Decades before he made history as one of the longest-serving county sheriffs in Iowa, Ken Popenhagen's photo was in newspapers all over the U.S.
The retired Benton County sheriff, who now lives in the Atkins area, shared some memories with Vinton Today during our discussion with him about the cold cases of Benton County.
He also discussed the first murder case he faced as a deputy -- and it was a historic one.
Less than three weeks after Popenhagen became a full-time deputy in the summer of 1967, three people, including one of his neighbors, were murdered.
Within days, pictures of the new deputy and the suspect, Hubert McClelland, were sent via wire services to newspapers all over the country, although most photos did not name the deputy.
McClelland was a career criminal who had served time at Alcatraz, McNeil Island and Leavenworth federal prison, had been released on Feb. 11, 1966, after serving a 12-year sentence. He came from Texas to Iowa, where he planned to rob a bank in Marion. He was driving through rural Benton County, planning an escape route, when he encountered Mrs. Charles Schwab, forcing her car off the road. He then shot her in front of a daughter and a niece. He force the two young girls into the rental car he was driving. He soon put that car in the ditch, then killed two men who stopped to offer assistance. He then drove toward Cedar Rapids with the two girls in the trunk. He was arrested after shooting at another vehicle.
Wire service photos showing McClelland, accompanied by officers including Popenhagen, were sent to newspapers throughout the U.S., accompanied by this story:
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA (AP) — "That man shot my mother," the 11-year-old girl sobbed.
Discovery of the girl and her 11-year-old cousin locked in the trunk of a car in this eastern Iowa city early Thursday led to the arrest of a Texan in three killings and two kidnappings.
The defendant identified himself as Joseph Robert Carter, 42, Beaumont, Tex.
But Benton County Sheriff Harold Burch and the Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation said he really was Hubert B. McClelland, a Texan with a criminal record stretching from reform school in 1938 for burglary to federal prisons at Alcatraz and Leavenworth, Kan., for bank robbery.
Carter, a balding and bespectacled man of medium build, was taken Thursday afternoon before Justice of the
Peace Fay W. Hite in the Benton County seat town of Vinton and charged with first degree murder in the death of Mrs. Charles Schwab, 42, Belle Plaine.
So far, no charges have been filed in Tama County in the deaths of the other two victims — Leland Skoog, 55, rural Elberon, and his son, Garith, 24.
Authorities pieced together this account of the apparently senseless shootings and abductions:
Mrs. Schwab, her 11-year-old daughter, Christine,and Christine's cousin,Julie Braksiek, 11, were approaching the Richard Braksiek home at about 7:30 p.m.Wednesday to celebrate Braksiek's birthday when another car ran their vehicle off the road. The woman, mother of six children, was shot to death on the spot, and the killer forced the two girls to get into his rented car. He wrecked the vehicle a short distance down the road, but none of the three was hurt.
Skoog and his son drove from their home nearby to see if they could help. The gunman forced them to drive him and the girls away from the scene, Mrs. Skoog started to walk up to them from her house, but her husband waved her away.
The killer forced young Skoog to remove his shirt and use it to tie his father's hands behind his back. Then the gunman made them drive in their car to a deserted farmhouse two miles southeast of Tama, where both men were shot to death from behind. The two girls said the gunman told them to wait outside the farmhouse, police said, and they reported hearing two shots about 10:30 p.m.
Arrest
17-year-old boy reported later that a motorist had rammed the rear of his car near Fairfax, southwest of Cedar Rapids, and fired a shot at him.
Linn County Deputy Sheriff William Serbousek spotted the Skoog car just inside the Cedar Rapids city limits and halted it. With Carter standing meekly at gunpoint, the deputy found a .38 caliber Spanish automatic under the car seat.
"He told me if I'd give him a pack of cigarettes, he'd tell me something I wanted to know," said Serbousek. "After I gave him a cigarette, he told me to look in the car's trunk."
Popenhagen said he remembers the investigation into that murder keeping him up for more than 24 hours.
"It started less than a half mile from my farm, where I had been living at the time," he said.
All of this took place on June 20, 1967, just 19 days after Popenhagen began as a full-time deputy.
"He wrecked a car one half mile from where he killed the lady," recalls the retired sheriff. "Then he got a father and his son, who had just returned from Vietnam. He took them over by Tama, tied them up at an old farm place by a river and shot them."
Popenhagen said McClelland was eventually sentenced to life in prison, but was killed by another inmate.
Popenhagen also made newspapers a decade later, in August of 1977, when an inmate at the Benton County Jail (which at time was also the residence of the sheriff) removed a heat grate and dropped a toilet seat lid on the his head, causing some injury. The inmate, Michael Bottoms, 19, was serving time on a Linn County charge, and had previously attempted to escape.
Popenhagen retired in 2005. He was first elected sheriff in 1972, and was re-elected seven more times before retiring.
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