The Creston Police Department reports an arrest on Monday. At 4:30pm Officers arrested 35-year-old Joseph D. Gaiser of Creston on a Union County Warrant for Failure to Appear on Child Support matters and an additional charge of Possession of Parephernalia. Gaiser was taken to the Union County Jail and held on $800 bond.

Creston police also received a report from a resident that she had lost her debit card at Green Valley Lake around the end of August and the card was later used at Fast Stop in Creston. The loss was estimated at $42.

Another resident on Pine Street reported that someone overnight Sunday into Monday midday had poured blue paint on here vehicle while it was parked at her residence. The damage was estimated at $2,000.

w/ Chris Parks

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

The Greenfield Chamber/Main Street and the Warren Cultural Center (WCC) will co-sponsor a candidate forum on October 2, 2018, at 7 PM at the Warren Cultural Center, 154 Public Square, Greenfield.

The program will begin with a brief explanation of voting options by the Adair County Auditor/Commissioner of Elections, Mindy Schaefer, followed by a short presentation by each of the three supervisor candidates in Adair County:  Doug Davidson, Jodie Hoadley, and Steve Shelley.

The main event will be a forum moderated by Tim Ostroski of Creston, Director of the Southern Iowa Council of Governments, featuring Iowa House District 20 candidates, Ray “Bubba” Sorensen (R) and Warren Varley (D).

Questions should be directed to Susan Olesen, 641-745-5284 or solesen67@gmail.com

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a man died in Polk County Jail while awaiting trial on a murder charge.

Court records say case against 51-year-old Ricky Hascall was dismissed because he died in the jail on Sept. 16 of natural causes.

He’d pleaded not guilty to murder and robbery charges in the January 2017 slaying of 31-year-old Michael Huckleberry. Police say Hascall and two accomplices robbed and assaulted Huckleberry at his apartment. A neighbor found Huckleberry dead two days later.

Records say 25-year-old Sarah Saltz pleaded guilty to robbery and theft for her role in the slaying and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The remaining suspect, 27-year-old Monica Fagan, is scheduled to enter pleas in January.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a man paroled in June is suspected of killing a Council Bluffs native and dumping her body in a ravine near Fremont, NE. Omaha police say 39-year-old Jeremiah Connelly was arrested Friday after a foot chase that began when he ran from a stolen car he was driving.

Officers say he spoke to them about the death of a woman, and investigators later found the body of 22-year-old Jeanna Wilcoxen. She’d last been seen Sept. 17th.  According to reports, Wilcoxen was raised in Council Bluffs, attended Wilson Middle School and Thomas Jefferson High School. She is survived by her 4-year-old son, Jace, and others.

Connelly had been serving time in prison for attempted kidnapping, robbery and other crimes before being released June 28th.

(Radio Iowa) — The ping-pong nature of the weather so far this year could impact the type of quality of the fall leaf colors. Iowa D-N-R state forester Jeff Goerndt says things were trending toward an early pop of color. “Look for possibly an early fall leaf change because of some of the drier weather, but that could change with some of the cooler temperatures in the forecast,” Goerndt says. He admits there’s no easy way to tell exactly when the leaves will change.

“Fall color is really a hard thing to predict, there’s just so many different factors that are involved in how leaves turn color,” according to Goerndt. “Generally hot or dry weather is not a bad thing for fall color. It’s usually produce some brighter colors — especially some of the brighter red colors — as long as it doesn’t get too hot or too dry.” Goerndt says the trees may be like most people as the weather patterns switch back and forth.

“This year it was hotter and drier earlier and then it’s sort of gotten wet in some areas, and so you’ve got some of that back and forth. So, the trees are probably wondering what to do,” Goerndt says. There are some conditions that usually always lead to a colorful leaf display. “Generally for fall color, brighter sunny days and cool nights are usually a good thing for fall color,” Goerndt says. “If we get some wet weather from here on out — that could kind of make for some duller, slower changing trees.”

Goerndt says weather that is too hot and dry causes trees to drop their leaves early, or causes them to turn brown.

(Radio Iowa) — It’s the first week of fall and many Iowa farmers are already starting the harvest. Even weather experts admit it’s been an unusual growing season. Meteorologist Dennis Todey, director of the U-S-D-A’s Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, says 2018 is turning out to be a year of extremes, to be sure.

“The northern part of the corn belt, we had snows in April, we had wet conditions, we were slowed down from planting well into May in some places,” Todey says. “The southern part of the corn belt had some delays but not too badly.” After the late start due to the cold, wet conditions, the heat wave rolled in.

“We’ve had pretty regular heat throughout the summer, very warm conditions back in May and June,” Todey says. “Over Memorial Day, we had 90s which is really pretty high for that time of year. We had a lot of heat early on, then, kind of mellowed after that.” Despite the ups and downs, it ended up being a decent season for most growers.

“Crops matured pretty quickly so that’s moved us along,” Todey says. “We went from being behind to caught up now. We’re getting into a situation where we’re seeing corn maturing along with soybeans or even ahead of soybeans in some places.” Updated computer models show cooler-than-normal temperatures across the region through the end of this month and into October, which may bring the first frost.

(Radio Iowa)  — The Highway 20 Corridor Association has been fighting to get the highway made into a four-lane roadway from the east all the way to the west side of the state for decades — and with that task nearing completion in western Iowa — the group held their final regular meeting Friday. Ann Trimble-Ray has been an officer of the association for several years and says with the celebration of the completion of their goal in October, they voted to set a date to end their work.

“As we think about what’s coming, that celebration on October 19th is a real big deal for us of course. But then we know we need to conclude our business in a manner full of integrity and doing the right thing. So, a motion was made and a vote taken that the Highway 20 Association will be dissolved as of December 31st,” she says. Trimble-Ray says the mood was both celebratory and melancholy — as several past members didn’t live to see their efforts successfully completed.

She says they do plan to acknowledge those who have served on the board and passed on with a display at the ribbon cutting celebrating the completion of the final segment of the highway. There is some historical significance attached to the date chosen of the event in Holstein to celebrate the completion of the four lanes. “The first four-lane segment of Highway 20 in Iowa — it was three miles east of Moville — opened on October 19th, 1958” Trimble-Ray says. “So, on October 19th 2018 we are going to be celebrating the completion statewide Highway 20.”

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — The third trial in the 1990 killing of a 9-year-old girl has ended in a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a verdict after three days of deliberations.

The Quad-City Times reports a judge Monday declared the mistrial in the trial of Stanley Liggins. He’d twice been convicted of murder in the killing of 9-year-old Jennifer Lewis, of Rock Island, Illinois. Her burned remains were found Sept. 17, 1990, in a field in Davenport.

She had been sexually abused, strangled to death and then doused with gasoline and set on fire. Liggins knew Jennifer’s mother and investigators focused on him as a suspect. He was twice convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but both convictions were overturned.

The third trial was moved to Black Hawk County from Scott County because of pretrial publicity.

FESTUS, Mo. (AP) — Authorities have identified the men killed in an eastern Missouri plane crash as an American Airlines pilot and his son. Jefferson County Sheriff Dave Marshak on Monday said the victims were veteran pilot 56-year-old Michael Metzger of Hillsboro and 20-year-old Jacob Metzger of the state of Iowa.

The plane crashed about 2 a.m. Friday just a few hundred yards from the unlit airport in Festus, even as the pilot’s fiancee tried to guide it in with a flashlight. Michael Metzger was piloting the plane back from New York and reported electrical problems that prevented him from remotely activating the runway lights, which are turned off after working hours.

Marshak says the fiancee responded to the pilot’s texts and stood along the runway with a flashlight, but the plane crashed.