Town note
The town was first known as Wapasana, a Native American name said to mean 'smooth surfaced meandering stream'.
about 0:05:42The story
West Liberty, Iowa, is a town of about 3,800 people in Muscatine County, near the Illinois border. In 1992 everybody knew Corey Lee Winnakey. Born on 25 March 1970, the only child of James and Susan Winnakey, he was a starting centre on the West Liberty High School football team and graduated in 1988. He went to work at Winks Tap, the downtown bar his grandmother Betty owned, and by 22 was its popular late-shift bartender. He also used cocaine and ran a small bookmaking operation out of the bar.
He had dated Jodie Hotz since they were about 17, and in the autumn of 1991 they announced their engagement. They lived in a small two-bedroom house on a gravel road about three miles outside town, and Jodie worked at a bank in Iowa City. He was also seeing Wendy Marshall, 20, who gave birth to his daughter in July 1992, and Annette D. Hazen, a 29-year-old divorced mother of two who had known him since he was 16 and lived with her brother Denny and his wife Jackie at a farmhouse a few miles away. Jodie knew about the others and hoped marriage would settle him.
On 12 October 1992 Annette opened Winks Tap and stayed for about 14 hours, drinking heavily, while Corey worked the evening shift and treated her badly. Before closing she got into the passenger seat of his Cadillac and refused to move. At about two in the morning on 13 October Corey came out with Wendy, found Annette in the car and drove off with Wendy in the back. Annette threatened to jump out and the two argued beside a farm road. Corey took Wendy back to her car at the bar and then drove Annette to the Hazen farmhouse, where they had sex. He left about half past three, went to an after-hours birthday party where he saw his drug dealer Slim Zamora, and at four woke Wendy at her apartment, leaving a bag in her refrigerator with a six-pack of beer and two shotgun shells. He was home asleep beside Jodie by seven.
Jodie left for the bank at eight. Annette was collected by Lester McGowan, a roofing contractor and former lover, and spent ninety minutes pulling shingles off a roof. About nine a farmer saw two people standing beside a stopped vehicle outside Corey's house. Between half past nine and ten Jackie collected Annette and they stopped at the house so Annette could leave a letter; nobody answered and they left after two minutes. On his way back the farmer saw an aluminium softball bat on the north edge of the gravel road about half a mile from the house. The two women spent the rest of the day in Iowa City.
At six o'clock Jodie came home to find the dog loose, the screen door open and Corey's car in the driveway. Inside he lay face down beside the bed, in his underwear, covered in blood. He had been struck 13 times about the head, back and shoulders; four blows hit his head and one split his skull. There were no defensive wounds. The murder window was between ten and half past one. Nothing was missing and nothing was disturbed; there were no fingerprints, footprints or tyre impressions. A pane of glass beside the doorknob had been covered with particle board, which was found removed and leaning against the house.
Next morning a Cedar Rapids reporter, Mike Wagner, found the bat a quarter of a mile east of the house. It was a youth-sized blue aluminium softball bat, with white tape on the handle, bloodstains on the lettering and a Walmart barcode attached; it had cost $15, or $13 on sale. There were no fingerprints, and the blood matched Corey's type.
Annette and Jackie went to the police station and volunteered an account of their day. Annette handed over her coat, shoes, fingerprints, prints and blood and passed a polygraph; nothing matched. The case went cold.
In 2009 the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation included Corey's murder among about 150 cold cases to revisit with new DNA technology; the unit closed in 2011 when federal funding ran out. The episode ends there, with the story to continue in part two.