Articles Tagged: Tama County

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office issued a report Friday concluding that a fatal officer-involved shooting in Tama County in July, in which a man told police to shoot him while threatening them with an airsoft gun that looked real, was justified.

A Shellsburg man, set to start trial today in Johnson County for helping his lover kill her husband in June of 2021, unexpectedly pleaded guilty and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A Linn County jury deliberated three hours before finding a Traer woman guilty of first-degree murder. The prosecution said she planned with her “lover“ — a much younger Shellsburg man — to kill her husband and start a new life with his $500,000 life insurance policy. She was the sole beneficiary.

Karina Cooper, accused of fatally shooting her husband in 2021, testified the majority of her affair with Huston Danker was “online” and she didn’t think he was serious about killing her husband. After the murder, she said she didn’t tell police becuase she was scared of Danker.

Several friends testified Monday they witnessed a Traer woman, on trial for killing her husband, be verbally abusive to her husband. Some also said they knew she was having an affair with a Shellsburg man, who is accused of conspiring with her to kill her husband.

Investigators are continuing to review what led to the shooting of a man by an officer around 1:40 a.m. in Tama. Dispatchers had received multiple requests for a welfare check prior to the shooting.

A forensic examiner testified Thursday about texts and Snapchats messages that indicate an affair between a Traer woman and her lover — and possibly implicate both of them in the fatal shooting of her husband in 2021.

The trial for a Traer woman, accused of fatally shooting her husband in the face in 2021, started Wednesday in Linn County. A prosecutor, in his opening, said Karina Cooper carried out a “deliberate and calculated” plan with her lover to kill her husband.

Law enforcement from multiple Tama County agencies responded to a threatening call Wednesday morning in the city of Tama, which investigators believe was a swatting call related to the video game Fortnite.

A Tama man was arrested Monday and charged with stealing a firearm after the Tama County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of a man armed with an AR-15 style rifle threatening to kill family members.

A judge, in two separate pretrial hearings Friday, said trials for Huston Danker and Karina Cooper, both accused of killing Cooper’s husband in 2021, will go forward. Danker will be tried Jan. 21 in Johnson County and Cooper on Feb. 25 in Linn County.

A former Tama County conservation director used public funds for personal purchases, including a fuel pump, ammunition and home remodeling materials, according to a state audit published Wednesday.

The trial for a Tama woman accused of fatally shooting husband in the face remains on track for July 9 in Linn County. A judge moved the trial out of Tama County as requested by defense. Prosecution didn’t resist.

A judge won’t lower or increase the $1 million bail for a Shellsburg man charged with helping a wife kill her husband in 2021.

Shellsburg man accused of helping Traer woman kill her husband in 2021 asked a judge Thursday to lower his $1 million bail because it’s unreasonable. Prosecutor wants it hiked up to $5 million because he believes Danker has access to “large sum of cash.”