MURDERED: Gladys Held & Jacob Biretz, December 1993, Waterloo, Iowa

In December of 1993, two senior citizens - Gladys Held and Jacob Biretz -  were murdered within one day and three blocks of one another, and their cases remain unsolved to this day. Residents of Waterloo, Iowa in the 1990’s were frustrated with what they perceived to be rising rates of violent crime, and specifically crimes targeting seniors. Who murdered these two elderly Waterloo residents? Did the perpetrator go on to kill again? 

SOURCES:

• Ann Langel, Nancy Raffensperger, Waterloo woman’s death investigated as a homicide, The Courier, December 10, 1993
• Tim Jamison, Larry Ballard, Ann Langel, 87-year-old man found dead in apartment, The Courier, December 12, 1993
• Heather Clark, It’s official: Waterloo breaks record for most homicides, The Courier, December 12, 1993
• Metro Deaths: Gladys D. Held, The Courier, December 12, 1993
• Ann Langel, Man died of suffocation, report says, The Courier, December 14, 1993
• Jennifer Jacobs, Police, guards give Walnut Court residents secure feeling, The Courier, December 26, 1993
• Ann Langel, Death certificate shows elderly murder victim was strangled, The Courier, December 31, 1993
• Waterloo investigating deaths of man, woman, The Daily Nonpareil, December 11, 1993
• Autopsy on elderly man shows suffocation, The Daily Nonpareil, December 14, 1993
• Colleen Bradford, Man found dead in Waterloo, The Des Moines Register, December 11, 1993
• Debora Wiley, Victims lived, died in different ways, The Des Moines Register, December 12, 1993
• Suspicious death probed, The Gazette, December 10, 1993
• 2nd body found in 2 days, The Gazette, December 11, 1993
• Murder victim suffocated, The Gazette, December 14, 1993
• Waterloo trying to bash image as crime-infested, The Gazette, December 16, 1993
• Police probe woman’s death, The Muscatine Journal, December 11, 1993
• Nancy Raffensperger, Crime: The eight people who were murdered in Waterloo in 1993, The Courier, January 2, 1994
• Ann Langel, Son offers $1000 reward for information on woman’s death, The Courier, January 7, 1994
• Heather Clark, Waterloo crime figures indicate decrease in ’93, The Courier, January 21, 1994
• Jeff Kart, It’s the not knowing: Two murders, one day apart. Still unsolved, the families are having to live with grief and frustration, The Courier, December 11, 1994
• Suzanne Behnke, Elderly targets of recent crimes, The Courier, January 1, 1998
• Jeff Reinitz, The murders of 1993: Death taking its toll, The Courier, December 19, 1999
• Luke Jenneti, Unsolved killings might be related, The Courier, August 14, 2005
• Jeff Reinitz, In 1993, retirees were killed in homes, blocks apart, The Courier, July 29, 2015
• Erin Schulte, Waterloo man, 83, was slain, police say, The Des Moines Register, November 14, 1997
• https://cvcrimestop.com/unsolved-case/gladys-dorothy-held/
• https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/jacob-biretz/

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