after his wife’s death.
During that time period, a number of individuals — some who asked the Gazette not to identify them as sources due to fear of retribution — conveyed the following information about the octogenarian:
- He frequented strip clubs, flashed his diamonds and spent large amounts of cash. He once told a relative of his late wife that he had come into the world with nothing and would leave the world in the same fashion.
- Owen spent thousands of dollars to pay for housing, phones, clothes and tattoos for young women, and according to one of them, he knew some of his money was being used to buy drugs. He referred to the girls as his “chickies.”
- “He wanted her to come over to clean the house, take him to the doctor or whatever,” said Wanda Ciha of Cedar Rapids, referring to her 18-year-old daughter, “but then he started asking her for ‘the woman.’ That’s what he called the private area – ‘the woman.’”
- Katie Pencil, 23, of Cedar Rapids, said she met Owen through a stripper at Woody’s Show Club in Cedar Rapids. She and two other women, both 18, admitted to The Gazette they slept in the same bed with Owen on multiple occasions, but they all denied any sexual involvement.
- Brittany Creamer, 18, of Cedar Rapids, said Owen paid for the braces on her teeth and offered to pay for breast enhancement surgery.
- Several of the young women who knew Owen said he turned on them if they tried to cut off communication or didn’t do what he wanted.
- In 2012, Owen accused Pencil of stealing more than $17,000 from him by forging 23 of his checks; Owen then spent $5,000 to retain an attorney for her defense.
The night before Owen’s murder, one young woman told the Gazette she and her 2-year-old niece were at Owen’s house the night before he was found dead. She said they were eating Chinese food when Owen got a call from a young man he knew.
Wrote Raasch:
According to the 18-year-old woman, the young man told Owen he had the stolen jewelry. She said Owen had arranged to pay the young man to get the jewelry back. The woman said the caller told Owen he was coming over to the house and to be home alone.
“We didn’t even get to finish eating our meal,” the woman said. “He told us to go, and then I didn’t hear nothing from him.”
The woman returned to the house the next morning and found a crime scene.
Chief Jerman said he had no knowledge that Owen was ever involved in any illegal activity in Cedar Rapids, and while alluding to the case’s depth, declined to answer specific questions posed by the Gazette.
“All cases are unique, and they need to be treated that way,” Jerman said in the Feb. 3, 2013 story. “This case has some uniqueness to it.”
Owen’s grandson, Brandon Owen, said police asked him not to speak publicly about the case and declined to comment about his grandfather’s homicide.
“It’s a very active investigation, very fluid,” Jerman told the Gazette. “Investigators are following the facts and the evidence, and they go where the evidence leads them to.”
