For nearly three decades, the murder of 22-year-old Traci Ann Evenson has remained unsolved.
Evenson was a young woman building her life in Cedar Rapids. She was a student at Kirkwood Community College, worked as a telemarketer and also held a job in the deli at Hy-Vee.
On the night of June 21, 1997, Evenson finished her shift at APAC TeleServices and returned to her second-floor apartment at 438 1/2 Ninth Avenue SW.
She would never leave alive.
A Discovery the Next Morning
On the morning of Sunday, June 22, Evenson’s sister, Jodi Lynn Jackson, discovered her sister’s body inside the apartment.
Investigators determined Evenson had been brutally beaten and suffocated. An autopsy conducted by Linn County Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. David Kresnicka placed her death at approximately 9:30 p.m. the previous evening.
Authorities did not recover semen during the autopsy, and investigators did not initially believe the killing was a sexual assault. Instead, the violence led investigators to consider the possibility that the attack was fueled by anger or rage.
Cedar Rapids police collected extensive evidence from the apartment, including clothing, bedding, pillows, photographs, papers, keys, a kitchen knife, drinking glasses, purses, a telephone and answering machine, hairs and other biological evidence.
Investigators also recovered latent fingerprints from Evenson’s car, which was parked nearby.
Investigators Looked for Someone She Knew
One of the early theories was that Evenson knew her killer and may have allowed that person into the apartment.
Then-Cedar Rapids Police Chief Bud Byrne told the Cedar Rapids Gazette that investigators did not believe the public was facing a serial offender and said authorities believed the victim likely knew the person responsible.
But Evenson’s mother, Norma Zillyette, had another theory.
She believed her daughter may have been followed home by a stranger or stalker.
The neighborhood was densely populated, with vehicles frequently coming and going, making it difficult for investigators to determine whether a suspicious vehicle had been present around the time of the murder.
A Reward Was Offered
Several months after Evenson’s death, investigators hoped a substantial reward would generate new information.
Her family contributed $11,000. APAC TeleServices, where Evenson worked, donated another $5,500, while a family friend contributed $500.
The total reward reached $16,500.
Despite the amount of money being offered, no one came forward to claim the reward.
According to reporting cited by Iowa Unsolved Murders, a veteran Cedar Rapids detective said the Evenson case produced remarkably few tips.
A Suspect Who Died
As investigators continued working the case, Evenson’s brother-in-law, Anthony Jackson, came under scrutiny.
According to reporting by the Cedar Rapids Gazette, homicide detective Sam McClurg said Jackson had been considered a suspect from the beginning.
Investigators reportedly took notice of Jackson because of his criminal history, his behavior following the discovery of the murder and the fact that he quickly obtained an attorney when questioned.
However, Jackson’s wife, Jodi — Evenson’s sister — provided his alibi for the time of the killing.
Jackson later left Cedar Rapids.
Five months after Evenson’s murder, tragedy struck again.
On November 27, 1997, Anthony and Jodi Jackson were traveling with their two young children when they were involved in a fatal crash. All four family members were killed.
Investigators later obtained tissue and fluid samples from Jackson’s remains for DNA testing.
The testing reportedly connected Jackson to the rape of a relative’s girlfriend in the year before Evenson’s murder. However, according to the available reporting, the DNA did not connect Jackson to Evenson’s homicide.
Detective McClurg later suggested a theory that Jackson may have attacked Evenson after an alleged sexual advance was rejected and that the crime scene could have been staged to make the killing appear to have been committed by an unknown intruder.
That theory was never proven in court, and Jackson was never charged with Evenson’s murder.
Remembering Traci
Behind the investigation and unanswered questions was a 22-year-old woman whose life was cut short.
Evenson was born January 20, 1975, in Ramsey, Minnesota. She graduated from Washington High School in Cedar Rapids in 1994 and continued her education at Kirkwood Community College, taking computer classes.
She worked two jobs while attending school.
Friends and coworkers described her as quiet and hardworking. She worked approximately 30 hours a week at APAC TeleServices and also worked mornings at the Collins Road NE Hy-Vee deli.
Her family remembered her as a young woman who generally kept to herself and stayed focused on work and school.
After her death, family and friends gathered for a prayer service in Cedar Rapids before her funeral was held in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Traci Ann Evenson was laid to rest at General Lutheran Cemetery in South St. Paul.
Still Unanswered
Nearly 30 years later, the central question remains:
Who killed Traci Ann Evenson?
An investigation that began with a violent death in a Cedar Rapids apartment has never resulted in a murder conviction.
The reward offered in 1997 was never claimed, and the person responsible for Evenson’s death has never been publicly established in court.
For Traci’s family, the passage of time has not changed what happened that night.
It has only made the unanswered questions older.
Source: Nancy Bowers, Iowa Unsolved Murders: Historic Cases, article written February 2010/June 2012.
