Family of Jodie Bevans shares their grief over her murder

VINTON — A grieving sister said her sister, Jodie Bevans, was “sunshine” and losing her last year was “like pouring whiskey on an open wound.”

“She could walk into the room and the vibe would change. She loved people. She served people,” Mary McKenna Sauermann said Friday during the sentencing of Tacoa Talley, who suffocated her sister, Jodie Bevans, 58, with a pillow July 14, 2022, in Bevans’ home in Palo.

Talley, 38, of North Liberty, and Talley’s girlfriend, Samantha Bevans, 34, of Palo, who is Jodie Bevans’ stepdaughter, were charged in Bevans’ slaying. At Talley’s trial, the prosecutor said the motive was money the two expected to find in Bevans’ home safe.

A Benton County jury in April found Talley guilty of first-degree murder. Samantha Bevans goes on trial on the same charge Sept. 25 in Benton County District Court.

Sixth Judicial District Judge Chad Kepros on Friday sentenced Talley to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The judge noted it was a mandatory sentence, but he also said it was an appropriate sentence for this slaying.

Talley showed no reaction during the emotional victim impact statements, and he declined to make a statement during the hearing.

The sentencing was delayed by about 90 minutes because Talley’s lawyer didn’t put it on his calendar and had to drive to Vinton from Waterloo.

Family statements

Sauermann on Friday said her sister was her first best friend and one of her earliest memories. The four siblings were whole when they were together and will never be whole again without her.

“A big, wet, woolly blanket was dropped on us (last July) and we are suffocating,” she said.

Jodie’s son, Davis McKenna, said he has lost hope without his mother who showed him the good in the world, who taught him how to “truly love someone,’ even with their faults.

His mother, he said, had helped Talley, so it makes him not want to help or trust others.

His mother’s murder, he said, also affected his family and his children. His 4-year-old son “freaks out” when he and his wife leave him, saying he doesn’t want to die like his grandma.

“She left a void in our lives and the world,” McKenna said.

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Stephanie Dooley, Jodie Bevans’ stepdaughter, said in her statement she hoped the family never has to see Talley again, calling him a “monster” for killing someone who’d taken care of his children, as did others in the family.

She said she hoped Talley “rots in the deepest, darkest cell for everything he has done.”

Giving voice

Kelly Hughes, Jodie Bevans’ other stepdaughter, said she was speaking to give a voice to her stepmother, who also was a wife, daughter, sister and grandmother. She was a nurse and an advocate for her patients.

Hughes said she was the first to enter Jodie Bevans’ house after Bevans didn’t show up at the family’s campsite July 15, 2022. She discovered her stepmom’s body in the bedroom and pushed out her dad, who was following her, so he didn’t have to live with that memory.

That night she couldn’t sleep. She heard her dad “weeping loudly” because he had just lost his wife, and every time she closed her eyes she could see Jodie’s body.

The camping trip became “their nightmare that would never end,” she said.

Hughes said the nightmare also affected her children. Two of the children she and her husband adopted are Talley’s biological children. They were scared, as was Hughes’ other two children, that Talley would come and take them. One daughter, she said, has post-traumatic stress disorder and has nightmares about Talley.

“Justice doesn’t bring her back,” Hughes said. “It doesn’t exist. Closure doesn’t exist.”

But justice, she said, does put away an “inhumane, coldblooded killer.”

Evidence at trial

During Talley’s trial, the jury watched a Snapchat video Talley and Samantha Bevans made in a Cedar Rapids motel room July 16, 2022 — two days after Bevans was suffocated.

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In the video, Samantha Bevans says, “I killed her. I killed her myself,” as Talley encourages her to “keep goin’.”

“And I knew this would happen, so good job,” Talley said.

“We killed her,” Samantha said and then makes an obscene gesture to the camera.

An Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation special agent testified about the video, cellphone data and motel surveillance footage that helped investigators corroborate statements made by Jayson Wells, who testified during trial that he knew what the couple was planning and was with them before and after the killing.

Assistant Iowa Attorney General Monty Platz said in his opening statement the motive for the murder was “thousands of dollars” that Talley and Samantha Bevans believed were in the Bevanses’ home safe.

Jodie and Mike Bevans had banned Talley from their home years before. They allowed Samantha Bevans to move back home in 2022 but kicked her out when she started using drugs again, according to trial testimony.

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