From KCRG-TV9:
A Des Moines man who faked his own death and fled the state to avoid a trial on child pornography charges is back in custody, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. After nearly six years on the run, U.S. Marshals arrested 28-year-old Jacob Greer in Spanaway, Washington on Monday. Greer is currently at the Federal Detention Center in Seattle. He will be brought to Des Moines to stand trial. In April 2016, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Greer on charges of receipt and possession of child pornography. He was released on bond the next day under pretrial supervision with an ankle monitor. Greer was living with his grandmother in Des Moines. Then on May 31, 2016, Greer’s U.S. Probation Officer received a monitoring alert indicating Greer’s GPS device had been removed. A multiagency search effort ensued, and Greer’s vehicle was found with a suicide note inside of it. However, searchers did not find Greer’s body. A federal arrest warrant for Greer was issued that day. On June 8, 2016, the U.S. Forestry Service located another vehicle associated with Greer in Tuchuck Campground in Flathead, Montana, but Greer was not there. Investigators discovered Greer had purchased the car with a $1,000 loan from a friend and that he had fled Iowa with money, a bow, arrows, and a backpack full of survival gear. Greer was last seen at a Walmart in Kalispell, Montana, on June 3, 2016, wearing a camouflage hat. Through additional interviews, investigators learned Greer was a survivalist and had plans to live off the land in remote areas of the upper western states or southern Canada, hiding out in abandoned cabins. “The arrest of Jacob Greer after six years is a testament to the tenacity of Deputy U.S. Marshals and our investigative partners,” said U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of Iowa Ted Kamatchus. “Even though the case went cold, they would not quit.”
From the Associated Press:
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana State Police say they used genealogical data and crime scene evidence to link an Iowa man who died in 2013 to the killings of three female motel clerks and sexual assault of a fourth in Indiana and Kentucky from 1987 through 1990. Sgt. Glen Fifield said Tuesday that Harry Edward Greenwell, who died at age 68 in New Albin, Iowa, was the so-called “I-65 killer.” He says evidence linked Greenwell to the 1987 rape and killing of Vicki Heath at a motel in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and to the March 1989 killings of Margaret “Peggy” Gill and Jeanne Gilbert at motels in Indiana. It also linked him to the 1990 sexual assault of an Indiana motel worker who escaped.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Zoos across North America are moving their birds indoors and away from people and wildlife as they try to protect them from the highly contagious and potentially deadly avian influenza. Penguins may be the only birds visitors to many zoos can see right now, because they already are kept inside and usually protected behind glass in their exhibits. Nearly 23 million chickens and turkeys have already been killed across the United States to limit the spread of the virus. Zoos are working hard to prevent any of their birds from meeting the same fate. Birds spread the virus through droppings and nasal discharge. Experts say it can be spread through contaminated equipment, clothing, boots and vehicles carrying supplies.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Police in Des Moines have identified a man killed in a double shooting that also seriously injured a woman. Police say in a news release Tuesday that 59-year-old Jeffrey Dwayne Gillom, of Des Moines, died in the late Sunday night shooting. Police have said officers and paramedics called to an area several blocks west of Crocker Woods Park found Gillom and a 46-year-old woman with gunshot wounds. Both were taken to hospitals, where Gillom died early Monday morning. Police said the woman was hospitalized Monday in serious condition. Police did not give an update Tuesday on her condition. No arrests or suspects in the case have been reported.
STORM LAKE, Iowa (AP) — A 32-year rivalry between two Storm Lake newspapers has ended after the Storm Lake Times Company recently purchased the Pilot-Tribune from Hallmark II Publishing of Charles City. The Sioux City Journal reports the terms of the sale, announced Friday, were not disclosed. But it will mean the Times and Pilot-Tribune will be merged into a single, twice-a-week publication called The Storm Lake Times Pilot. Art Cullen — who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2017 — will be editor and publisher. His brother, John, will be the president. The newspaper will be published on Wednesdays and Fridays, delivered by mail.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa agriculture officials announced Sunday that another 15,0000 chickens and 37,000 turkeys will have to be killed after bird flu spread to two more commercial flocks. Since the outbreak began a month ago, millions of fowl have been killed, many of them in Iowa, which is the nation’s leading egg producer. The latest cases were at a commercial turkey flock in Sac County and in a flock of commercial breeding chickens in Humboldt County. Because the virus is so infectious and deadly for commercial poultry, entire flocks are destroyed and composted on the farms when they are infected.
