River searched in Miller case

Charles City Press 11/14/05

By Jennifer Meyer Staff writer

A 5-man dive team searched the bottom of the Cedar River for about five hours on Saturday for clues in the Evelyn Miller murder investigation.

Floyd County Sheriff Rick Lynch said Monday that divers searched an area of the river northwest of Charles City.

“Nothing was found of interest to the case,” Lynch said.

Evelyn Miller, 5, disappeared from her apartment complex near Floyd on July 1. Her body was found on July 6 in the Cedar River two miles from her home.

Authorities say Evelyn was murdered, but have not said when or how she was killed. No arrests have been made.

Lynch said he and two Floyd County deputies, sheriff’s reserves and state Division of Criminal Investigation agents joined Waterloo divers at the search location around 9:30 a.m. They remained at the site until around 2:30 p.m., when it began to rain, he said.

Lynch said revealing the exact location of the search could jeopardize the case, but said, leads generated from interviews and K-9 searches led investigators to the site.

Floyd County Attorney Marilyn Dettmer on Monday confirmed that K-9s were used to search an area south of Charles City late on Friday morning.

“They were here to do a little more fine-tuning,” she said.

Forensic investigative dogs were brought in on Friday to build on a search done the previous Saturday with search dogs from the FBI, Dettmer said.

Both uses of K-9s, she said, were for investigating Evelyn’s case as well as the unrelated murder of a 20-year-old Waterloo man.

Jesse Patchin was last seen on Oct. 1 and reported missing to the Waterloo Police Department on July 9.

Patchin’s body has not been located, but investigators believe it may be located in a rural area near Mason City.

James D. “J.D.” Raymond, 24, also of Waterloo, is charged with first-degree murder for Patchin’s death. Court documents allege he killed Patchin in Floyd County after the two argued over a drug deal around Oct. 1.

Raymond is being held in jail without bail, and is scheduled for arraignment next Monday.

His uncle, Charles L. Gallmeyer, 54, of Lime Springs, is also being held without bail in Floyd County jail as a material witness.

Dettmer said the FBI is not involved in the Patchin case, and that its assistance in the search one week ago was coincidental. The agency has assisted voluntarily in Evelyn’s case.

Dettmer and Lynch said resources remain devoted to finding Evelyn’s killer.

“(The investigation) is still very intense,” Dettmer said. “I can’t see that there’s been any let down.”

She said not all forensic testing has been completed in the case, which could produce future leads.

Lynch said an investigator from his office remains assigned full-time to investigating Evelyn’s murder with the DCI, which heads the investigation. A second officer is assigned as his backup.

Lynch added that K-9 assistance from the FBI and Star 1 Search and Technical Rescue have been without charge to the county.