Lassiter Hill

PROLOGUE
Nov. 1, 1981
Prairie Rapids, Iowa



Betty Lassiter awoke from a fitful sleep with a vague sense of foreboding. In three hours her life would change forever.

It was Sunday and she could sleep in a little longer but found it hard to break habits formed over thirty years of being a farmer’s wife.

In Iowa, time isn’t measured in hours, days, or even years. It’s measured in the generations who till the land. Betty Lassiter, the fourth generation of a proud and prosperous Iowa family, understood better than most the realities facing farmers each day. She understood the enormous sacrifices that are made everyday to preserve a way of life. In the rich, black soil they are able to perform magic most seasons, producing crops from nothing more than a bag of seeds and a ton of backbreaking work. The most successful proudly display a century medallion on their property. It signifies they have been faithful and productive stewards of the land for more than one hundred years. The medallions are the Purple Hearts of agriculture. They signify success in overcoming droughts, floods,
hailstorms, and tornadoes to face the equally unmerciful economic cycles of the commodity markets.

The Lassiters didn’t brag about themselves. They knew they were luckier than many other Iowans with no choice but to surrender to the brutal forces of nature or the unforgiving trends of the economy. Inflation, high interest rates, and poor commodity prices were forcing many off their land. Those who survived the economy frequently succumbed to drought, hail, or insects. Realty threatened a way of life in Iowa and across the Midwest. Small communities struggled with their boarded-up Main Street stores. Many empty, derelict farmsteads decayed slowly in Iowa’s summer sun, only to be buried unnoticed in the snowdrifts of the state’s bitter winter storms.

But Betty Lassiter was different. She was a determined survivor. She knew how to succeed against long odds. Betty reached over to turn on the light beside her bed and noticed the collection of nearby photos. The photo of her late husband, Will, was the last thing she looked at before she went to bed each night and the first thing she looked at each morning. She slowly poked her feet out from beneath the blankets, into the chilly air of the bedroom, and searched for her slippers.

At 54, Betty grew increasingly conscious of her aging body. Morning stiffness magnified various aches and pains as she shuffled over to the dresser and picked up a few of the photos that reflected her history. Her son’s family held her gaze. She knew David, his wife, Jeanne, and their two children were the future of the Lassiter legacy.

Daydreaming, Betty shook off her nostalgia and walked to the bathroom to take her shower. Waiting for the water to get hot, she wondered what caused the noise that roused her from her bed last night. She heard glass break and went outside to investigate. She could see nothing out of the ordinary and chilled by the gusty November wind returned inside. She made a mental note to ask David about the commotion when he came to pick her up for church the next morning. Last night was Halloween and Betty knew problems occurred every year with vandals shooting at windows with BB guns.

That was it. Nothing more serious. Just kids getting into mischief.

She continued to think about the incident as she showered. She loved hot showers on cold mornings. For a moment she enjoyed the steamy water cascading over her appreciative body.

She ate her breakfast: a bowl of cereal, coffee, and an English muffin. The same breakfast she made for herself every morning. It was comfort food and she felt secure in her routine.

She then wrapped a present for Jason, David’s oldest child, whose fifth birthday was later that week. They planned to celebrate today after church so as not to interfere with David’s harvesting duties during the week. Betty knew that David loved his children but during the harvest little else mattered. A successful harvest could mean the difference between prosperity and bankruptcy in Iowa.

Each Sunday morning David would drive from the homestead to pick up Betty in front of her mobile home at 8:30, so they could make nine o’clock Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Prairie Rapids. But something was wrong this morning. Eight forty-five and no David.

Betty walked over to the phone to dial David’s number. The absence of the familiar hum of a dial tone increased her apprehension. She set out to walk the short distance to David’s place. In her Sunday best, Betty threw on a coat and tucked Jason’s birthday present under her arm. She trudged the hundred yards up the gravel driveway. David and Jeanne lived in what was Betty and Will’s home for many years. After Will died and David and Jeanne had their second child, it made more sense for them to have the spacious Lassiter place, while Betty took up residence in the mobile home on the property.

Betty approached the porch and noticed what caused the sound of breaking glass the night before. Broken glass from the front door lay in scattered pieces.

Worried, Betty stood on the porch and called out. “Hello, David?” She waited for a reply. The silence only increased her anxiety. Could it be that someone broke in rather than just causing some vandalism.

Betty crunched through the broken glass, opened the unlocked door, and walked into the foyer. Broken glass from the massive antique grandfather clock littered the oak floor. The disemboweled clock’s bent pendulum lay tossed into a corner.

Frightened, Betty looked across the foyer. Her gaze froze when she saw a star within a circle scrawled in red on the hardwood floor. In the center of the star was a candleholder with the remains of a melted candle. At one of the five points she noticed a knife the blade crusted dark red. A cup containing a small amount of the same brownish-red liquid sat on a second point of the star. She resisted the urge to race out of the house, fearing that David, Jeanne, or her two grandchildren might need her help.

With dozens of possibilities flooding her brain, Betty explored the first floor. In the living room, she saw drawers pulled out, chairs overturned, and pictures torn from the wall.

She walked to David and Jeanne’s first-floor bedroom door and called out again.
“David…Jeanne, you ok?”

No answer.

As she placed her hand on the doorknob, she looked down and saw a brownish dried footprint on the floor. Opening the door she saw a meandering pool of the same liquid covering the center of the hardwood floor. Then she saw Jeanne’s nude body sprawled next to the bed. Her daughter-in-law’s vacant eyes stared up at the ceiling. A large wooden crucifix, a wedding present to her son and daughter-in-law, lay across Jeanne’s chest. Betty could see several wounds on Jeanne’s body. David’s nude body slumped against the wall in a corner of the room. His head rested on the gory wound that had been his chest.

Betty tried to scream. There was no sound. She tried to run. There was no strength in her legs. She gasped for breath. Her lungs refused to comply. Feeling dizzy, she stumbled out of the room. Panic overcame her. She clutched Jason’s present to her chest, crushing the box in the process and tearing the wrapping paper. Then that she thought about the children.

Betty ran upstairs to their bedrooms. When she opened the door to Jason’s room, hope vanished. The four-year-old, a gash across his forehead, lay on a blood soaked pillow. Across the hall, nine-month old, Megan, lay face down in her crib, missing most the back of her head.

One of the most legendary murder investigations in Iowa history was about to unfold