DCI: Missing Tama woman was killed

For years, authorities insisted they were investigating the 2000 disappearance of a Tama woman as a missing persons case, but said Friday they are now considering it a homicide.

'Through interviews and additional discoveries,” the disappearance of Cora Okonski was being reclassified, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigations said in a news release.

The DCI did not disclose what the additional discoveries entailed.

Okonski, who was 23 at the time she vanished, was reported missing April 18, 2000, by her boyfriend, Tait Purk, 37, in Tama.

In 2003, while being held on federal drug charges, Purk told The Gazette in a phone interview from jail that he was not a suspect in the case and that he feared for Okonski's well-being.

However, based on a tip from a police informer, authorities at the time searched an acreage belonging to a relative of Purk for clues.

Police later said bone fragments found there were from an animal - not from Okonski.

In its news release Friday, the DCI said that a multiagency law enforcement task force reviewed the cold case and concluded that Okonski's disappearance was 'not voluntary.”

The agency asked that anyone who has information or tips that could help the investigation to call the Iowa Department of Public Safety at (515) 323-4360 or email dciinfo@dps.state.ia.us.