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Lope, You are now listening to true Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history True Murder, with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Good evening, This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Jerry Mark was a Peace Corps volunteer, lawyer, four h leader, vice president of his Cedar Falls High School senior class, and certainly a most likely to succeed young man when he graduated in nineteen sixty. In nineteen seventy six, he was convicted of four execution style murders of his own family.
How could he have done such a thing and why? Author Scott Colwelti knew Jerry Mark from high school and went on to interview him in prison, attending the trial and discovering a mind consumed with anger, revenge, jealousy, and greed. Brother's Blood chronicles the killer's cross country motorcycle ride, the landmark investigation and arrest, the circumstantial case at trial, and
the appeals that continued for thirty years. The book that were featuring this evening is Brother's Blood, A Heartland Cain and Able with my special guest, Scott Colwelty, Welcome to the program, and thank you to agreeing for this interview. Scott Cowealthy, thank you now, thank you for have you ma, and you're doing a good job with my last name there, oh,
thank you, thank you, Glad. I asked before the first thing I normally ask is that I'm a very curious guy, and maybe he can tell us why, given all the circumstances, and this case is an older case, why you in particular felt it are compelled to write about this case and this story.
Well, he was a high school classmate of mine. I knew him in high school and as one of those great guys. Everybody liked him. He was friendly, he was polite, he was all American boy type, you know, and not the No one would ever suspect him of doing anything like this. In fact, at the trial, the case was made that Jerry could never do anything like this, And that's what I thought when I heard that he was accused.
So immediately I was interested. Terribly shocking crime out here in the heartland, you know, and I thought what Jerry market can't be And then I began following it and then watch trial very closely. And then in nineteen seventy nine, after he was in prison for three years, he threatened
to kill himself because he was imprisoned illegally. And at that point I realized I had to get into this because circumstantial evidence they said was absolutely convincing, but to him, he was absolutely innocent and had no business in jail, and he was going to fast until he died or run one for the prison walls and hope they shot him.
And at that point I realized I needed to talk to him, so I wrote him, and he remembered me, and I went down to Fort Madison, Iowa, where the state penitentiary is, and had an interview, and from then on I was hooked. I was just I was compelled to continue following the case through four or five appeals until two thousand and six, and that's when a judge said he should be let go or get a new
trial because there was exculpatory evidence. And at that point I realized I had to write the book, finish the book, because I was convinced by now that Jerry did it and he was just a very good con man with these appeals, and I wrote the book basically so I could understand what he did and why he did it, and also to tell the world that he really is the killer and his appeals are fruitless and useless, and people should know what he did and what he what
he put, what his victims to It was a horrible crime.
Now, let's go back a little bit in for our audience. Tell us what can you describe Cedar Falls, Iowa. Tell us what the community is like, maybe a little bit of maybe a little bit of the history, what it's known for, But tell us, really the.
I was going to say, Waterloo, Iowa. He is famous for having been the home of John Wayne Gay see you might know and also Michelle Bocklam who Michelle Backman, who made the mistake of thinking John Wayne Gacy was John Wayne born in winter said, you know that story. We're out here in the We're out here in the prairie. Uh Joe. Waterloo, i was known for the John dere Waterloo Tractor Works and Theedar Falls. I was known for the University of Northern Iowa, which has sports teams and
also great Music Department and Great A County Department. Is known for several major kind of features of the education system here in Iowa and the towns. Both towns are rather quiet, not very large. I think what it is about eighty thousands there falls about thirty five thousand, and nothing happens here that you could call a major crime, and never has and maybe never will again. And then this crime came along in nineteen seventy five. It shook
the town to the core. We just couldn't believe that anything could happen, anything like this could happen here. And then when we found out it was one of our own, not an outsider like the Clutter family in Kansas, the in cold blood pop Us crime, it was actually an intra family crime is unbelievable. And then when we find out it was Jerry Mark, the lawyer, Peace Carps volunteer, was even more incredible. Thing just getting more and more surprising and incredible to all of us. And that's why
I think it garners so much attention. Certainly garners attention around here even now, many years now.
Tell us about Jerry Mark's early childhood, tell us about Dorothy and Wayne Mark and the family less and Tom and the other brother to become a minister. Tell us about the Mark family themselves. What kind of worked were they are they known for. Tell us a little bit about the Mark family and a little bit about what Jerry's childhood and along with his brothers, what it was like growing up in the Mark family.
He grew up in a fairly large farm outside of town, not a little town named near theater falls name Finchford, close to Finchford, a large acreage I think twelve eleven twelve hundred acres, which is a large farm in those days. That's even a large farm now. And the four boys farmed it when they grew up. Wayne Mark was the father, patriarch. He also ran a real estate business. He bought and sold farms. They grew very wealthy off the farmland and
off the real estate business. When Wayne died in nineteen seventy seven, I think it was the family was worth well over a million dollars, so there was a lot of money here. So Dick Mark was the oldest and he grew up with the other boys and then eventually left for the minister became a minister up in Canada, and as a matter of fact, I think he's in Winnipeg, or he was at the time of the murder. And then Jerry was the next oldest and then Tom. Tom
had a problem. He was a schizophrenic and an alcoholic. For a while, he wasn't capable of doing much of anything. He was sort of a ne'er do well and kind of a homeless guy around around Waterloo for a long time. And then there was Less, the youngest. Less turned out to be the successful one in terms of getting along with people, running the farms, running the family operation. And Jerry for a while was going to be a lawyer.
In fact, he passed the bar at Iowa and became a lawyer in Des Moines for the Legal Aid Society. So Jerry was the one that was you would expect to be the success. Turned out he kind of gave up on the law and after that he didn't have much of anything to do. That is, he really didn't end up doing much of anything. He moved to California and did odd jobs and lived off the two women he was involved with. So Jerry was the kind of
it turned out to be the nre do well. Tom was the incapable one, and Dick was a minister off and the successful one was Less. And this bothered Jerry because Jerry was the one who really thought he taught Less all he knew about farming. When they were growing up, they were about four years apart. Dick was the oldest, and then there were four years and then there was Jerry, and then Tom came about four years later, and then
Less was the youngest one at twenty five. There were approximately eight years between Lest the youngest and Jerry the second oldest, so that the family dynamic was set up in a way that really pitted the two brothers against each other. Jerry and Dorothy became kind of a team, and then Less and Wayne became another team, and they were always kind of at each other's throats at odds. They had pretty terrible family fights. The family dynamic was
not healthy. There was a lot of dysfunction in the family, and Jerry grew up in the kind of rivalry between he and his brother and that just ground him down. And by the time Less inherited everything in September of nineteen seventy five, Jerry realized he was cut out of the inheritance. He was not going to end up running the family farms and the real estate operation like he planned, and the greed there began working its way into his
heart and head. And that's when he decided I think that he had to do something about it.
Now, there was a family meeting with Less and Jerry that members of the family attended, and of course Dorothy was there and Wayne. Now maybe he can tell us if Wayne was already struck with cancer at that time when this conversation had But tell us about that conversation or that debate, that argument, tell us what that argument contained and what was said at that time.
Well, I had to do a lot of research for this, because of course I wasn't there, and nobody was there but the family, and I talked to Dorothy. I actually spent a lot of time with Dorothy way back in nineteen eighty when I began really working on the project, and she gave us all this information about that family meeting, and I was rather shocked. And then I heard it corroborated by George Colthurst, the father of the slain woman. Georgine Colthurst was Less's wife, and she was killed along
with last sent or two small children. And so really what happened was that, according to Dorothy and according to George, they had a real serious breakdown, a terrible argument basically over what they should do with Tom Tom was falling apart, wasn't doing well, and Jerry thought they should send him to manage clinic for a cure, and Wayne and Left thought that there was no cure, they ought to just
caretake him. And of course the caretaking was less expensive, so Jerry was furious at him for being cheap skates and not spending more money on Tom. And then many other things came up, especially in terms of less Jerry's ability to handle the land and actually work the land, because he tended not to want to actually farm, and so they just started yelling and fighting. And at this point Jerry actually said to his father, who was dying of cancer, old man, when you die, I'm going to
come back to Iowa and piss on your grave. And that sort of ended his connection with the family. Is a terrible thing to say, of course, and shocked everybody in the family. And then he left and basically went back to California, where he stewed and fumed and eventually began planning the murders. That's, of course, part of what's going on in the book. You need to read the book to get all the details, but there it is, you.
Know, yeah, was there something about a fifty thousand dollars or inherited. Was there something about Jerry actually running through money beforehand so that really he couldn't he really couldn't count on receiving anything once Wayne died eventually.
Right, the real problem for Jerry was he kept going through money. He wasn't making much money, and the women he was with at various times. His first wife was not she didn't have a really well paying job, and the second girlfriend, Mimi Marilyn Forrest also did not do a lot of work. Us He worked hard, but again
it was a slow paying, low paying job. So Jerry really had no serious source of income other than his family, and he kept getting his money from his father, and I think Wayne kept saying to him, Okay, you can have this now, but remember it comes off your inheritance. So Jerry was due to inherit fifty thousand dollars and by the time of this terrible breakdown, he had gone through pretty much the whole fifty thousand and there wasn't any lefts and so he stood to inherit basically nothing,
even though there was plenty of money. The father said, all you guys get is fifty thousand dollars and if you want to go through it before I die, all right, And that's what happened with Jerry, And so he had nothing left. And I think he had nothing to lose really by coming back and doing what he did, other than, of course, his own sense of being a human being.
What was the relationship between Jerry and his brother Less, as far as Dorothy knew, or as far as witnesses stated at that time.
Well, Dorothy told me that they yelled at each other a lot, but in fact they were very good friends. Jerry was best man and Less his wedding. Believe it or not, Dick married them and Jerry was best man, and they seemed to be very close, and right about the time of the murders, Jerry wrote Less a letter asking him if he would vouch for him so he could get the job, and Less agreed to do that, and a letter that letter. There are two letters crossed in the mail right about the time of the murders,
and they both seemed friendly. In the letter, they seemed to like each other. One of the puzzling aspects of this is how in the world could Jerry shoot his brother execution style when they had been such good friends all their lives. It's really beyond imagining to me, and I think it is to everybody who reads the story.
Now, when you say after this meeting, after the big dust up at the home place, as they called it, and this is make sure that we understand it, that's when we're referring to. That's the homestead, the Jerry and Dorothy that's called the home place.
Now when very large farmhouse. It still exists on Union Road outside of Cedar Falls, and it was the basic the home had been there almost one hundred years. It was built right around the turn of the century and gradually added on to various parts of the family, added another room or another section here and there, so it became a huge old farmhouse. There was the center of operations of the entire Mark family real estate and all the others those.
Dealings they have, yes, right now. When he went back to California with and living with his girlfriend Marilyn forrest Or Mimi, Yeah, she was known as far as Mimi knew. What was What did Jerry say to Mimi?
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Say you've just alluded to that he was began his planning of this horrific murder of his own family. But as far as Mimi knew, what was what kind of conversation did Jerry have with Mimi over this fight with his family and concerning these plans that you say that he was hatching in his mind to murder his own family, As far as Mimi knew what was going on in Jerry's mind at that time.
Well, you know, this is where it gets rather diabolical. Because he realized the level of planning that Jerry had to undertake. He basically wanted to use Mimi as an alibi. He saw that he could use her and in fact, she could become his ally at if he ever got accused of doing anything. She would say, Oh no, no, it couldn't have been Jerry, because he called from various
parts of a trip. What he told her basically was that he wanted to take this motorcycle that he had bought with his dad's money, a Honda four point fifty, and take a motorcycle ride to find himself because he was sort of at odds with what he wanted to do,
and he no longer was interested in the law. So he bought this motorcycle, and he told Mimi he was going to ride down into the Mohave Desert around Coalinga and sit around, drink a few beers, maybe take a little longer ride, and maybe a little further west, a little further east rather, and then ride home. This is going to happen at the end of the month of October. He would start on Wednesday, and he would be back by Saturday, he told her, and all would be well.
He'd feel good about himself again, and they could carry on with their lives. And so what he did was he called her from various places, but they weren't the places he really was. As it came out in the trial, he was much closer to Iowa at each time he called, and she, as far as she was concerned, when he was in Coalinga, he was actually up in Loveland, Utah. And then when he was in Provo, supposedly he was
over in Cheyenne. So he told her, he said, listen to me, I'm in Provo, this was Thursday night, and I'm having a great time. I'll just ride around a little more. But in fact, he was way over in Cheyenne, Wyoming, much closer to Iowa. And the phone records they actually saved just just in time they rescued, I should say, in time to get all the evidence that he was making.
He was lying about where he was calling from. So basically he set up this alibi with Mimi, and she would have testified had they not had the phone records that Jerry called from Coalinga and Provo and actually nowhere near Iowa, and that would have been a really pretty airtight alibi. But they found the phone records in that wrecked so Mimi didn't know anything. She was being used by Jerry the whole time.
Now let's go back just a little bit, because this is I think is important to the story as well, is that Mimi's ex husband is involved in this somewhat in terms of a camper, in terms of this gun that ends up being used. So tell us a little bit about how they came to have the gun in their possession, both of them, and talk about the little the ex husband and how this all happened.
Right. Well, her Mimi's husband's name is Olga Alga, an interesting name, and all the and Mimi were not getting along, and Olga had had a thirty eight long Colt revolver. Actually it was a copy of a Smith and Wesson long Colt revolver, a Spanish copy, and had no registration, no serial number. It was untraceable, and it was in the old camper that Olga kept outside of his trailer is his mobile home in Berkeley. And Mimi and Jerry decided they're going to have to because they were separating.
Mimi and Olga were separating. They were going to have to get some trading stock in the divorce. So they decided to steal this camper truck and that way they could get a lot of August stuff and trade off the stuff that he was keeping from me. It was not a happy divorce. They were mad at each other. See the whole thing so they spirited off this camper truck and Jerry this is where the story starts for me. Jerry was pawing through all this junk in the camper
and came across this thirty eight long cold pistol. Sorry, a revolver is not a pistol. A revolver great big. It's a big weapon. They had it in the They showed pictures of a weapon like that in the corn a very large revolver, and he realized he had an untraceable weapon on his hands, and it fired thirty eight long cold cartridges. He had no idea what that meant. He just thought thirty eight was a thirty eight like
the rest of us, not familiar with weapons, right. So Olga owned that revolver, and Jerry ended up with it, and he put it down in his storage cabin a cabinet, and left it there outside their apartment until he needed it. Then he put it in his motorcycle and it ended up being the weapon that killed these people.
Now we're going to jump ahead just a little bit, but in terms of we don't find this out in the book till a little bit later. But let's let's what does Mimi find out in regards to the gun. Shortly after, Jerry gets on his four P fifty Honda and start to go find himself. What does she discover regarding that gun.
Well, she went down to the She discovered when she came home from work Wednesday night that the little storage shed had been broken into, that the lock was the little lock, tiny, little crappy little lock was broken off, and there was stuff missing. What she discovered was that the Iowa license plate that Jerry had on his little one hundred cc motorcycle was missing, and that the revolver was missing. And she really was worried about that because
all of a sudden he was gone. The revolver was gone. She assumed somebody just stole it out of the storage shed. And when she learned of the murders, and by then this was Friday night. She had learned of the murders on Saturday, and she realized that Jerry had had access to that revolver, that really made her nervous. She told her father, and her father called the Waterloo Police department
because that's where the murder was. I mean, it was national news and so the Waterloo Police immediately knew that Jerry left on Wednesday, that he had access to this revolver, and that Mimi was in fact kind of worried about what happened to him. Why would he take a revolver, why would the rather, why would the revolver disappear at the same time Jerry disappeared, and she didn't really know
where Jerry was. He did not call her from Friday till Sunday, so there was no communication between Jerry and Mimia. Between Friday and Sunday had plenty of time to kill his family and then start on the way back from Cedar Falls, So the timing was right, and Mimi knew
this and she was really upset about it. She did not pass the light detector test the following Friday, and they actually arrested her and David Dutton, the prosecutor, decided to better arrest Mimi because she must have known something or she would have passed that light deitector test, and that's when they began really looking hard at Jerry because
they realized something was known by his girlfriend. She wasn't able to reveal what it was, but she was very nervous about that large revolver missing.
And the police also asked that they asked for a light detector test, uh for for Jerry? And what was his response?
He said no, He said he didn't have to do it. They weren't reliable, they had no business asking him, and he really didn't think he should. He got very scared of that larchitecture test because I think he knew that he wouldn't pass it, or if he'd passed it, it meant that there was just something else going on that they
were going to keep looking at him. They were. He was nervous that they would even ask him because he realized then that he was a suspect, and he never even thought it would get to the stage where they would suspect him. How could I possibly kill my brother? He kept saying, over and over. I couldn't kill anyone, much less the brother that I loved and was best man at his wedding.
Now, how did how did the police proceed with this? We've kind of jumped ahead a little bit, but they wanted to check the phone records. They also wanted to place him as close as possible to the home place. Rather than his story about being nowhere near that the no one nowhere near Iowa whatsoever. So so, how did the police proceed with their investigation.
Well, they were very wise about this, and Tom Rouxslow, the head of the BCI investigation, really knew what he was doing. He took this case personally because of the two small children and also because there was this terrible hometown murder. And they found out that all the BCI agents, I think they had twenty five different agents, two different police departments working on a plus higway patrol. A lot
of agents were working. And they knew that that Honda four fifty had a range of about one hundred and forty miles that's about as far as they would go on a tank. And so they began looking when they took pictures around starting on Interstate eighty and then all the ruds anywhere near Cedar Falls all the way out
to California. And once they found someone that thought they could identify Jerry Mark by the picture, they would look very hard every one hundred, one hundred and twenty miles one hundred and forty miles, and they finally found several eye witnesses that said, well, you know, that sure looks like the guy that was here. And they were doing this the week after the murder, so they very quickly. They needed to move fast. They knew. They very quickly
found people that thought they could identify Jerry Mark. And then they got very, very very lucky. As David Dunnan said, the hand of the divine was with us. They got lucky. When they got to Apostle Roeblaze, California. They walked into Ken's Sporting goods store and there was a clerk named
Jack Makondomski. He was at the trial and testified that a young redheaded man had come into his store on October twentieth, I think it was thirteen or eleven, days before the murders, and bought a box of thirty eight long cold cartridges, signed his name and social security number for him, so there it was Jerry Mark SOCID security number, and he left with these cartridges. They would fit that revolver. So immediately they knew they probably had their man, and
shortly after that they arrested him. They arrested him within ten days of the murder. That's another shocking aspect here was this very all of a sudden he was under arrest. I think it was a shock to him as well as everybody else.
Now what we have avoided here, but I think it is important to tell the details of this, What did Jerry Mark do at his brother and brother in law's home, and so describe the family itself, Less and Georgine and the two children, how old these children were, and describe for us, because you go into great detail in the book what Jerry did and how he did it at the murders at the less his home. So tell us how he went about doing this and what exactly he did.
Well, you know, I'd like for people to read the chapter. It was a very hard chapter to write. It's called the Intruder. And by the way, each chapter in the story section of the book is matched by a chapter in the sources section of the book, so you can read where I got the material to use in a story, so you can kind of compare. If people think that I added a lot too that they can read the sources and read it for themselves, or they can just read the story and not bother with the sources because
it's divided into two sections. But anyway, the Intruder chapter was the hardest chapter to write because it's so brutal. And I looked at the autopsy reports, I listened to what Dunton said happened in the home at the trial, and his opening gave a long, detailed explanation and then basically tried to write it almost from a first person point of view, not quite, but I don't identify them. I just said there was this intruder and he walks in, and it shifts the first it shifts the present tense.
It happens right in the present. You're right there watching it. And it's actually very hard to read. I think too. I was looking at a couple days ago and I thought, oh, this is not pleasant reading. But anyway, he basically crept into the house around two thirty in the morning after the lights went off. Less had been out finishing the harvest that very night, Halloween night, and he hid down
the basement. He pulled out that revolver, and he snuck upstairs and came into their bedroom and evidently woke them
up as far as anyone can tell. He flipped on the light and they could see who he was, and they had they had a bit of a screaming shouting match, and then he fired a warning shot down between Less and Georgine, and then he made which scared them, and then he fired another one just grazed Georgine's side, and then he made them kneel on pillows and he executed them five shots totally into the less than four shots total into Georgine executed them just brutally with this large
caliber revolver. And then the horrifying, most horrifying aspect of the thing that still makes people wonder, how what kind of a monster do we have here? He went upstairs and shot each of the children Julie was five years old and Jeff was a year and a half in their beds, one shot in the head and one shot in the heart. Execution stopped, and so he basically slaughtered the family execution style and came downstairs, tried to make
it look like a robbery. He bashed out their family heirloom grandfather clock, and then pulled out a bunch of drawers and ran out the door, basically ran down the driveway in his tennis shoes they had they found some tennis shoe tracks, climbed on that Honda and took off and got out of their as pat as he could.
The clock stopped at three h three in the morning because he pulled the circuits downstairs in the basement, and they figured the murders took place sometime dry before that, probably just before three in the morning.
Now, how were the bodies of the victims discovered and by who?
Well, this was another horrifying aspect of the story. Clark Runner was a neighbor and a helper, and he came over. He planned to come over fairly early in the morning, like farmer as well, you know, six thirty or seven, just as the sun was breaking, and help with the harvest, helped finish the harvest. He was just finishing up and he noticed that the electricity was off to the corn dryer, and he thought that was odd. And then what was especially odd was that nobody was around. The house was
absolutely dark and silent, which is totally unusual. That family would have been up running around, shouting, and there would have been a lot of activity. Nothing. And then he walked up to the back door and looked out, looked through the back door glass in back door and saw that the window was smashed and a plant, a potted fern, had been thrown through the window. And he got scared nervous.
He realized there'd been a robbery of some kind, or a burglar or somebody had entered the house, certainly in an illegal way, and so he did not go in the house himself. He thought, this is none of my business. I shouldn't be entering a house. I'm not related to these people. He got in his truck and drove up the road about three miles to Dorothy Mark's house. Dorothy and Waynemark by then had moved away from the home place, and we're living in a little development on Turkey Fort
Heights down Union Road. He went and got them. So the three of them came back to the Lucky.
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The house Dorothy and Wayne Wayne stayed in the truck. Dorothy and Clark went in the house and basically discovered the body, to their great horror. I don't think Dorothy would ever get over. In fact, neither of them ever got over. There was a terrible trauma for Clark. He couldn't talk about it very well to anybody. And Dorothy talked about it, but it was in the most kind of distant terms. She distanced herself from it by absolutely insisting it could not have been Jerry to the end
of her life, and she lived a long life. She only died about three years ago. She insisted that Jerry didn't do it. So they basically discovered the bodies and the bodies of the children and had to call the sheriff and began the horrible task of trying to figure out what happened, Who did this, who could have done this? And Dorothy insisted, like I say, to the end of her life, that some intruder, some horrible monster came into the house. It could not have been her own son.
It was interesting in the book too, that you show the basically she might have been in shock, but just the the strength of Dorothy. Wayne stayed in the truck, but Dorothy basically the the helper. Like you say, Clark or he was really rattled and shaking and trembling. But Dorothy kept it together somehow to be able to do what was needed to be done at that time. And as anybody that reads the book will realize too, that Dorothy stayed almost rock like through this whole thing.
Yeah, there were the observations that I heard from several different people was that Dorothy seemed too cold to them. They couldn't quite believe she was not behaving like a mother. She was behaving like an official. You know, this is an official thing. This is a serious problem we have to get to solve. Her emotions weren't as engaged as they thought it could be or should be of a mother who had just seen the best part of her family destroyed, including her own grandchildren. She acted like she
just was investigating, and she took over. And of course I always took that as a defense mechanism. How else could she act and still get anything done. She would dissolve in a puddle on the floor. Really, if she lost, God lost in the emotions. So she stayed hard and cold right through to the end, mostly by insisting that
there was a terrible injustice done. First terrible injustice was the murder of the family, and the second terrible injustice was her own son was arrested and imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, she insisted, so she sort of steeled herself by creating these Uh, well, no, the murders weren't created by but creating a story that but Jerry off the hook. She was a hard woman when I talked to her, she just had her jaws set
the whole time. But a terrible myths, a terrible misfortune had come upon this family, the murder and the accusation against Jerry, which led to a conviction longly.
Now after this, of course police were looking to eliminate any of the family members, and they, of course they spoke to Dick, and they spoke to Tom, had to speak with him to eliminate these people's potential suspects, And of course they could not find could not get a
hold of Jerry right away. And we've already spoken about how police initially knew something was amiss or initially and decided to pressure Mimi and had the light detector test, which indicated that she was being She was not being completely truthful, how many days and under what circumstances was Jerry Mark finally arrested.
Well by the time the weekend after the killings came, he knew that they were suspecting him. He actually told Mimi. He wrote Mimi a note at the end of their interviews that Friday, one week after the murders that the police suspect me. I did not do it. I love you. I actually saw that note. And so Mimi was in jail that Friday night, one week after the murders, and he was free to go saince he didn't take a
light detective test, they had no real evidence. He went home to his parents' house and he told his parents what had happened. They were shocked. There was a terrible weekend because they basically had to live with the fact that Mimi was in jail and that under suspicion. And that's when he revealed to them that he thought he might have bought some cartridges and they were They were
furious at him. And then something happened during the weekend and Jerry realized that they must have found evidence, because I think word came around that they were they were on the verge of going they were going to arrest him. The family lawyer had discovered this, I think, and then sure enough on Monday, Monday afternoon, the police were there and they take He was standing out in the yard he didn't want this to happen, in the house, looking at the flowhorse, and the family was in, Dorothy and
Wayne watching. They put him in the car and took him over and put him, put him under arrest and arraigned him that very day, and within about three days he was out on two hundred thousand dollars bail. The family was wealthy enough to put that up, so he was under suspicion, then arrested within ten days and then out on bail. And he stayed on on bail for five months and lived in the community of Cedar Falls as the accused murder of his own family. Was really a bizarre situation.
Now, getting back to the conversation he had because he knew that he had to counter these allegations that were involved in him being arrested, but he had to speak to his parents and ironically, and even more I guess pathetically, these people now have to spring for a really good lawyer. And also he's staying with them, and he has to explain why he got these cartridges. So tell us a little bit more about why he said he was held to buy these guns, these keys.
To his defense was having a story. He had to have a story, and Mimi was not going to provide it because of the phone records. So I flat out ask him in prison in nineteen eighty, I said, Shay, what in the world were you doing? What were you doing that whole time? Because he insisted, he as he insisted, and he still insists of this very day, that he did not do it. He could not do it. He could not have killed his brother because because and so I said, well what were you doing? Then he said, well,
the truth is I lied to the police. I do have to admit that I had a girlfriend. He met a girl on the road. I believe her name was Ginger. The names changed from the story to story, And because she was a pretty hitchhiker, they had a little affair, little fling, and he took her further different route than he told Mimi was going to take her. And he didn't want to tell anybody that because Mimi would have
realized he was unfaithful to her. Basically, so he was covering himself by not telling her the truth about where he was, and decided to go on further toward Iowa. He was having a good time with his hitchhiker, and then he let her go and she took off, and he realized he had to lie to Mimi in order to cover that story. And then the cartridges. I said, well, what about why in the world would you need a box of thirty eight long cold or any thirty eight cartridges?
And he said he lived in the neighborhood in near Berkeley, which was dangerous, and there were Simboni's Liberation Army people there, and he wanted to write a journalistic article about them, and he would get in good with them by giving them a box of cartridges. He thought they might be, you know, amenable to talking more if he would buy something for them they could use, and they could always use thirty eight cartridges. I mean, that was basically his story.
I thought it was amazing. No, I can't believe that anybody would believe that. And he made these He made these stories up regularly, actually, for various people at various times. And that's all he told me. And of course, my big question is why didn't you take the stand and tell this from a stand. Well that's another story. I'll get into that later, right.
Yeah. So now so now he's out on bail and the trial, the trial is going to start I guess fairly soon. I mean, maybe you can tell us how long it was before the trial started and what was his defense strategy, what was his the strategy of his defense team.
Well, the trial didn't start till May, and it was a change of venue. It took place in Sioux City. It was a very long time before he was actually out in Sioux City in terms of months. He was arrested in November, and six months later the trial started, So basically for six months he was out, they were preparing their defense and they didn't really have much to
go on. They brought thirteen witnesses and the prosecution brought sixty witnesses, so it was pretty quite overwhelming, and the only real defense he had was that he was a good guy. Everybody he brought character witnesses. Of course, his own mother testified, but they were not able to answer
the phone records. And they got one of the best lawyers in Iowa, by the way, it was Lawrence Galise, who was Attorney General of Iowa for a year and his assistant John Sandra, both highly skilled lawyers, and they worked and worked and work to try to find a way to convince a jury that this man could not have killed those people. But they just didn't have much evidence. There were some circumstance, well, it was all circumstantial. I after emphasize that there was nothing that placed Jerry on
the scene. The gun was never found, there were no fingerprints of any kind. They placed him by eyewitness very near the home place up in Aclee, Iowa, but they didn't place him any nearer than that. So the evidence was actually kind of sparse in terms of actually putting him on the scene. But all the eyewitnesses that did see him were sure they saw him. They identified him in and I would in a lineup. And then of course there were all these problems with the cartridges that
fit that particular gun, and then the lead lots. They tested the lead lots they were shown to be the same cartridges that he bought him and it couldn't be any more air tight than that. The jury deliberated only five hours so and then convicted him of four capital crimes. There just wasn't a very strong case. Laurrence Scalise left Sioux City the night before the verdicant went back to
the Moine. I think he must have known that there was no way that Jerry was going to get off on this one because the evidence was so overwhelming against him.
What did the defense team ask him to do that? Jerry? One of the more amazing parts of the book is the conversation they had with him during the trial about a strategy that they felt was necessary for them to employ at that trial. And then and then you talk about in the book about a dream that Jerry had and then his reconsideration. So tell us about that.
Right, I had a lot of help. You can imagine how much help I would need with the research for this. Had all the trial transcripts, but most importantly, I had all of David Dunton, the prosecutor, this special prosecutor from Blackhawk County. That and he's still alive, is still working and then doing wonderful job at an attorney. Had he gave me all of his notes for the trial, and he gave me the notes he would have used to
cross examine Jerry. Had Jerry taken the stand and all through the trial, lawn Sculli has kept saying that Jerry, you've got to take the stand. You've got to prepare yourself to face David Dutton, and you've got to be ready to tell your story. And Jerry kept saying all the way through the trial, Yes, I'll take a stand. I think I can do that. I can handle that.
And then in the story that I create he plans to He tells his mother and he tells police that he's going to take the stand the next day, and that night he has this terrible dream. It's a nightmare, and in that nightmare he understands what Dutton is going to say to him. And in that he has a dream and it's a nightmare dream. And in that nightmare, I actually used to note that David Dutt would have used had Jerry taken a stand, and it really is
a nightmare for Jerry Mark. And then fact, at that point he would have been crucified because Dutton had all the lies, lie after lie after lie after Why did you keep lying? You're a trained attorney, you know about the law. Tell us why you lied. And of course all he do is answer with these fragmented stories about a girlfriend on the road, a need to buy cartridges for the simones. These stories would not carry water or anybody carry wait with anybody, and the jury would have
seen through it. And of course at that point he would have been convicted by his own words and there wouldn't have been anyway his mother would have supported him then, I think, and he would have gone to prison as a convicted child killer, and that would have been even worse. So I think he took the least bad way out.
And his defense team knew that the case was very strong against Jerry. That's why they recommended something which they normally don't do, which is to take the stand in your own defense.
They really thought he had to do that and it was the only way he was going to be able to clear himself, and they said try to. What he really wanted to do was introduce some doubt in one juror's mind. All he had to do was say, okay, here's what probably happened and create a story. And at least one juror might have said, you know, I think he might have had a point there. Besides, he's such a great guy, could he be? How could he have
done that? And some jur could have been convinced and let him off therefore, and you know, because he didn't take a stand, I think that sealed his fate for sure.
Now what Dorothy, his mother was a good witness and a strong witness for the defense. What was her testimony and what was her demeanor like at trial?
Well, basically she took Dutton on. She told David Dutton that it doesn't bother me that what you're asking me, because I want to get at the truth, mister Dutton. What bothers me is that Jerry's been wrongly accused and you had no business and the police had no business even arresting him, much less bringing him to trial. She was very strong and very clear that her sons loved each other. She loved them, they got along just fine. There was no way Jerry could have committed this crime.
And she kept repeating that, and of course Dunton basically said, this is sediment. We know that we have the evidence regardless of what the mother thinks. And Dunton basically took her a part too, and not in so much in cross examination, but in the clo thing said, of course, some others are going to testify that their sons. Her sons are wonderful people who love each other. There's just not the evidence that actually supports that. So you've got to go by the evidence, not by by what the
mother says. So that would turn it out to be what they thought was a fairly strong argument for Jerry's innocence, turned out to be something that Dunton Riddy could take apart, and the jury eventually disregarded it.
Now, Now, the one of the one of the things I found interesting as well is that the scalas and Jerry decided that even though he wasn't going to take the stand, that maybe he could act as co counsel and then in that way he could make a statement at the end, just very much like his lawyer could address the jury tell us about that. I think what was the result of that.
You know, one aspect of this case which makes it very interesting is that lawyers can always find loopholes, and I kept looking for loopholes Jerry. In fact, all of his appeals were based on minor loopholes in the case. All of his appeals just basically said there was this little issue, this little issue is and that would introduce enough doubt to get him off. They were looking for some way to introduce a loophole, and Jerry said, well, I just really want to tell my story. There's no
reason I shouldn't. I'm going to declare myself my own lawyer. And when you're free to do that during a trial, I'll just say, okay, I'm my own lawyer. I'm going to stand up and make my own case as a lawyer as part of the closing. He thought he could introduce his testimony as part of his own lawyer's closing, and the judge was actually shocked. Judge Inglekus said, well, I'll have to take that hunder consideration. Nobody's ever asked
to do that, and Dunton strongly objected. He said, there's no way the defendants should take the stand in his own defense without being cross examined. If he wasn't willing to be cross examined, he has no business acting as a co counselor at the end of the trial. And at that point and Jerry decided not to and the Anglicists didn't have to rule on it. I think he would have ruled against it, but he did not have to rule on it. That was a good thing.
Really, Now you say that the jury didn't deliberate for very long, and they came back with the convictions for four counts of first degree murder. Yes, and off he went to prison. And what did his lawyers advise him after that, or even even at the sentencing itself, What did they advise him to do in light of what was in store a little bit later.
Well, they've they've realized that there are plenty of plenty of opportunities during the trial to find loophole. There were problems here and there. There were minor issues. There were se eyewitnesses that disagreed. There was an issue with what date did the one of the witnesses saw him if he saw him on Friday or Saturday, leslie one. And so they just kept saying, Okay, Jerry, you've lost for now, but you're going to win on appeal. We can almost
guarantee it. And that way, you know, hate to be cynical about this, but that way they kept themselves in business for a long time. His lawyers, not so much lawn Scoolise, but John Sander remained his lawyers through several appeals and they basically kept themselves employed with the Mark family money keeping appeals going because the mother absolutely thought these appeals had to keep going. She knew Jerry was going to get off sooner or later. They actually had
rewards out for the real killer. Their local paper carried ads for people that would help find the real killer, and their strategy was to continue looking for loopholes, and then when DNA evidence came out, they said, Okay, now we've got DNA evidence, let's look for that. Gradually, the deutron activation analysis was disregarded and that was a strong
part of the trials showing the leadloss. So as time changed, times changed, and notions of DNA evidence came out, they thought there was new evidence that could prove he was innocent.
And they never did find the weapon, you know, that kind of thing, So they kept trying and trying and trying it until finally in two thousand and six Judge O'Brien, Donald O'Brien said, in fact, he should get a new trial, that he really didn't get a fair trial, and there was an exculpatory evidence that I mentioned at the beginning, and that's when I really got shocked and realized that they hadn't looked at all the evidence, and then their
judge O'Brien hadn't looked at all the evidence. There were contradictory cases, and there was some issue with the DNA evidence, but it wasn't enough to override that major evidence of the cartridges and the phone records and then the motorcycle license plates, there was enough evidence to convict him that didn't contradict anything that putting that actually paid they should have paid attention to. And that's when the judge three judge panel listened to this appeal said Okay, that's it.
There's actually no reason to give this man freedom. He got a fair trial. He should stay in prison the rest.
Of his life.
And that's what happened.
Now, tell us about you say that three years after his conviction, you asked him for an interview and he granted you an interview. Tell us about that interview.
Well, I was with my car at that time. I had a co writer, a co worker, Linda Kentner, who worked at the Theater Falls Data Record and covered the trial, and she and I we interviewed several people. We interviewed George and Margaret Colthurst, the parents of the slain woman. We interviewed Dorothy, and we interviewed David Dutton and Lawrence Scalise, and then we went down to prison together and interviewed Jerry.
As she knew Jerry fairly well from the trial. They had talked some off and on during the trial a little, and I had known him from heist, known him from high school, and I really wanted to talk to him about what had happened. And we met him in that prison visitor area, and he was a very muffled up guy. It looked like he'd been doing a lot of weightlifting,
and he was also very tense. And the thing that came out of that conversation more than anything, was how upset he still was at his who did not let certain evidence come out about the Mark real estate business. The Marked real estate business was engaged in some shady dealings, and in fact, two local lawyers were disbarred because of that. And Jerry thought that if had that evidence come out during the trial, there would have been a new motive.
The judge or the jury could have seen that there were people really angry at Wayne Mark for these crooked land dealings, and that possibly there could have been some doubt introduced in some jury's mind. And he actually broke down and cried a bit when he talked about upset he was that his father wouldn't let this evidence come out. His father really protected these lawyers at the time over
his own son's freedom, and that really bothered him. And also he was furious that David Dunton, he was furious that the court system had let him down and the legal system had let him down, and that he had basically been framed. So he was indignant and upset the whole way through. And I realized that we had a kind of sociopath a lawyer here who had who had lied his way through life and was still lying to us. I mean, even at the time, I realized that these
stories just didn't make any sense. It kind of made me nervous to be around him as a matter of fact, but I realized he wasn't going to do anything to us. He was just making his own case, inventing he needed to vent on this case because he felt really what upsetting most was that he was caught. I don't think he was upset that he committed this terrible crime, but that he was caught.
For right now, what did he were? Your motives that you wanted to write this book very clear to him at that time, and what did he think at the time about you writing this book? And do you know what he is his thoughts are regarding the end product your book, and that's finally released this year.
I have no idea about that. He's not he's not talking to me. I did get a letter from a book sell may not a se but a block made of his that said he knew Jerry's story and he would like to read the book, and I sent a copy to him. I'm waiting to hear what he thinks about the book. But I went down there with the notion that if he has a story to tell, I could help tell it. I mean, I was a newspaper writer. I'd done a lot of writing. I taught writing. I
pay attention to language. I thought I could help tell his story, and if he really had a point in fact, I believe that maybe there's some chance that he got a raw deal. I wasn't really sure. Linda was more Linda Kettner was more sure than I was. But I thought, well, all right, I'd like to listen to him. I was really curious, and especially because he had committed he said he would kill himself. That sort of got my attention.
And then I realized the more I listened, and by then I'd read the trial transcripts and paid attention to the evidence, the more I realized I was dealing with a kind of inveteral liar and a killer, and it was a kind of nerve wracking. But at the time I started talking to him about it, and when I was listening to him, I thought, well, you know, he's pretty convinced. He certainly convinced Mimi, and he convinced his mother that he was innocent because his mother was ready.
But Mimi. I did talk to Mimi. I was going to interview her too, but John Sander wouldn't let me because of the ongoing appeals. But she told me over the phone from Berkeley that everything I needed to know about the Mark murders I could learn from Jerry Mark, and that to me told me that she thought he was guilty. By then they were divorced by the way, she get.
Married to him, right, and she attended the trial, the entire trial.
You know, I think Mimi and her mother, both Mimi and Jerry's mother rather Dorothy, had to be kept away because from the actual listening to the trial, because there was a chance they could be called those witnesses. So yeah, I heard the full, full bore evidence and all the rest of us saw on read.
Yeah, that wasn't the book as well too, because they were witnesses. They cannot attend that part of the trial or.
Ain't their testimony if they sat through the trial? Right?
Yeah, absolutely, And you say that the community Seater Falls still is affected by this murder as well.
One of the biggest surprises to me. You know, this is a very small publishing company, ice Cube Press and North Liberty. Ioway, it's not Time Warner, and we have very short, very small print runs. We expected maybe a couple thousand copies at the most. It's in its fourth printing. Now people can't seem to get enough of it. It's just it's they kind of fly off the shelves. I had no idea. Everywhere I go I signed copies. I've
got more readings coming up in signings. It's very very popular in the sense that people want to know this story. They remember hearing about it from their parents, if they were small at the time, and if they were alive at the time, they remember everything about it. So we have long conversations about what they remember and all the stuff they've heard, and it sort of sets the record straight, and they just keep wanting to know more about it because it's just so unusual.
Now it is the at the time. Did the case resonate how far did it resonate, say, nationally or nationally in the US?
Well, horrible crimes happen everywhere. Crimes of fifth caliber from a family member who is so well educated and so well liked and so popular, so well known in the community against his own family are in fact highly unusual. So this did have a national audience. There was there everybody covered this. I noticed the Chicago Tribune did an extensive story on the on the judge o Brand's decision, and several reporters from around the country have covered that.
So you know, it does have some national legs, as they say, but so far, I think it's a great regional interest because everybody remembers it. I'm going to be curious to see if the larger audience is ever interested in reading the story, because it certainly has interest to people that are acquainted with it at this point.
Anyway, was there supporters of Jerry Mark based on the conviction on circumstantial evidence.
Well, you know, two years ago, he had his fiftieth reunion and several of his classmates from Cedar Falls I went down to Fort Madison and visited him, and they came home absolutely convinced a horrible injustice has been done, that Jerry's imprisoned wrongly, that somebody should do something about it. And they encourage all their classmates to write him and actually go down and see him and try to help him, because he'd been in prison all these many years, wrong, wrongly,
and he needs some help. And so people still aren't convinced that he didn't do it. They still insisted he is such a good guy that there's no way he could have done those terrible crimes. That's why I think they need to read this book and get the full story.
Yeah. Absolutely, What was your What was the effect of covering this story from aune need you're very very you know very much about and from somebody that you that you knew that was accused of this murder. How did it affect you?
I actually I felt like people were pressuring me after the two thousand and six appeals. Everybody said, when are you going to finish that book? We want to know more? And I began writing articles about it in the paper and delivering actually shortened versions of it, and huge crowds would show up. I remember one at the Cedar Falls Library, three hundred people showed up. I had to actually give
it twice because there's just so much interest. That actually encouraged me to continue, because I realized this is not something that's going to go away. Everywhere I went, people said, all right, I finished that book. We want to read that story. So from a curiosity a standpoint, I think this finally satisfies their curiosity. This story now is known or is going to be known for people to finish the book, and from now on I think the facts
of the case will be known. And it's kind of entered into the mythology of you know, the dark mythology of Iowa, where this terrible killer who was one of the nicest guys anybody who wanted to know did what he did and actually there's no doubt about it. I've been called a why done it? Rather than who done it?
I was just going to say that too, that you you coined that phrase that if this is not a who done it, but a very much why he had done it right exactly, and you explore that well, Scott, I want to congratulate you on a great book, very very compelling read. You're on the edge of his seat all the way through, even though it seems like somewhat of a slam dunk, but there's so many twists and turns in this and you've really captured the essence of
this this trial and how it affected the Citty. Again, I want to congratulate you on a great book, Brothers Blood.
I really appreciate your interest. I can't I can't thank you enough for this in depth interview.
Thank you well. I want to thank you, and I know that the audience is very interested in this. I know that I first became aware of this your book because of true crime book reviews and Kim Cantrell, and she does a great job, doesn't pull any punches, and she raved about this book so very rightfully so too, so I want to thank her as well. And I'm sure we'll be hearing some response from the audience and this story would definitely resonate with the audience that listens to this program.
So good well, thank you, Dan, and I appreciate the interview.
As I say, well, thank you very much, Scott and I hope to hear from you again and the best of luck with this book. But like you say, this story is very interesting to a lot of people and I'm sure it will continue. And the best of success in the future whatever you do, and another book project that you endeavor to do. So thank you very much, and you have a great evening.
Thank you you too, Thank you very much.
Even listening to the program True Murder the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors have written about them, and the book that we've been featuring this evening is Brothers God by Scott Quallette cal Welty. Good Night,