Trish Mehaffey

An Iowa Supreme Court ruling will allow a lawsuit, filed the family of a Fayette County mother and daughter who drowned while tubing after going over a low-head dam near Clermont in June 2020, to go forward. The court overturned a district court dismissal of their petition in 2023.

Two drug traffickers distributed more than 100 pounds of meth in Iowa and they took a portion of that money — over $335,000 — to Jose Eladio Medina Valenzuela, who then worked with others to get the drug money to supply sources in Mexico.

A 23-year-old Cedar Rapids man pleaded to lesser charges for sexually abusing a girl since she was 6 years old. The abuse continued until she was 12 years old. He faces up to 22 years in prison.

A Cedar Rapids man was convicted for diverting oxycodone from bottles at the Belle Plaine pharmacy where he worked for personal use, and replacing them with Aleve to conceal his crime.He faces up to 20 years in prison.

A Cedar Rapids woman, who was caught on video in 2023 giving her 2-year-old son unneeded insulin while at University of Iowa Health Care Stead Family Children’s Hospital, was convicted Monday of child endangerment and another charge. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

A 15-year-old Cedar Rapids girl vanished in 2001, leaving police with little or no clues as to whether she ran away or was abducted. The last person to see her was convicted in another cold case murder last year, but police don’t have any evidence that he was involved in the teen’s disappearance.

The trial for a Cedar Rapids man accused of hiring two men to kill Chris Bagley will be delayed because a witness for the prosecution can’t testify in person next week because he’s under a chickenpox quarantine in federal prison. The judge denied a motion to have the witness testify by video.

The former owners of Adventureland Park reached a settlement with the parents of an 11-year-old boy who was killed in a water raft ride accident in 2021. Their 15-year-old son was also seriously injured, but survived.

A Marion man who crashed into a vehicle, causing injuries to a woman that ended her pregnancy, is now facing indecent contact charges. He is accused of exposing himself to one child and having inappropriate contact with another.

An Anamosa man was sentenced to 25 years in prison for causing a fatal crash in February 2023 in Springville. He was intoxicated and crashed into a vehicle driven by a Springville man, who was only about a mile from his home.

Construction started on the historic Coe-Paul house in the Wellington Heights neighborhood of Cedar Rapids thanks to a partnership between St. Pauls United Methodist Church and Matthew 25. The house will be renovated into two affordable housing units.

The Iowa Supreme Court will allow families of four Tyson Waterloo plant workers who died of COVID in 2020 to go forward with negligence suits against executives and supervisiors, but not against the company.

Johnson County filed an injunction against Hawkeye Waste Systems to stop operating the business and its affiliated companies because none of the companies have workers’ comp insurance. The owner and managers were charged last month in the case following an investigation of an employee being crushed by a skid loader in 2024.

A Colorado man who threatened an Iowa City bank teller with a gun was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a January robbery. He attempted to withdraw his plea made in March, but the judge denied it.

Family of Jennifer Russell, 22, of Waterloo, asked a judge Monday to sentence an Iowa City teen to 10 years in prison for killing their loved one in a drag racing crash in May of 2023.