MURDERED: Lyric Cook-Morrissey & Elizabeth Collins
When two young cousins go out for a bike ride and never come home, a community has to ask: is a predator living among them?
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Timeline:
12:15pm
Lyric and Elizabeth’s grandmother sees them riding their bicycles down the street.
Between 12:00-3:00pm
An Evansdale resident sees the girls riding their bicycles down a different street.
4:00pm
The girls’ bicycles are found on a trail near Meyers Lake, as well as Elizabeth’s cellphone and purse, but the girls are nowhere to be seen.
Meyers Lake is drained in an attempt to locate the girls.
Elizabeth’s birthday comes and goes with no sign of her or her cousin.
Two sets of remains are discovered by hunters in Seven Bridges Wildlife Area. They are eventually determined to belong to Lyric and Elizabeth.
The last place the girls were seen riding their bikes.
Where the girls’ bikes were discovered, abandoned.
Where the girls’ bodies were discovered.
Please contact the authorities if you have any information about the disappearance and murders of Lyric Cook-Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins in 2012 in Iowa:
Email or text
Please email any tips to [email protected], or text 274637 and include the word “CEDAR.”
Anonymous phone call
You can also remain anonymous by calling 815-300-8477.
Support the Elizabeth Collins Foundation
If you would like to join audiochuck in supporting the Elizabeth Collins Foundation, which educates the community on child safety and the dangers of child abduction and sex trafficking, please visit their website by clicking here.
We’d love to speak with you and see how we can support.
If you’re a law enforcement agency or family member of one of the people we mentioned in this episode, or if you’re looking for more coverage on a case, please reach out. You can email us at:
Episode Source Material
- Taken Together: Who Killed Lyric and Elizabeth? (Limited Series). 2024. Accessed August 30 and September 3, 2024 via Max.
- KCRG (Cedar Rapids, IA): Drew Collins’ message to daughter’s killer: ‘We’re coming for you’, by Aaron Hepker and Nicole Agee. Published July 14, 2022. Accessed September 9, 2024.
- KCRG (Cedar Rapids, IA): Mother of Evansdale abduction, murder victim: ‘Time doesn’t heal, it just makes it worse’, by Nicole Agee and Aaron Hepker. Published July 12, 2022. Accessed September 9, 2024.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Mom fears her daughter, cousin were abducted, by Emily Schettler. Published July 15, 2012. Accessed August 30, 2024 via Newspapers.com.
- The Independent (UK): The unsolved 2012 murders of two young Iowa cousins still haunts this town (Exclusive), by James Liddell. Published August 26, 2024. Accessed September 10, 2024.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): FBI believes girls are alive, by Emily Schettler. Published July 22, 2012. Accessed September 4 and 5, 2024 via Newspapers.com.
- KCRG (Cedar Rapids, IA): Search for justice continues a decade after cousins abducted, murdered, by Aaron Hepker, Nicole Agee and Beth Malicki. Published July 11, 2022. Updated July 13, 2022. Accessed September 9, 2024.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Slain Evansdale girls’ case to focus on wilderness area, by Grant Rodgers. Published February 3, 2015. Updated February 4, 2015. Accessed September 6, 2024.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Authorities reclassify case as abduction, by Emily Schettler. Published July 21, 2012. Accessed September 4, 2024 via Newspapers.com.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Huge yields no signs of 2 girls, by Emily Schettler and Timothy Meinch. Published July 16, 2012. Accessed August 30, 2024 via Newspapers.com.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Hundreds aid search for missing girls, by Emily Schettler. Published July 16, 2012. Accessed August 30, 2024 via Newspapers.com.
- KCCI (Des Moines, IA): Tuesday update: Dogs used in search for missing girls. Published July 17, 2012. Accessed August 30, 2024.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): 2 missing girls ‘no idea why’, by Timothy Meinch. Published July 17, 2012. Accessed August 30, 2024 via Newspapers.com.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Tensions Rise, by Emily Schettler. Published July 19, 2012. Accessed September 3, 2024 via Newspapers.com.
- KCCI (Des Moines, IA): Missing girls update: Mom says she passed polygraph. Published July 23, 2012. Accessed September 5, 2012.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Experts: Amber alert not needed in this case, by Daniel P. Finney. Published July 20, 2012. Accessed September 3, 2024 via Newspapers.com.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Two bodies found, by Emily Schettler. Published December 6, 2012. Accessed September 6, 2024 via Newspapers.com.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Murdered girls’ case taints Iowa park for residents, by Grant Rodgers. Published February 5, 2015. Updated February 6, 2015. Accessed September 6, 2024.
- KCCI (Des Moines, IA): Evansdale investigators: Klunder just one of leads in case. Published June 7, 2013. Accessed September 6, 2024.
- KCCI 8 (Dayton, Iowa): Shepard Abduction: Who is Michael J. Klunder? Published May 21, 2013. Accessed October 30, 2024.
- Ottumwa Courier (Iowa City, Iowa): Man who kidnapped 2 Iowa girls had long record, by Ryan J. Foley. Published May 23, 2013. Updated July 28, 2014. Accessed October 30, 2024.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Police: Klunder didn’t kidnap Evansdale cousins, by Katherine Klingseis. Published May 14, 2014. Accessed September 6, 2024.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): The pain of 2 Iowa girls’ killings remains, but resolve in Evansdale only grows, by Linh Ta. Published July 8, 2017. Updated July 12, 2017. Accessed September 6, 2024.
- Des Moines Register: A stranger with $100 bills: How an Iowa man tried to kidnap at least 19 kids across the state, by Linh Ta. Published May 26, 2018. Accessed October 9, 2024.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Evansdale, Indiana double-homicide links ‘coincidental,’ Indiana State Police say, by MacKenzie Elmer. Published March 9, 2017. Accessed September 6, 2024.
- The Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA): Unsolved Evansdale abduction continues to frustrate investigators, by Lyle Muller. Published July 28, 2015. Accessed September 6, 2015.
- The Gazette: Timeline of events in Evelyn Miller case, by admin. Published September 27, 2012. Accessed October 8, 2024.
- KCRG (Cedar Rapids, IA): 10 years after Evansdale case, investigators inching closer to justice, by Aaron Hepker and Nicole Agee. Published July 15, 2022. Accessed September 9, 2024.
- KCCI (Des Moines, IA): 5 years later: New leads in devastating case bring family hope, by Laura Terrell. Published July 12, 2017. Accessed September 6, 2024.
- Iowa Department of Human Rights: An Analysis of Child Kidnapping in Iowa, by Lanette Watson, M.P.P., Sarah Rabey, M.A., and Paul Stageberg, Ph.D. Published December 1, 2013. Accessed October 30, 2024.
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