Roberta "Bobbi" Crawford

Franklin County

Hampton, Iowa, in Franklin County

Homicide
Roberta "Bobbi" Crawford
53 YOA
Hampton, IA (Franklin County)
November 17, 1999

Case summary by Jody Ewing

Roberta “Bobbi” Crawford, 53, was found murdered inside her Hampton, Iowa, home on Wednesday, November 17, 1999. An autopsy concluded Crawford died of blunt force trauma to the head.

Police found Crawford's body after co-workers at Ellsworth Community College, Iowa Falls, reported her missing.

Crawford was divorced and lived alone, and was the mother of one adult son.

Two years after her murder, authorities offered a $19,500 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Hampton Police Chief Bud Nelson said he remained determined to solve the case.

"We continue to receive and work on leads," he said in a 2001 interview with the Cedar Rapids Gazette. "We feel confident that this is a solvable case. We have not given up and feel the person who committed this crime will pay for it."

Crawford's sister Fran Foland also said she remained determined the murderer would be found.

Nelson said the reward included $14,500 in local funds and $5,000 from The Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, an organization established in memory of Sund, who was found murdered in Yosemite National Park. The foundation has provided reward money in 100 murder cases in 27 states.

Five years after Crawford's murder, her son Lee Crawford, a teacher, told the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier he stayed busy with his teaching, coaching, and caring for his family in efforts to hold off the emptiness following his mother's slaying.

"There's probably not a day that goes by I don't think about it," Crawford, who teaches reading and writing to students with learning disabilities at Sigourney Junior-Senior High School, told the Courier. "I have two sons, and it's a bitter reminder this time of year when they don't have a grandma. They've missed out on her and what she could have brought to them, spoiling them."

Crawford said he's had to use other things to replace that. In addition to his teaching, he also coached football, basketball and baseball. His mother, he said, used to "truck him around" to Little League baseball games, Boy Scout meetings and other events.

Lee Crawford said he credited his wife, Jolie, with helping him through the first years after his mother's death and remained hopeful the crime would be solved.

In June 2005, a private investigator from South Dakota said he believed Bobbi Crawford was killed by a serial killer -- the same one he believes killed Mason City television reporter Jodi Huisentruit. The detective said the suspect was a Newton native who then moved to Arizona, where he and another member of the Aryan Nation allegedly beat a man to death.

Despite the leads, no one has been charged in Bobbi Crawford's homicide.

"You remember it every day, but it's just like that void -- like it's always there," Lee Crawford said. "Nothing's going to fill that void until somebody's found or something is done."

Bobbi Crawford's headstone features an image of her and Lee walking home from one of Lee's baseball games, headed toward a golden sunset.

If you have any information regarding Bobbi Crawford's death, please contact the Hampton Police Department at (515) 456-2529.

Sources:

Around North Iowa, Belmond Independent, June 16, 2005
"Hampton police still hunting for woman's killer," Cedar Rapids Gazette, Nov. 22, 2001
"Hampton woman's death is investigated as homicide," Cedar Rapids Gazette, Nov. 19, 1999
The Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation
Son copes with 'void', Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, November 15, 2004

Page last updated: March 25, 2010