About this recently arrested serial killer in Waterloo Iowa

[Mike 03]

Clark Perry Baldwin is reported to be a 58 year old long haul truck driver who has been tied to a number of murders committed in the 1990s. Whenever detectives discover a killer who has been active for so many years they naturally yearn to know if he's connected to other cases.

Trucker charged in serial killings faces scrutiny across US
https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/trucker-charged-in-serial-killings-faces-scrutiny-across-us-05-07-2020

What caught my eye about this guy is that Waterloo, Iowa is less than five miles from Evansdale, Iowa, the location of a notorious, high profile and still unsolved double murder of two little girls, Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins in July 2012. They were cousins and best friends who went to ride their bikes at a park and were abducted or lured away by their killer in broad daylight. It was an awful case that received enormous attention. It took five months to find the bodies and the authorities were extremely tight-lipped about the case thereafter. It was a very shocking case and some of you may recall it.

Map: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Evansdale,+Iowa/Waterloo,+IA/

Iowa Cold Case:
https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/lyric-cook-and-elizabeth-collins/

Some thoughts:

I don't know if this is still considered true, but I remember reading not that long ago that it was extremely rare for a serial killer to stop killing unless he was 1) convicted of some other crime and imprisoned, or 2) was dead from another cause, or burns out and commits suicide. So I'm expecting Clark Baldwin to be connected to other homicides. Has he been active all this time?

Arguing against a connection is that his MO seems to be that he preyed on women who worked around truck stops far from where he lived, and to imagine him preying on children so close to where he resides would be a dramatic change of tactic. But we know so little about this killer; we know of two or three murders committed more than two decades ago so it's too early to say for sure what his patterns might have evolved into. Some serial killers do change their targets and methods as they evade the scrutiny of law enforcement and grow more emboldened.

Of course this may be nothing more than a coincidence. But I sure would like to know what happened to Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins. Their day of justice is long past due.

[Snarkoleptic]

2. I wonder if he was linked to the disappearance and murder of Tammy Zywicki.

https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/tammy-zywicki/

On Sunday, Aug. 23, 1992, Tammy J. Zywicki, a 21-year-old Grinnell College student, departed Evanston, Illinois, to return to school in Grinnell, Iowa, where she planned to arrive that evening. Later that day, an Illinois State Trooper found Zywicki’s car — a 1985 Pontiac T1000 with New Jersey license plates — and ticketed it as an abandoned vehicle.

On Monday, Aug. 24, 1992, Illinois State Police towed the vehicle. That same evening, Zywicki’s mother contacted the Illinois State Police and told them her daughter had not arrived at college.

On Tuesday, Sept. 1, 1992, her body was found along Interstate Highway 44 (I-44) in rural Lawrence County, Missouri, located between Springfield and Joplin.

The petite blonde female had been wrapped in a red blanket bound with duct tape, been sexually assaulted, and stabbed eight times — once in the arm and seven times in a circle around her heart.

She’d reportedly last been seen with her car at mile marker 83 in central Illinois sometime between 3:10 and 4 p.m. on Aug. 23, 1992. Witnesses reported seeing a tractor-trailer near Zywicki’s vehicle during this time period.

More at link.

[mzmolly]

3. I wonder about Jodi Huisentruit?