Arrest made in 2007 Cedar Rapids cold case murder

CEDAR RAPIDS — A 42-year-old Cedar Rapids man was arrested Wednesday on a first-degree murder charge in a 2007 cold case. He is accused of fatally stabbing and beating Dennis Lee First, 64, who lived in his southwest side apartment complex.

First’s death was investigated as a homicide, but no arrests were made at the time, Cedar Rapids Police said in a news release. Investigators continued to work on the case, evaluating new leads and evidence over the last 15 years.

Linn County Attorney Nick Maybanks said this case is a “testament to the commitment of the CRPD to victims and the community. This case demonstrates that their department does not give up on the pursuit of justice for victims and survivors even in cases that may fall out of the public eye.”

After the department’s Cold Case Unit reached out to Maybanks to review the case, and after several months of follow up investigation and a recent final consultation, Maybanks filed a first-degree murder charge for Curtis Padgett.

Police don’t say what led to Padgett’s arrest — whether it was further DNA testing or something else — and the complaint doesn’t provide that information.

According to a complaint, Cedar Rapids police, an office manager and a maintenance man responded May 11, 2007 to Hawthorne Hills Apartments, 2249 C St. SW, to conduct a welfare check on First. They found First lying on his back on a pullout sofa bed in his apartment. His face was covered in blood and he was dead.

According to an autopsy, he died from multiple blunt force injuries including a gaping cutting/stab wound that was more than three inches wide with ragged edges on the right side of his neck. He also had “multiple large contusions” to his face, forehead and left ear, cuts above his upper lip, a broken nose and brain hemorrhaging, among other injuries, which showed he had been “severely beaten,” the complaint states.

Robert Gross, the maintenance man who found First with others, told The Gazette in 2007 that after knocking on the door and no one answered, he went in.

"I saw him lying there and I just walked in about five steps and looked at his stomach to see if it was moving," Gross said. “It was not, and a dried trail of blood ran down his cheek from his mouth to the bed. I said, `He's dead! He's dead!'

Gross, who had worked in the apartment complex for eight years, said First was a friendly man who greeted people and fed the birds and squirrels. He didn’t cause any trouble, Gross added.

Padgett, who was a known associate with First, admitted he was at the complex that night. A witness reported hearing the two of them “loudly” arguing the night before First was found dead, according to the complaint.

During the investigation, a partial boot print was found in blood in First’s apartment that matched boots recovered from Padgett’s apartment, the complaint states.

An oven mitt soiled in blood was also found. It contained both First's DNA and Padgett’s on the inside of the oven mitt, Maybanks said in the complaint. Padgett’s fingerprint was also found on a knife sharpener in First’s apartment in a drawer that appeared to be blood in the drawer.

In 2016, Padgett also reportedly approached another individual, unrelated to this incident, near a storage garage and made a comment that he killed someone nine years earlier, the complaint states.

This witness later indicated Padgett said the person he killed was someone he used to roll cigarettes for. Padgett had told investigators he used to roll cigarettes for First when they were acquaintances.

Padgett, after the murder, told The Gazette he sometimes rolled cigarettes for First and last saw him two nights before First was found dead.

"I was going to go knock on his door (Friday morning)," Padgett said in 2007. "When I came out, they were carrying him away in a body bag."

According to police, Padgett was first charged with harassment in an unrelated incident on Tuesday. He remains in custody at the Linn County Jail.

Padgett will be formally charged Thursday during an initial appearance in Linn County District Court.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com