On Friday, January 3, 2003, officers with the Waterloo Police Department responded to a residence located at 1001 Hartman Avenue in Waterloo, Iowa, to conduct a welfare check. Upon arrival, police discovered the bodies of 27-year-old Alonzo Nakia Quinn and 22-year-old Rhiannon Marie Olsen inside the home. Ms. Olsen was nine months pregnant at the time of her death. Both victims had sustained fatal gunshot wounds, and the unborn child, a boy to be named Jalen, did not survive.
Family members had contacted law enforcement after becoming concerned when they were unable to reach Ms. Olsen. Paramedics and investigators confirmed both Quinn and Olsen were deceased at the scene. The incident was immediately classified as a double homicide, with the death of the unborn child making it a triple homicide case.
The investigation revealed that in the months leading up to the murders, Quinn had been the target of a group of men from the Iowa City area. According to prosecutors, this group, which included David Erroll Willock, had been involved in a pattern of kidnappings, burglaries, and assaults throughout the Cedar Valley area. Their motive was believed to be money, and their actions appeared to focus on individuals associated with the local drug trade.
Prosecutors later stated that the group had been “hunting” Quinn and two other Waterloo men connected to drug activity. To locate them, the suspects terrorized women who were associated with the men. Several related crimes occurred during the fall of 2002, showing a pattern of organized and violent behavior.
On October 16, 2002, three masked men broke into a Waterloo woman’s apartment while she and her children were asleep. The intruders bound the victims with duct tape and forced the woman to attempt phone contact with Quinn and another man. When she was unsuccessful, one of the men sexually assaulted her and struck her with a broomstick. Ten days later, on October 26, 2002, several men armed with handguns abducted Anthony Cole and his girlfriend from her Cedar Falls apartment. The victims were restrained with duct tape, beaten, and threatened before managing to escape.
Earlier that same month, on October 5, 2002, Rhiannon Olsen reported a burglary at her Cedar Falls apartment. Olsen told police that three or four individuals broke into her home while she was in bed, restrained her with duct tape, and ransacked the residence as though searching for something. Olsen was not physically injured in that incident, and no arrests were made.
Investigators from Waterloo and Cedar Falls police departments began connecting these incidents, eventually identifying David Erroll Willock as a suspect. Willock, a 30-year-old bartender from Iowa City, was later charged in connection with the kidnapping and burglary cases but was never charged in the Quinn and Olsen murders. Evidence in the related cases included DNA found on a milk jug at one crime scene and cell phone records placing Willock near Cedar Falls at the time of one of the abductions.
During a search of Willock’s Iowa City residence on November 25, 2002, investigators discovered a receipt for duct tape and ski masks purchased the same day as one of the home invasions. The search also turned up two handguns and materials consistent with narcotics packaging. Due to procedural issues with the search warrant, the firearms were returned and the receipt could not be seized as evidence, though it was photographed by investigators.
Despite multiple leads and overlapping criminal cases, no suspect has ever been charged with the January 2003 homicides of Alonzo Quinn, Rhiannon Olsen, or their unborn son. Authorities have continued to describe the case as active but unsolved.
Rhiannon Olsen was born on November 8, 1980, in Waterloo, Iowa, to Dale and Cindy (Mikkelsen) Olsen. She graduated from Cedar Falls High School in 1999 and attended both Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa before graduating from LaJames Cosmetology College in Cedar Falls. She was preparing to begin her career and to become a mother at the time of her death.
