What Happened To Paula

Carol Oberbroeckling

I just always had a bad feeling about Debby Kellogg, and I always had a feeling that Robert and Lonnie, neither one had anything to do with Paula’s death. Because you would think that I’d be full of animosity and think right away, “Oh, that Robert.” But I didn’t. I didn’t. And Lonnie, bless his heart, he sat there with us day after day after day. You could tell that he was hurting, too. No, I never felt that Lonnie or Robert had anything to do with it.

But Debby Kellogg, that’s another story. She knew exactly where Paula was going that night. She had to. You don’t live with someone and they come in and say, “I’m going to take your car,” and off they go and you don’t know where. Plus, when Paula was missing, Debby never came around. We never saw her. She never even called to ask, “Did you hear anything? Do you know anything?”

The autopsy didn’t tell us anything. I guess they had her little bones down at the University, because we didn’t bury her until December 7th. Pearl Harbor Day. They said  they checked for everything. They checked for broken bones in the throat and they checked for places where a bullet or a knife might have glanced off her bone, and they checked her marrow for drugs, too, and they found nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.

They told me not to look at the skeleton. I had no intention. I didn’t want to remember that. But Delilah Greene told me she looked at it. Why would they show Delilah Paula’s skeleton?

Because they had no cause of death, the insurance company wasn’t going to pay on her insurance policy. I called my lawyer about it, and he said, “I can get it for you, Carol, but I’ll want one third of the money.” So I was crying that morning, and a friend of mine came in and asked me what was the matter. And I told him, I said, “New York Life won’t pay because they don’t know how she died.” It was a triple indemnity policy, and they wouldn’t even offer me the base amount. I told my friend, “I’ve got all these bills. The funeral home keeps calling me, and I have no money to pay them.” He said, “Oh, I can take care of that,” and he got on the phone and called the insurance commissioner right then and there. He got a deputy, and he put me on the phone, and I told him who I was. “Oh, Mrs. Oberbroeckling,” the deputy says. “I’m familiar with that case.” I said, “Well, you know my daughter didn’t tie herself up and throw herself down off of the ditch and lay there.”

That was a Wednesday morning. The following Wednesday morning, one week, my insurance agent called and said, “Carol I have your money.” They even made them pay interest on the money, as well as the full amount. It was that Deputy Commissioner that got that for me. Free. Bless his heart.

∞

When I had to call out to Colorado and tell Jim that they found Paula, his wife answered and I said, “Patty, you stay there with him.”  And she said, “Okay,” and then he came on the phone and I said, “Jimmer, they found our daughter,” and he just went berserk. 

At the funeral he was trying to open the casket. Poor guy. There was nothing in there but bones, but he was trying, there in the back of the church.

Bill Stewart, bless his heart, he ran the Monahan Stewart Funeral Home. And I told him, I said, “Bill, when you put my Paula in the casket, try to lay her out as close as you can, you know. I mean, just don’t put a sack of bones in there.” And he said, “I promise, Carol, I will.” And then, bless his heart, he said, “Would you like to bring a dress that I can lay over her?”And I said, “Oh my God, no,” but then I went out with my mother and my sister, and we shopped. I knew exactly in my mind what I wanted. I wanted a soft puffy coverlet with roses on it. And I went all over town until I finally found one. I took that to Bill and I said, “Put this over Paula and tuck it up underneath her chin.”

I wanted a white casket with gold trim. We had to special order it, but by cracky, I got it. And it was beautiful. I sat there and looked at that casket and looked at that casket. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

Lynn and Randy and I, we hung behind the boys, and Toddy was in the middle, and he had his hands on the boys’ shoulders. I had on a black coat, and I had a wig on. With a black headband. Probably a black dress. Because at that time the fashion was slim black coats and then you wore a pretty pin on it.

It was so sad at the funeral, because Jim’s wife, the kid’s dad’s wife, she was not sure of Jim, and she was there. She should have stayed at Grandma Vera’s and took care of Lynn’s baby, but she insisted on going to the funeral. And she really should not have, because it was not a very nice scene. We were in the foyer and Mr. Stewart was trying to line us all up, because the casket goes down first and then the family all follows. Of course he took me and had me up right in front, and he said, “Where’s Jim?”And Jim, he’s back in the back, and it was embarrassing, because you could hear—everybody in the church could hear it—he’s screaming, “I want up there with Carrie! I want up there with Carrie!” And Patty is going, “Jim! Jim!” And she’s yanking him back, and he’s sagging, and his face is all red, he’s got tears all over his face. It was just godawful, and she wouldn’t let him come up there and walk down the aisle with me. And my mother, she stepped up and she said, “Mr. Stewart, I’ll walk down with my daughter.” So, it was Mom and I, and then it was Todd and Tim and Chris, and Todd was the oldest, and he had the boys on either side of him, and I think it was Lynn and Randy after that, then and Bob and Grandma Vera. And Jim and Patty got stuck way back in the back somehow. That was a sad thing.

Then when we got out to the cemetery, it was cold and it was snowy, and they finished the prayers at the very end, and all of a sudden I couldn’t move my legs. It was terrifying. I went to turn around from the casket, and my body wouldn’t work. I don’t know what happened. And I tried to turn around, and Don Dvorak, the guy that had D.J.’s tavern, he came up and he helped me, and Jim starts in again. We’re heading for the limousine, and there’s Lynn and Randy and the three boys and me, and poor Jim’s yelling, “I wanna ride with Carrie! I wanna ride with Carrie!” And he’s screaming. And Patty is yanking at him—”Jim! Jim!”—again. Don, he pushes me in next to the driver and he gets in and he slams the door. He said, “Go!” And the driver took off and drove us home.

Then,  poor Jimmer, instead of going to his mother’s house, because his mother had all of her friends over there, he came to our house. He sat right across the room from me. He and Patty. She just sat there and hung onto him all afternoon. It was the saddest thing in the whole world. The poor man was literally torn. He was just literally torn. My heart ached for him.

∞

My sister Ardyth Haynes, she had an inoperable brain tumor. She discovered it at thirty-two, and she died at forty-two. She was a go-getter, but she wasn’t really able to do anything, because the first thing they did, when she started having her grand mal seizures, was take her driver’s license.

I know she was very upset, though, and I know my brother-in-law was extremely upset, too, because the day of Paula’s funeral I saw him in the foyer of the church, and he was banging his head on the bricks. He was just standing there, bang bang bang. Poor man.

There was another fellow who was upset, too. I know, because the police were there and they were watching everybody, and they told me later the only thing strange that happened is some guy came running out of the church and threw his briefcase and papers flew all over. I have no idea what it was. But there was a fellow there that threw his briefcase. He didn’t have anything to do with it. He was just upset.

Everybody was upset.

Lynn Greve

The detectives were at the church when we had the funeral, because they said sometimes people go back to the scene, and they were going to look for anything suspicious, and there was a guy in the back, who stood up and acted all crazy. And they thought they got their guy or something. They thought he had something to do with it. But he didn’t. I don’t know if he just went there or if he felt bad about what happened to her, but he was acting real crazy in the back of the church, and the detectives detained him or questioned him. But it turned out to be nothing. He just thought it was unfair or something. That she was dead.

∞

She left there with nothing, no purse, no money, no anything to go have this taken care of. Why wouldn’t Kellogg go with her? Or Robert? I can’t believe that she would just go alone and drive herself home. To this day, I can’t believe if Paula was going to do that, go see this guy and have an abortion, she wouldn’t have told me. She might not gonna tell my mom, and she might not even have told me everything, but she might at least have said, “I’ve got to do something, and I need a backup.” Or, “I need you.” But, no, she never did.

George Steinke

But the church was full of mourners. Really tough. Really tough. I mean, here we are eighteen years old, dealing with somebody who stood next to me in the receiving line at the reception and was in my wedding, stood at the altar there with my wife and myself. It shakes me to this day. And how she ended up and how they found her. I stood there and watched them bury her. I sat in that church on First Avenue, the Catholic church, knowing that all that was in that casket was just bones.

Angela (Nejdl) Everett

Where I was living at the time was at like 21st Avenue SW. If they were at a party at our house that night, then there was a lot of drugs, and it was acid probably, at the time. I don’t think any of them were into heroin or anything like that at that time. Speed, maybe. White crosses. Lonnie might have been dealing drugs. Everybody was dealing drugs. I don’t know if you’d call him a big dealer, but everybody was dealing drugs. I’m guessing he was maybe a couple years younger than me. I just knew him just through partying. That’s how it was then. That’s all it was. I don’t even know how I met him. Back in those days you just trusted everybody and you just met people. “This is so-and-so, and this is so-and-so,” and that was it.

Lonnie just seemed like a good old boy. Kinda went along with the flow of the way things were gonna go, and was just really easy-going and he didn’t appear to be smart enough or energetic enough to do that to her. I could see him just leaving her sitting in a car somewhere and bleeding to death, but not going out and actually staking her in a ditch.

He was sort of cute, in a sheepish kind of way. Ash blond hair. Shaggy, long.

I guess, for lack of a better description, you could say we were hippies. Iowa hippies—torn jeans, barefoot, sandals. Just into whatever. And most of us worked. Some of us went to college. Most of us didn’t. We all worked, though, and so it was mostly weekends that we partied. I suppose we smoked pot every night, too, but we never went out. We didn’t hang out anywhere. We didn’t go to bars very often. We’d go to the Maid Rite on First Avenue. We were four girls living in a house. We’d find a guy to drive us around all night.

We’d drive up and down First Avenue. My first apartment was across the street from Henry’s Hamburger on First Avenue. Everybody’d stand outside and watch the cars go up and down First Avenue. I had just moved back to the States at the time, so I wasn’t doing drugs then. I lived in Africa. In Nigeria. My aunt and uncle taught over there at the university, and so I went over as their dependent and lived there for a couple years. So I was way out of the loop when I came back. Right after high school. It took me a while to get into the groove of things.

When I came back from Africa, I started running around with Jeannette and we just led our lives. Then I got married when I was 25 or 26. We weren’t married very long. By that time we were kinda out of the loop, because my ex-husband was a junkie. But that’s a whole different story. When I met him he wasn’t. He had already cleaned up his act. But then after we were married for a while and we had a successful business, obviously it was something that he was drawn to, and he started shooting heroin again. And that was kind of the demise of the relationship. We had a successful business and it caught fire and all of a sudden he didn’t have the handy money anymore. And I was stupid. I didn’t realize what he was doing. Because he was a very high functioning junkie. We had a fruit market in Marion. He was getting his junk from black people. I think they came in from Des Moines.

Lonnie idolized Paula. That was a woman that you’d put on a pedestal. She was beautiful. Long blond hair, tall, thin. This was somebody that your normal schlub wouldn’t be going out with. And he had found something that he thought was great.

I only met her once or twice. That was about it. With Lonnie. But I hardly ever saw them together, and so I don’t think she was always with Lonnie. She dating a black guy, as well. That was a big scandal. That was, “Heaven forbid!”

Who knows where we heard this stuff from. People just talking.

I heard that Paula’s body was up on the side of the road. It was staked up in a ditch. There was stuff on TV. Everybody knew she was missing., but I don’t remember anybody searching for her.

I was also always under the understanding that she had had an abortion. It was always a rumor that she was pregnant by a black man and she had gone to get an abortion and that something went wrong and she was with Lonnie when she started bleeding. Like I say, that’s all speculation and gossip. People weren’t speculating about what might have happened. They were just suspicious of Lonnie right away, that he must have known or had something to do with taking her for the abortion. Or something like that, and that’s how we all kind of figured he got hooked up into it. I can’t imagine him being smart enough to hide a body or do something like that, but he had to be scared enough to dump her if he thought she was dying. I don’t think he would do the right thing. I think he’d be scared.

The situation was sad, but I don’t think anyone thought anything negative about the abortion. They were mostly just surprised that she would have become pregnant by a black man, because we really only knew her with Lonnie. That was all stuff we learned after they found her body. You know, you’d start talking.

The local police always thought Lonnie did it, too. They were after him. Everybody was afraid of the police then. You just didn’t associate with them. We were doing illegal things.

My guess is that they figured that this is the one that knew the most. If he didn’t know what happened to her, he knew something. And they figured maybe that was the only way they were ever going to get any information, but they couldn’t get him to take a lie detector test or anything like that. He ended up checking himself into Two East, the psych ward over at St. Luke’s Hospital. That’s what gave everybody the true suspicions that he had something to do with it.

Delilah Greene

I was already in Florida and Paula was still in CR, and how I personally found out about it was her sister called me, Lynn, and wanted to know if Paula was at my house. In Lakewood. And I said, “No, why would Paula be here?” and she said, “She’s been missing for two or three days, and we thought maybe she would come to see you or something.” And I said, no, I hadn’t heard from her. Lynn and I talked several times, over time, but that was the last that I had seen or heard from Paula.

The last time Paula and I spent any time together, Paula and Sandy Harmer and I went to spring break in Fort Lauderdale. And that was in March, I guess, and we were gone for a week and then we came back home and I talked to Paula off and on, but I didn’t see a lot of her because I ended up moving to Florida.

I was married, to Steve, and then after he got killed in the car accident, I stayed with my brother for a while and then I ended up staying in Florida and then from Florida I went to Alabama and from Alabama back to Florida.

Steve and I were married in Lakewood and then we moved back to Cedar Rapids and then my daughter was born there in Cedar Rapids, and then he died in September of 1969, and then I went back to Florida with my daughter and then we moved back to Cedar Rapids at a later time, way after Paula died. That was home.  I went to school and grew up there. But by then my brother had moved, and so I was there really by myself.  So I ended up back in Florida.

They asked me if I wanted to see the picture of her remains. It was just the picture. I didn’t see the actual remains. I was living in Florida and they asked me to come back to Cedar Rapids for an interview, so I flew back and met with a detective.   And he said, “Do you want to see a picture?” And I said, “Is it gross?” And he said, “No.”

I was just kinda shocked and I said okay. The picture was black and white and you couldn’t hardly tell it was her. It was just bones and a little thread of what I believe was a nightgown that she had on. It was just some bones and grass. And, I just kinda sat there for a minute.  It was just, “Oh my God,” you know, and then he said that they identified her, through dental records.

Lynn called the day that they had determined that it was Paula. She had called my parents’ house, and I was at my sister’s house in Largo, and she talked to my dad and it just killed him. He called me just hysterical and crying and said, “You need to call Lynn. You need to call Lynn.  They found Paula.” And I said, “What do you mean they found Paula? Is she okay?” And he said, “No. They found her skeleton.” And that’s how I found out about it. And I called Lynn and talked to her, so I was totally away from it all really.  I didn’t know what all was going on.

Paula and Debby Kellogg had an apartment… But see I was never there. I never did go over to their apartment.

Paula didn’t ever tell me she was pregnant. When we were on our spring break trip, she’d made a comment about it. Just girls talking, and I hadn’t been with anybody since Steve died, so I said, “Well, I don’t know what I would do if I were to become pregnant, because I wouldn’t even know who did it.” And she said, “Well, just all I can tell you is, you know, just be very very careful. You don’t want, you know, anything to happen.”  I said, “Well, I don’t have to worry about that right now.”

For a long time she was was dating Robert and he and Paula came to my and Steve’s house just when mixed couples were just starting. And Steve didn’t care. He knew Robert and I knew Robert, too, from school. So Paula and Robert came to the house and Lynn said, “You know, I don’t know how everybody’s going to react,” and I said, “What do you mean how everybody’s gonna react?  Who cares?”  It just never affected me at all, but I guess her family were always different. It was a different time. My mother would have had a cow back in those days, too, but I’m married to a black man now. We’ve been together for thirty years. And my mother loved him to death, you know, before she passed away. So, you know, times have really changed.

Steve was white and I met him the summer that I turned thirteen. So he was my true love. I was married at sixteen and had my daughter at seventeen and was a widow at seventeen.

That there’d been a botched abortion was the rumor that I heard. I don’t have any idea where that rumor came from. It may have come from Debby Kellogg. I never questioned her about it. She was having a lot of problems I think… um… nervous problems, and she had a breakdown and she never did tell me anything.

I remember the rumor, and someone told me they thought that she went to have an abortion and it was botched and she died and they dumped the body and the guy that had something to do with it was killed in a poker game a year or two years later. in a poker game or something?

Somebody said that whoever this guy was, that they thought that he had done it, but they could never prove it.

When Paula and I were in tenth grade we were pretty good friends, but Lynn and I were better friends. Lynn and I ended up being really close, and Paula kinda went her own way.

My brother has told me that somebody had called in the middle of the night, and I don’t think that they asked for me but he said the voice was real muffled, and they said something to the effect of “Help me,” and he said, “Where are you? Tell me where you’re at and I’ll come get you. Who is this?” And then the phone went dead. At that time he didn’t know anything about Paula being missing or whatever.

I wonder if that was Paula that called. He said, “I didn’t think a whole lot about it.” He said, “I just figured somebody was pulling a practical joke or something,” and of course he didn’t know Paula was missing either.

Fort Lauderdale was the place to go on spring break, and when Steve died I had insurance money, and Sandy and Paula had never been anywhere or done anything and I was always talking about Florida and I told them that I would take them to Florida for spring break.

Sandy and I had an apartment together, and my brother took care of my daughter and Sandy’s son, and Sandy and Paula and I drove to Florida for a week and we spent it at Fort Lauderdale at spring break.

Paula was horrified of flying. And then she was going to come down and see me one time. She said she was just trying to get away and stuff, and I said, “Well, I’ll fly you down.” She said, “No!” And she never did come down. The only time she came down was the time that the three of us went to Fort Lauderdale.

That was March, and we were all wearing bikinis an stuff, and Paula was tall and thin and wasn’t sick or anything like that. I’d already had a child, so I knew the symptoms, so she NEVER mentioned anything like that to me, and I hadn’t really talked to her about it, because it never came up. Even though I had been married already and a widow, I was still only seventeen.

Lynn got married just a few months after Steve died and one of the other girls that was in her wedding was pregnant and putting on weight and I had lost a tremendous amount of weight, so we ended up switching dresses so we could all still be in the wedding. The pregnant girl ended up in my dress and I ended up in hers.

It was a tough time for me. I suffered from serious panic attacks and all kinds of stuff for almost two years. It was just being so young and two people that were so important to me dying, and both of them so drastic. It was just really a time for me.

If Paula thought she was pregnant, her parents were NOT happy about her dating a black person. Oh, not at all. She was a good Catholic girl, and I think she thought that was just gonna tear her mom and dad up. She probably thought, well if she had the abortion, they would never know. 

People would talk about drinking quinine water or something like that, but I don’t know of anybody that went through it, and Paula never mentioned anything about anything like that to me.

This store called Spartans was on First Avenue, across from Lindale Plaza. It was the first store that was similar to like a Wal-Mart, it was a big store like that, and Paula and I worked there. This was when I was still married to Steve. They were having a big party from work, and Steve said I could go with Paula. Everybody from work was there, young folks and old folks both.  At about ten, eleven o’clock Paula said, ” I’m gonna run to the store and get a pack of cigarettes.” And she disappeared. Then it was like two o’clock in the morning and finally one of the guys brought me home. I called Lynn and said, “Lynn, I’m afraid to come home, because I’m gonna be in trouble,” and she said, “Do you know where Paula’s at?” And I said, “No.” She went to another party somewhere else and somebody used her car and they robbed a store or something, and they had Paula’s car and so Paula had been at the police station. So everybody was looking for me, and I was still at the work party, and so when I got home everybody was wanting to know, “Did you go with Paula?” and I said, “No, I didn’t go with Paula.” And I can’t remember exactly what happened, but she had gone to another party and left me, so somebody from my job ended up bringing me home. 

I don’t know whose party it was, where it was, or anything else.  I know it was some of the folks that she was running around with that I didn’t run around with. Debbie Buchheister I think was at this party, and that’s the only name I remember because Debbie’s brother, David Buchheister, was my first little boyfriend, like in the first grade or second grade or something like that, and that’s the only reason I remember Debbie was at this party, but I don’t know who else was there.

I don’t know who told me this, but after Paula came up missing Debby Kellogg was afraid to get in her car, and she wanted somebody to look in the trunk of her car because she was so afraid because they couldn’t find Paula anywhere.

And I know Lynn’s grandmother spent hours and hours and days with detectives trying to find out what happened to Paula.

Paula had a blue nightgown. It was like two layered, sheer. That’s what she took to Florida with her.

 At Seifert’s they were having this thing that Seventeen Magazine was coming in and taking pictures, and Paula got a real nice picture because of her height. She was tall, blonde, pretty, and they put a really nice picture of Paula in Seventeen Magazine. And I do have that picture. 

When we went for spring break, Sandy and Paula had never been anywhere, and I had done some traveling with my parents, and we went to Chattanooga, and it was hilarious because back then, black people in the south were so totally different than black people in the north, and they were treated totally different.  And we pulled into a gas station and there was this little black guy and the white guy said, “Boy, hurry up and get their gas and check the windshield and the tires,” and Paula looked at me and said, “Did you hear what he said?” And I started laughing, and I said, “Paula, we’re in the South.” And she said, “Oh my God, there would be a war at home,” and I said, “Yes,” I said, “but we’re in the South.”  I said, “Keep your mouth shut, we’re just getting gas.” 

Robert Williams 

When they found Paula and everything and had the funeral, her dad was the only person in that family who would talk to me. He came over to where I was at my mother’s, and he stayed all day with me. He knew I was upset, because he knew how much I cared and loved Paula. He and I got along real well.

I didn’t even go to the funeral. I was too messed up.

Also, there was so much controversy on me at that time, and my mother felt that I shouldn’t attend. I don’t think I could have held up that day, going to her funeral, anyway. That would have been just a bad bad thing, and it could have been a very negative situation there. I mean, her mother just probably would have come unglued. She probably would have been shouting accusations and this or that or whatever. That would not have been what Paula wanted. That would not have been proper.

Debby Kellogg

Paula’s death, it was horrible. One of the worst things that ever happened to me. They put my name in the newspapers, because she borrowed my car, and they put that in the article after they found her, and it got around that the night of the murder she borrowed Debby Kellogg’s car, and they found it. And I remember my whole family was at my door every five minutes. “Oh, you have to come home, you could be murdered.” You know how that goes. And then when I was like, what, 18 or 19, I said, “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

Okay, so my family said, for sure they knew it was my car. They probably left some evidence in my car, and they were gonna kill me. They’d already murdered Paula. At that time we didn’t know who, but my brother-in-law who was best friends with this cop, he knew. And they did think Paula was gone, and there was something… What I knew was something wasn’t right. Because I was in a No Parking thing and they kept saying to me, “Don’t move your car.” You know, and then when they started coming around is when they impounded my car. And by then it was way too late. And a friend and I, we went around Cedar Rapids and we found the car and said, “My car is the car. Something’s wrong.” And here they come back a year later and say, “Well, we’re gonna impound your car and look for evidence.” And I said, “No.” And, “That was a year ago.”

They were looking for anything. And you can’t blame them. Her grandmother was looking for anything. She thought that me and Lonnie had been in the car, you know. That was in an old lady’s head. She had it that Lonnie and I—now God only knows why, but maybe it was her age—that Lonnie and I were holding Paula in captivity somewhere.

One of the people that I ran around with told me that they heard that Lonnie and I were holding Paula. There were other stories, too, a couple of them. How many times did I call the police station? I called the police station all the time. I had to take a lie detector test and my boss… and I said, “Um, you know, my best friend…” and he said, “Okay.”

They just automatically blamed it on me. It was my fault that she was running around with black people, and everything was my fault. And I was kind of used to that, because that’s what happened at my house, you know. I was the youngest girl, and I was always picked on. And my sisters had to drag me along, and they didn’t like that. They made it known to me. So I was kind of used to that.

I was trying to protect Paula from any kind of a scandal or anything. I wasn’t lying to the police in that way. And so she told me she was going out for cigarettes. But she also told me, “You know.” And I said, “Yeah,” but I had no clue that it was an abortion. I don’t know what I would have done if I knew that that was it, and she was meeting people somewhere in a desolate area, with a coat hanger or whatever. I wouldn’t have loaned my car to her. We were really good friends, but she obviously had another life. And one time the police said that, you know, they didn’t really go after it full throttle. Because I checked with them all the time and they didn’t go after her. Then I find my car up around Mt. Vernon Road. Mahacek’s drug store. Well, there was a “No parking here to corner,” so what is my car doing there? And so I called the police, and they said, “Just leave it there. We’ll get to it. They told me to leave it there. Okay, so that’s in the summer. And I kept getting tickets, and I would call those detectives, and I’d say, “I’m getting tickets,” and I’d say, “Are you gonna pick up this car?” “Yep, yep, yep.” Well, they didn’t, so I finally just took it. And then the back window was rolled down and I didn’t roll the back window down, so I knew there was something that was going on. They wouldn’t listen. You know. I told them, “Take the car.” If they’d have taken the car, they may have found some evidence. They didn’t take it. They didn’t take it seriously.

There could have been another man. You know how pretty she was. She was seeing both Lonnie and Robert at the same time and having sex with both of them at the same time. And there could have been another. I would think it would be a black man. For some reason in my heart, I feel as though it would have been a black man.

After they found her, when I saw the gown, it was brown. It was mud dried. I had to identify the gown and her black pearl and then there was this other ring. I had to identify the rings. And I wanted one of hers. She was my very best friend, but she was a best friend that lived a secret life. I mean, I’m not saying that I was innocent by any means, you know. I was like a wild banshee, after this thing with my mom. Anything I could do to hurt her, I would. And it took me a long time to get over it.

After Paula disappeared, I was very scared, and  my family were at my door all the time, every evening.  They made me move out of that apartment because they thought they may have thought they left evidence in there and they would kill me. Whoever was driving my car. Because see, in my mind’s eye, Paula was in the back seat laying down. And I don’t know why I think that. But that’s what I thought all along. And I don’t know why. I didn’t have any reason. There’s no blood or anything. I don’t know if she was tied up there and was in the back seat. I didn’t even know she was tied up. I thought she was laying down in my car.

I was living with Buchheister at the time. And Pat was on the scene. And then I got involved with Pat and then him and I moved out. I couldn’t stand the physical fighting between Debbie and Aaron Doolin, and so we got a place and moved out, because it was awful.

We got busted. Pat’s father was the chief of police, and so his wife’s name was Rose and we were all at this house, and they waited until Pat got out of there, who was the Chief of Police’s son, and then they broke in and the only thing they found was some pills that were like penicillin.  Penicillin pills.  But they took us all down there anyway, and my mom had to put up the house to get me out.  It was just really terrible. But at that time, you know, we had a lot of pot and you just flushed it down the stool, you know.  Now they make it so it stops it. Somehow the toilet knows it’s pot or drugs.  I don’t know how.  “Oh, here comes the drugs again, I guess I’d better get my lock on.”  I don’t know how it does it, but that’s what I’ve been told.  That’s now. You can’t get away with anything now.

When I was 19 or 20, after Paula died, I kinda went really kind of wild.  Worse than I was in high school. I was just really upset, and so that’s how I met Pat. He used to run around Henry’s and that’s how I met Pat. Joe Van Hoe gave me some speed.  He told me it was crank, and I think I almost died, and Bobby was mad, and he got him.

These Van Hoes, there was three of them.  One was really nice and there was Joe Van Hoe, Marty Van Hoe, and there was a third one.  And the nice one, he was older, and he came back to school and the red-headed one was all tough.  And that’s the only time I got a drug from somebody else.  And I was 19, and because it almost killed me, I didn’t trust anybody from that point on.  Unless it was acid.  You know.  I got burned on that.  What they had was only like $5 a hit. I didn’t have a dealer or anything like that. 

The only time I remember, we went to a party with Butchie Hudson. I don’t even know if Paula was there. I might not even have been running around with her, because Pat introduced me to the kids there, so I didn’t even know if she was around. You know Butchie Hudson beat me to a pulp, and I opened the door where she was, and there’s like Pat. Why didn’t I do something?

Paula Oberbroeckling went with a rough one. I don’t think it was a Tobin, that was way beyond her. But it was a tough guy. I can’t remember.

This is an unsolved murder. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa. What was that then? 60,000 people. And they couldn’t find him. They didn’t even question him?

I never knew Paula had those tagged clothes in her closet.  No.  I was scared to shoplift.  I didn’t make a good thief.

After they found her body, they came and got me at work. I was living with Pat Conway at the time and we were doing speed.  We would go get it in Canada and bring it back.  And we would hit it with a needle. And so when all this was coming down I had to go get a lie detector test and I said, “Can I have my sleeves down?”  You know, because I had needle marks and stuff, and they said, “Yeah.”  And then I had to go take it again.  But you know, I was blamed for it.  Lonnie was blamed for it from the beginning.  You know, they thought Lonnie and I had her locked up in a barn or something.

I think that was just desperation on their part.  Why would I hurt my best friend?  And with Lonnie, see it’s the same thing.  We didn’t.  We didn’t have anything to do with it.

But Robert, that’s questionable.  Because she left in her nightgown.  She did some traveling then. And she was going to get a pack of cigarettes.  But I wonder if she did a little traveling first.  Like to Robert’s.  I don’t know where she got a connection for that, for an abortion.  You know, they should have let it be legal.  And I always said they could have just dropped her off at the hospital.  She never would have told.

I heard she was tied to a switch track.  Where was she?  She was on Otis Road, right?  Maybe somebody got her. The black people used to have what they call an after party, you know?  I never went to one, but after the bars were closed down, they would have a party somewhere. 

Lonnie was not there when I came home from work.  I don’t even know who Ben Carroll is.  See, she had another life outside of her and I.  I know that she went through a first  abortion, but I don’t think she was pregnant then. These black guys gave her a pill called quinine, and they told her to take all of these pills and she would lose the baby.  Well, I don’t think she was pregnant, because her period started.  We were still in school then, and she got these quinine pills.  I don’t know when exactly. I don’t do days and dates.

And she had a life insurance policy, and I know she left it to her little brother Todd.

After they found her, when I saw the gown, it was brown.  It was mud dried.  I had to identify the gown and her black pearl and then there was this other ring.  I had to identify the rings.  And I wanted one of hers.  She was my very best friend, but she was a best friend that lived a secret life.  I mean, I’m not saying that I was innocent by any means, you know. I was like a wild banshee, after this thing with my mom.  Anything I could do to hurt her, I would.  And it took me a long time to get over it. 

Why did she go in her nightgown? It took two people to fix the car when it broke down like that. 

I was only 19 when it happened. The cops just came and took me out of work.

Why did she go in her nightgown? It took two people to fix the car when it broke down like that.

So when they found her she was too decomposed to tell if she had had a baby in her.

I was trying to protect her from any kind of a scandal or anything.  I wasn’t lying to the police in that way.  And so she told me she was going out for cigarettes. But she also told me, “You know.”  And I said, “Yeah,” but I had no clue that it was an abortion.  I don’t know what I would have done if I knew that that was it, and she was meeting people somewhere in a desolate area, with a coat hanger or whatever.  I wouldn’t have loaned my car to her.  We were really god friends, but she obviously had another life.  And one time the police said that, you know, they didn’t really go after it full throttle. Because I checked with them all the time and they didn’t go after her.  Then I find my car up around Mt. Vernon Road.  Mahacek’s drug store.  Well, there was a “No parking here to corner,” so what is my car doing there?  And so I called the police, and they said, “Just leave it there.  We’ll get to it. They told me to leave it there.  Okay, so that’s in the summer.  And I kept getting tickets, and I would call those detectives, and I’d say, “I’m getting tickets,” and I’d say, “Are you gonna pick up this car?”  “Yep, yep, yep.”  Well, they didn’t, so I finally just took it.  And then the back window was rolled down and I didn’t roll the back window down, so I knew there was something that was going on. They wouldn’t listen.  You know.  I told them, “Take the car.”  If they’d have taken the car, they may have found some evidence.  They didn’t take it.  They didn’t take it seriously.

 Whenever I had any information I phoned those detectives and told them, but they would say, “Oh, she’s okay.”  “She was seen at a party,” they told me one time. 

Anonymous

Steve Scheib

I heard through the grapevine that the police were so close. They knew who did it, but they didn’t have enough evidence. They knew who did it. I remember hearing that. Four or five times. We were never privy to that.

Ken Millsap

Some people wanted to suggest that maybe something else altogether happened to Paula Oberbroeckling. But I don’t know what that would be. You just go with what you have, and that’s what we did. You develop what you can and everything that we did come up with, albeit hearsay, it all went the same direction. So even if we did hear other rumors or somesuch, there was never anything that we could ever find any kind of corroboration for.

There was always rumors, though, and some of those maybe were legitimate and some weren’t. Some were provable and some of them weren’t. Somebody said she’d been raped, for example. But that’s one that we couldn’t prove, unless somebody told  us. And she sure wasn’t going to do that.

Charles Jelinek

We had no explanation for what happened to that Oberbroeckling girl. Other than the botched abortion, that’s all we had. If we’d a had DNA back then, it might have been different. Because we had the bones. We’d have identified her right away. And the rope that was there, we could have used that, too. We could have matched that with the rope in the house, if we found out what house it was. Even if it was later we could have still matched it up. But we just didn’t have those things back then.

∞

And then it was just a fluke. Because we had occasion to run up against a guy who was involved in the missing thing, and he talked to us off the record. They’re all of them dead now though, so it doesn’t make any difference, but according to what this man said, she went to have an abortion, and something went wrong and apparently he hit an artery or something, and he couldn’t stop the bleeding, so they took sash cords from one of the windows, tied her hands together, put her in the trunk of the car and took her out and dumped her. And that was it.