Crystal Sue Hunt, 21 and pregnant, was last seen alive when leaving her parents' residence in Centerville, Iowa, on Feb. 24, 1998, with her boyfriend. He said they argued and she got out of the car.
iowacoldcases.org
Crystal Sue Hunt (Courtesy Iowa Department of Public Safety)
Crystal Sue Hunt
Missing Person
Age at Report: 21 YOA
DOB: February 18, 1977
Height: 5′ 9″
Weight: 140-142 lbs.
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Incident Type: Endangered / physical
Missing From: Corydon, IA (Wayne County)
Last Reported Seen: Centerville, IA (Appanoose County)
Agency: Wayne County Sheriff’s Department
Case # 98-03225
NCIC Number: M-102855411
NamUs MP # 17037
Missing Since: February 24, 1998
Crystal Sue Hunt was reported missing to the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office in Corydon, Iowa, on Feb. 24, 1998.
Crystal, who’d celebrated her 21st birthday just six days earlier and was pregnant, was last seen leaving her parents’ residence in Centerville on Feb. 24, 1998, with her boyfriend. He said they argued and she got out of the car. Crystal has not been seen nor heard from since.
She is described as 5-foot-9 , 140-142 pounds, with blue eyes and blonde hair.
She was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, white sweatshirt, black and white checked stirrup pants and Nike tennis shoes with blue spots on the tops.
She has a scar on her left leg from the ankle to below the knee. She also has a scar from her wrist to her elbow, a scar under her chin and three scar holes on each side of her pelvic area. She also has a scar on her right shoulder and walks with a slight limp.
In a March 13, 1998 brief published in the Daily Iowegian, Sheriff D. Keith Davis of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office said Hunt was 5-1/2 months pregnant.
Three months after she went missing, the Wayne County Coalition Against Domestic Violence offered a $500 reward to anyone with information leading to her whereabouts.
‘Her kin was drunk on sorrow’
In an Ottumwa Evening Post story dated Dec. 4, 2013, staff writer Doug Potter recalled the day — about a year after Crystal’s disappearance — when
eight of Crystal’s relatives came to the Ottumwa Courier where he worked as a reporter. He said they’d asked him to write an article in hopes of jarring law enforcement from their chairs.
The family, he said, blamed the boyfriend.
Potter said he’d contacted the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, the Appanoose County Sheriff’s Department and the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation the following day. The case belonged to Wayne County, and the sheriff said there were no new leads. Potter wrote of the three conversations:
One agency said she’d probably never be found. Another jurisdiction said she is probably in a well or buried in Missouri where no one will find her. The DCI said that small sheriff’s departments like those in Wayne and Appanoose counties do not have the money or employees to maintain the search for Crystal.
Potter said he talked to several people from Corydon in 1999, and then approached the Courier’s editor about writing a story about Crystal’s unsolved disappearance. Wrote Potter:
The Courier’s editor said an article wouldn’t be of interest to readers because Crystal was from Wayne County. I wrote it anyway. And I’ve written others because I promised Crystal’s family that I would.
Read Doug’s full story
When the
Iowa DCI established a Cold Case Unit in 2009, Crystal Hunt’s case was one of approximately 150 cases listed on the Cold Case Unit’s new website as those the DCI hoped to solve using latest advancements in DNA technology.
Although federal grant funding for the DCI Cold Case Unit was exhausted in December 2011, the DCI continues to assign agents to investigate cold cases as new leads develop or as technological advances allow for additional forensic testing of original evidence.
The DCI remains committed to resolving Iowa’s cold cases and will continue to work diligently with local law enforcement partners to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice for the victims and their families.
A DNA sample has been submitted and tests are complete.
