Iowa AG Highlights State’s New Cold Case Unit

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird traveled to Sioux City Tuesday to highlight the importance of the state’s new cold case unit.

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Bird was joined by family members of Maureen Brubaker Farley, a Sioux City teen who disappeared in 1971 while working at a Cedar Rapids diner. Her cold case was solved in 2021.

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Maureen’s body was found in the trunk of an abandoned car in Cedar Rapids in 1971 and D-N-A from the scene eventually matched George Smith to her murder in 2021. Smith had been dead for eight years when investigators told her sister Lisa Schenzel and the rest of family of the match on the 50th anniversary of Maureen’s death.

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Maureen was 17 and the oldest of seven kids when she died. Schenzel says the smallest bit of evidence can help solve a case and anyone with information in a cold case should contact law enforcement.

(Story by Radio Iowa)