The 7-a.m. News podcast from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson….

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A grave marker belonging to a 6-month old child who died in 1986 apparently wasn’t stolen after all. Last week, employees of the Council Bluffs recycling Center found a plaque with the name Megan Alaine Kjellberg, in a recycling bin. A report Thursday in the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil stated Council Bluffs Police Capt. Terry LeMaster and other authorities, feared someone had stolen the marker in an attempt to sell it for scrap metal. LeMaster said area cemeteries and funeral directors were checked, as well as funeral and obituary databases and reports about stolen items.  He wondered if someone might have stolen the marker thinking it was solid copper. When it turned out to be only copper coated, it was tossed into a recycling bin.

While an initial attempt by authorities to find where the marker belongs failed, newspaper and broadcast reports  asking citizens for help in locating the child’s burial site paid off. LeMaster told the Nonpareil that they received several phone calls, some coming from as far away as Wisconsin.  But one call in particular solved the mystery. A person left a message asking authorities to check the website of Forest Lawn Cemetery in Omaha.

The Forest Lawn Cemetery has an alphabetical online record of everyone buried at the facility, and there in the K section was the name Megan Alaine Kjellberg. According to the cemetery, she is buried in the “Garden of the Apostles,” on the eastern edge of the property one row back of a lane that passes through the section. LeMaster said his department called the cemetery, which confirmed the plot number. After checking the records, it was determined the girls’ family had placed a new headstone on the grave in 1999 and had taken possession of the old one.

It’s still not clear how the removed marker made it to the recycling bin, though. If the family does not respond to the calls from police asking them to claim the marker, it would be considered found property and processed accordingly. LeMaster told the paper he was happy to know there isn’t a child’s grave out there without a marker, and that concerned citizens worked in concert to make sure that is wasn’t the case.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

The Cass County Sheriff’s Office reports an Audubon man was arrested Friday morning on a theft charge, after allegedly taking a vehicle without authorization. Officials say they received a report of a vehicle stolen from America’s Best Family Motel at the Valley in Cass County. As a result of the report and a subsequent traffic stop, Sheriff’s Deputies arrested 27-year old Richard Lavain Miller, Jr., of Audubon, on a charge of Theft 2^nd Degree (Motor Vehicle). Miller was taken to the Cass County Jail where he is being held on $5000 bond.

Cass County Sheriff’s officials said Friday, that a Red Oak woman arrested Thursday afternoon on a Cass County District Court warrant for Failure to Appear for a Child Support Hearing, has been transported to Atlantic, and is being held in the Cass County Jail on $2,000 bond. Authorities in Red Oak, say  50-year old Casey Renee Bates also faces a Possession of Drug Paraphernalia charge, after she confessed to having a syringe and a marijuana pipe in her purse, as she was being questioned by officers during her arrest.

Here’s a reminder to residents of Cass County, from Auditor Dale Sunderman: Two satellite voting stations have been established for the November 6th, 2012 General Election: one is at the Massena Public Library. Its hours of operation are from 2-to 8-pm on Monday, October 15^th. Ballots will be available for the precincts of Edna Township, Victoria Township, Massena Township, City of Massena, Union Township and the City of Cumberland.

The second satellite voting station is at the Griswold Community Building. The site will be open on October 17^th, from 2-pm to 8-p.m. Ballots will be available for the precincts of Pleasant Township, Noble Township, City of Griswold, Bear Grove Township, Cass Township and the City of Lewis.

All eligible voters of the precincts listed may vote absentee at the respective location.
Voter registration forms will be available for new registrations and changes in
registration records at the above locations.

In person absentee voting/early voting is also conducted weekdays from 8:00 a.m.
until 4:30 p.m. at the Auditor’s Office located at 5 West 5th Street, Atlantic, IA, from
now through November 5th, 2012.  The Auditor’s Office will also be open from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 27th, 2012 and Saturday, November 3rd, 2012 from 9:00-a.m. until 5:00-p.m.

Pre-registration for new voters or for those who have changed name and/or address,
in order to appear on the correct precinct voter election register on Election Day
November 6th must be received no later than 5:00 P.M. on Saturday, October 27th, 2012. Same Day Registration on Election Day or when voting absentee will require a photo ID and a proof of residence.

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) – The Storm Prediction Center says severe thunderstorms are possible Saturday across the southern and central Plains as a cold front rolls out of the Rockies. Humid air could extend well into the Mississippi and Missouri valleys, making the atmosphere ripe for storms. The forecasters say the greatest chance for bad weather is from eastern Oklahoma to northeastern Iowa, including parts of Kansas and Missouri, but that storms are also possible from Texas into Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Supercells with hail and possibly tornadoes could occur, especially before the storms form a squall line.  After a squall line forms, high winds could be worrisome.  The prediction center, based in Norman, Okla., categorizes the area from Austin, Texas, to Minneapolis and Milwaukee and Chicago as having a slight risk of severe storms.

Tomorrow (Saturday) marks three months since two young girls from the Waterloo-area vanished. The cousins, Elizabeth Collins and Lyric Cook of Evansdale, disappeared July 13th while on a bicycle ride and they’re still missing. Robin Arnold, of Cedar Falls, says she was frustrated by how the situation was handled by law enforcement and she’s calling for change. “It was seven days and they kept saying they were not abducted,” Arnold says. “On the seventh day, they finally said, ‘The girls have been abducted.’ I got very upset and angry at that because I felt it went too slow, the process just went too slow.”

Arnold is the author of a bill she has forwarded to state legislators for consideration in January which would speed the process of finding a missing child. She says she’s gotten more than 95-hundred signatures of support on petitions. She calls it “The Cousins Law” and it contains several parts. “When a child goes missing, the parents need to report it within an hour or there’ll be a fine,” Arnold says.

Under the proposal, there would also be voluntary vehicle searches and searches of abandoned buildings. If a child is missing more than three hours, a statewide alert would be issued with pictures for use by the media and on interstate marquees. If the child is missing more than eight hours, a human trafficking task force would be activated to check known hotspots where children could be taken. Arnold spoke about the proposed law last (Thursday) night in Webster City. Learn more at: www.cousinslaw.org.

(Radio Iowa)