Dawn And Tom Mather

Tom and Dawn lived on a one-hundred-sixty-acre farm near Springdale, fifteen miles east of Iowa City and one-hundred-thirty miles east of Des Moines. The house had been that of Tom’s parents, Stew and Mildred, with whom they had lived prior to marrying. Mr. and Mrs. Mather then moved to a mobile home in West Branch, roughly five miles to the west.

The Mather Farmhouse

Tom, a night-shift custodian at the University of Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena, was to begin work at 11:00 on the evening of September 30, 1991. Dawn told investigators they had been watching television in their living room at approximately 8:40 p.m. when they were taken aback by an unclad man displaying a handgun and two pieces of rope and saying he was going to rob them.

While holding Tom at gunpoint, Dawn says the assailant gave her the rope and ordered her to tie up her husband. She did so, but not to the intruder’s satisfaction; he finished binding Tom and then ordered him to crawl into the bedroom to where Dawn was also taken, compelled to strip, and subsequently tied up as well. After managing to free herself, Dawn says Tom yelled for her to run for help. She fled, while naked, to the nearest neighbor’s farmhouse about a quarter-of-a-mile away.

When Cedar County Sheriff’ deputies arrived at the Mather home about twenty minutes later, they found Tom bound and dead.

The Couple Are Ambushed

Money was strewn across the Mather home, and tire tracks were found outside.

      

            The Rope And The Tire Tracks

An autopsy found Tom’s neck and wrists had been slashed, but that he had been killed from a shot to the head, most likely from a six-shot revolver. The murder weapon was not found.

Tom was well-liked by his family, friends, and coworkers. No one knew anyone who would have a motive to harm him.

Shot To Death

Dawn believes the assailant entered the home through the garage. She said he was white and described him as approximately thirty-years-old, around six-feet tall, and having straight, bleached-blond hair that was darker toward the ends. The intruder in the buff but was not buffed, having a slender build. Dawn said she did not know the man and she did not believe Tom had recognized him.

A composite drawing of the naked gunman (face only) produced no substantive leads.

Composite Of The Nude Intruder

Dawn said that at about 6:45 p.m., roughly two hours before the murder, she had heard a man who had knocked on their door asking Tom for directions to either Wilton or Wellman, respectively fifteen miles southeast and forty-five miles southwest of Springdale.

Roughly two hours later, at about the time Dawn’s neighbor had made the emergency call, another neighbor, Pat Furchtenicht, saw a similarly-described man outside her home. Police dogs could not pick up a scent and the man was not located.

Two cars, one seen at the Mather home and the other seen nearby, became the subsequent focus of the police investigation.

Also at about 6:45, a man and a woman were seen talking near a dark-colored (possibly blue) Pontiac Grand Am, perhaps a 1986 or 1987 model and having mag wheels, parked on a local gravel road. Roughly ten minutes later, a neighbor noticed a white or light-colored car quickly exiting the Mathers’ driveway.

Approximately an hour to an hour-and-a-half later, between 8-8:30, a couple were seen driving from the Mather’s home in a car similar to the Pontiac Grand Am. Authorities found tire tracks in a nearby cornfield they say could be those of such a car, and a man in tan coveralls and carrying a pole or pipe was seen walking from the direction of the cornfield around 8:45. At about the same time, the light-colored car was again seen, this time parked in the Mathers’ driveway.

Neither of these vehicles was located.

Police Searching Outside Of The Mather Home

After her husband’s murder, Dawn Mather moved to Coralville, twenty minutes west of Springdale, after claiming investigators were harassing her and tracking her bank transactions and phone records.

In April 1993, having been granted a search warrant of Dawn’s Coralville apartment, police found a green polka-dotted blouse and skirt similar to those worn by the woman seen talking to the man near the dark–colored Pontiac Grand Am. The finding led some to believe the woman was Dawn and that she had enlisted the man to murder Tom. This theory was bolstered by reports of police contending she did not have blisters on the bottom of her feet, which would be expected after running naked on a gravel road. Her lawyer, William Kutmus, dismissed those reports as inaccurate.

Dawn Mather later moved out of state. She has not been charged with involvement in her husband’s murder, but she has also not been cleared. On her attorney’s advice, she stopped speaking with police.

Did Dawn Tell The Naked Truth?

Thomas Stewart Mather was killed in his home on the evening of September 30, 1991. His murder remains unsolved. Investigators have not commented on a possible motive, nor have they addressed what, if any, DNA evidence was obtained. They have also not stated if anything had been taken from the home or if any items were left behind by the purported killer.

If you have information regarding Tom Mather’s murder, please contact the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Major Crime Unit at (563) 284-9506 or the Iowa Attorney General’s Office Cold Case Unit at 1-800-242-5100 or email at [email protected].

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/59057809/thomas_stewart-mather

 

The Mather Murder Is Still A Mystery

Through the University of Iowa, Tom Mather had a $50,000 group life insurance policy with the Principal Financial Group. Dawn was named as the beneficiary of the policy.

In February 1992, four months after her husband’s murder, Dawn sued Principal for refusing to pay her on the grounds of their claiming she had committed murder. Company officials said the claim was still being reviewed at the time.

In June, the Principal Financial Group reached a settlement with Dawn, paying her $42,500 and reiterating they had never denied her claim.

Not only did Stew and Mildred Mather never doubt their daughter-in-law’s account, they accused the Principal Financial Group of having planted the “public seed of suspicion” of Dawn’s involvement in their son’s murder.

Stew Mather died in 2006 at age eighty; Mildred passed in August 2023 at age one-hundred-one. She had been an archivist at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch from 1963 until her retirement in 1992.

Mildred Mather

SOURCES:

• Cedar Rapids Gazette
• Des Moines Register
• Iowa city Press-Citizen
• Iowa Cold Cases
• Iowa Today
• NBC News