A brutal double homicide that shocked Poweshiek County in 1856 remains one of Iowa’s enduring unsolved crimes.
According to research by author Nancy Bowers, Andrew J. Casteel, 24, and his wife, Nancy D. Mosier Casteel, 22, were murdered on September 24, 1856, near Montezuma. The couple had been married just two weeks earlier in Indiana before traveling to Iowa.
The young newlyweds were attacked in a farm field near Montezuma in what was believed to be a robbery. Their bodies were concealed in nearby cornstalks and strawstacks. The tragedy is memorialized on their shared gravestone in Jackson Township Cemetery, which bears the inscription: “Murdered by Highwaymen & Concealed in the Cornstalks.”
Public outrage over the killings was widespread, but investigators struggled to identify suspects. Nearly a year later, a local man named Meachem, known for pursuing horse thieves and criminals, organized a posse to search for those responsible.
One suspect, a Polk County man known by the alias “Cumquick,” was arrested and jailed. Before he could stand trial, however, a mob removed him from custody and lynched him near Montezuma.
Authorities and the posse later focused on another suspect, Van Schoick, and his father-in-law, Ridgeway. The two men were forcibly captured by the armed group and eventually turned over to law enforcement. When the case went to trial, the evidence against them was deemed weak, and both men were acquitted.
The accused men later filed kidnapping charges against Meachem, but he was found not guilty.
Despite arrests, trials, and intense public interest, no one was ever convicted in the murders of Andrew and Nancy Casteel.
Nancy Mosier Casteel was born in Indiana in 1834 to George and Maria Criswell Mosier. Andrew Casteel was born in Indiana in 1832 to Nathaniel and Mary Casteel. Today, the couple rests beneath a shared tombstone in Jackson Township Cemetery near Montezuma, a lasting reminder of a crime that has never been solved.
Source: Historical research by author Nancy Bowers, March 2016.
