The murder of Robert Huntbach
Waterloo, Black Hawk County, Iowa · 1981
Overview
Robert Huntbach, 85, a retired meatpacking worker and First World War veteran, and his wife Goldie, 77, were found bound, gagged and shot in their home at 311 West Tenth Street in Waterloo, Iowa, on the morning of January 12, 1981. The house had been ransacked and there was evidence they had been tortured with a cattle prod. Police interviewed dozens of people, including a truck driver who had been seeing a relative of the couple, but nobody was charged and the case went cold. On May 8, 2012, that man, Jack Wendell Pursel, then 66, walked unannounced into the Waterloo police station and confessed, giving details that had never been made public. He pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder on June 7, 2012, and was sentenced to life without parole.
How it was solved
No forensic advance solved this case. In 1981 the police fumed the whole house for fingerprints, interviewed dozens of people, posted a $5,000 reward and even used hypnosis on a witness, and the file grew past a hundred pages, but nobody could be charged. Jack Pursel, who had never lived in Waterloo but had been going out with a relative of the couple, was one of several people of interest. Within a year he was in prison in California for a sex offence involving a minor; a Los Angeles homicide detective and, in 1983, two Waterloo investigators questioned him there, and both times he asked for a lawyer. He was paroled in 1992, drove trucks, and settled in South Gate, California. In spring 2012 he sold his possessions, telephoned a brother he had not seen in years and told him he had killed the Huntbachs, then flew to Iowa and walked into the Waterloo police department on May 8. Over two days of interviews he described the number and location of the gunshots and the color of the cattle prod, details police confirmed against the 1981 file and the newspaper archive had never been published. Detectives also travelled to California and confirmed with a prison inmate, a former follower of Charles Manson active in prison ministry, that Pursel had confided the murders to him in the 1990s. Pursel said he had become a born-again Christian. He was charged on May 9, 2012, pleaded guilty on June 7 and received the mandatory sentence of life without parole on each count. The county attorney rejected his claim that he killed the couple only because they recognised his voice, saying the crime looked like revenge on the wider family.
Sources
- Confessed killer appears in court; California man arrested for murder; Police reopen 1981 killings (May 10, 2012)
“During his interviews with Waterloo detectives, Pursel provided details that only a person involved in the crime would know, according to court records.”
- Call to long-lost brother preceded California man's confession to murders (May 11, 2012)
“Pursel didn't know where the police station was located, and his brother had never been to the city.”
- Police: Jack Pursel told Charles Manson disciple about murders 20 years ago (June 10, 2012)
“He told police the number of gunshots and the locations of the fatal wounds, and remembered the color of a cattle prod used for torture.”
- Man who admits to 2 murders 31 years ago pleads guilty; sentenced to life (June 7, 2012)
“Ferguson said Pursel claimed he was robbing the Huntbachs and decided to kill them when they recognized his voice. But Ferguson said his actions spoke of revenge.”
- Man pleads guilty to 1981 killing of Iowa couple (June 7, 2012)
“I wanted this to be as low key as confessing, pleading, judge finding me guilty immediately and sentencing me.”
- Iowa Double Murder: Man Confesses Three Decades Later (May 10, 2012)
“He said his intention was to go in and rob them and kill them.”
- Three decades after double homicide, man walks into Iowa police station and confesses (May 11, 2012)
“It's very unusual to have somebody confess to any crime, let alone a double homicide that happened 30 years ago.”
- Robert and Goldie Huntbach
“Thirty-one years after the crime, Jack Wendell Pursel walked into the Waterloo Police Department and confessed to the double homicide.”
- Obituary and news report, Waterloo Courier, January 13, 1981 (transcribed on Find a Grave)
“Neighbors considered Goldie and Robert Huntbach nice, quiet everyday people who loved to sit in their backyard glider swing during the summer and chat with children.”