The Brutally Batted Bartender - West Liberty, Iowa - Part 1

Small Town Murder

This episode of Small Town Murder explores the brutal murder of a beloved bartender in West Liberty, Iowa, a small town with a tight-knit co

Key takeaways

The murder case is exceptionally complex due to the victim's multiple romantic relationships, including at least four girlfriends and a fiancée.

Main topics

Murder investigation in a small town
Multiple suspects due to victim's romantic entanglements

Notable quotes

"You might not want to call your buddy 'Bacon'"

Conclusion

The episode sets up a gripping mystery with no clear answers, emphasizing the

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:15) Hello and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay and choo-choo! Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us again today on another crazy edition of Small Town Murder Express. Really packing 10 pounds of murder in a two-pound bag here. This is a wild story that's... Been like kind of trickling on and on and weird things have been coming out about it. It's very interesting. So all aboard the murder train, pulling away from the station. Let's get to this. First of all, head over to shut up and give me murder dot com. You need tickets, guys. You got to get your tickets. Tickets Speaker 1 (0:55) to live shows here. Speaker 2 (0:57) Starting with the 18th of. of September in Milwaukee. There's, I think, a few left. We released all of our holds and stuff, so I think there's a couple left for that, but I don't know how many. Also, the 19th of September, State Theater, Minneapolis. Get those tickets. Dallas on October 3rd. October 16th, San Jose, California. October 17th, Sacramento. Hey, listen, we're coming to Sacramento. You've Speaker 1 (1:21) got Speaker 2 (1:21) to come out for this. This is not exactly a vacation spot here. So help us out here. And then Terrytown, which is almost sold out on November. November 13th, and then Boston, more accurately Medford, on the 14th of November. Cool theater there. So lots of good times. Can't wait for that. Shut up and give me murder.com. Listen to our other two shows, Crime and Sports. We promise you don't have to like sports. You just have to like funny stories about people who screwed up that didn't have to screw up. And then your stupid opinions. We just. If you like it half as much as we do, you're going to love it because we love it. The best time doing that show. It's just so much fun and so crazy and so funny. So check that out. Get yourself Patreon. That's huge. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. That's where you get all of the bonus material. All you have to be is five dollars a month or above and you get everything we could possibly produce. Soon as you subscribe, you're going to get it's got to be like 400 back bonus episodes by now. immediately available upon subscription. New ones every other week. One crime and sports, one small town murder. And how much of that do they get, Speaker 1 (2:25) Jimmy? You get it all you got. Every damn Speaker 2 (2:26) drop of it. That's right. This week for crime and sports, definitely don't have to like sports for this because you get it all. Lawn chair Larry we're going to talk about, who is a guy who decided to make an aerial device from his lawn chair. For what? We'll find out. I am fascinated with people like this that need to try to do stuff like that. And for Small Town Murder Donner Party Part 2, they're about stuck and about to start eating each other, everybody. So this story is getting crazy. So check that out. Patreon.com slash Crime in Sports is where you get all that. And you get every show we put out. Crime in Sports, Your Stupid Opinion, both Small Town Murders, all ad-free with your Patreon as well. And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show. How much more could we give? That said, let's do this, everybody. I think it's time to sit back, clear the lungs here. What do you say? Arms to the sky. Let's all shout. Shout. Speaker 1 (3:27) and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? We are doing it. Yeah, where are we going? We are going to Iowa this week. Speaker 2 (3:40) You can hear the excitement. You can feel my voice trembling. We're going to West Liberty, Iowa, which is in far eastern Iowa, on like the Illinois border there. The west side of the town on the east side of the state. Exactly. Well, yeah, because there's a Liberty in Ohio that they named it after. So this would technically be West Liberty. You'd have to skip a couple states to get there, but it's west apparently. Speaker 1 (4:05) Oh, Speaker 2 (4:05) it's super west. Yeah, there's two states over, but it's there. It's about 50. Speaker 1 (4:09) They almost called California West New York. Well, it could have been anything. Speaker 2 (4:13) Yeah, I heard West Nebraska was kicked around a little bit, but they decided against it. 50 minutes to Cedar Rapids, about three hours to Chicago, and about three hours and 45 minutes to our last Iowa episode, which was early Iowa. That was cold-blooded, quote, hero, that episode. Episode 687. That's a fun, twisty one, so check that out. It's a regular-length episode. This is in Muscatine County, area code, we all know old Muscatine County, area code 319, population here 3,847. Very small. Small little town here. Median household income, a little below the national average. It's $58,488, so not too high, but lucky for everybody there, the housing is about half of the rest of the country, too. Speaker 1 (5:01) Very cheap. Speaker 2 (5:01) Yeah. Median home cost here, $180,600. Wow. Yeah. With $60,000 a year, you could actually afford that house, so that's not bad. A little bit of history. It was first known as the Wapasana. Speaker 2 (5:19) Wapasoniak. Wapasoniak. Wapasoniak. Wapasoniak. You're getting there. Something like that. I'll hand this to you and see what you do with it. I'm not going to get there. You are. No, I'm not even there. I'm not there either. That's the point. I'm nowhere near it. I'm all messed Speaker 1 (5:36) up here. Speaker 2 (5:36) Native American language is so confusing because there's so Speaker 1 (5:40) many S's, P's, N's. Yeah. And I don't fucking know. It's confusing. Speaker 2 (5:44) A lot of times it's like Japanese, though. It's pretty phonetic. But this is just a hard one for me for some reason. It means smooth surfaced meandering stream. So that was the original town. It was the first village was located a little northwest of the present day town. And it was laid out by a guy named Simon Bagley. His niece, Louisa, they let her name the town. They let her name the post office for some reason. Let's let a kid name it. And she said they wanted it to be West Liberty because she liked Liberty, Ohio. So this is what happens when you let a nine-year-old name your town. You end up with this. Speaker 1 (6:22) They want to name it Liberty. We can't do that. Speaker 2 (6:25) At least they didn't name it after their puppy or something. You know what I mean? Kids want to name weird things. Her dog, Rupert. Let your four-year-old name the dog and see what the fuck it... I've seen that before where you're like, what's your dog's name? They're like, I let my four-year-old name it. Oh, okay. Yeah. I have friends Speaker 1 (6:42) that have a dog named Tartar Sauce because of that same reason. Speaker 2 (6:47) Yeah, that's what I mean. You let the kid. Tartar sauce. You should go, you can name the kid. And they go, tartar sauce? And you go, never mind. Never mind. Get the hell out of here. We're going to name the dog a name. We'll handle it. Yeah. Reviews of this town. Okay. Here are two that are extremely similar, and I don't understand either one of them. Okay. Five stars. It's a very Pacific town. P-A-S-I-F-I-C. Speaker 2 (7:13) Pacific? Do they mean Pacific? We'll Speaker 1 (7:15) get Speaker 2 (7:17) there. It's a very Pacific town with no disturbances. People are friendly and kind. Furthermore, rent is affordable. There's also a turkey plant, which offers a lot of jobs for newcomers in town. Speaker 1 (7:28) We Speaker 2 (7:29) all know that parting out poultry is the job everyone desires. So I get it. You need a job. You need a job. But that's not like a, you know, oh, my career. I can't wait to do that. That's a rough, gross job. It's a hard job. Speaker 1 (7:41) Field foul slaughterhouse. Yeah, that's a Speaker 2 (7:44) dirty, nasty, gross job. It's tough. It's a tough one. Even though it's a small town, it offers great opportunities for family entertainment, such as public parks and a small affordable theater. Now, here's another five star one from a year apart. So they're not even like next to each other. It's a very Pacific place to live. Meaning this is spelled. This is spelled like the ocean with a C instead of an S like the other person. It's a very, I don't know. And I tried to figure it out. It's just these two people with very friendly people habitating. It has tons of trees around its house with makes, with makes the town look beautiful during spring and fall. It is safe and quiet. Furthermore, it has nice places to go have fun at, such as a small theater, car races, several restaurants that have delicious food. Lots of Speaker 1 (8:36) small words. That's Speaker 2 (8:38) a person who named their dog tartar sauce. Three stars. Everything is connected, which I like, but of course, with preference kind of families. Speaker 2 (8:50) You got me. I love this. What's going on? I don't know. I love the support with sports and the academic success, which I hope you didn't have because that would that would negate Speaker 1 (9:02) this whole thing. Exactly. Speaker 2 (9:04) Three stars here. It's a pretty small town. You can meet everyone and make easy connections with families. Too spensive. S-P-E-N-S-I-V-E. Too expensive to be a small town, but is a quiet town with great sport support for our students. You need to get English support for your students. Fuck sports. What is happening? It's got Speaker 1 (9:29) to be specific. It's got to be the other word they're trying to use. Speaker 2 (9:32) But two different people said Pacific and spelled it differently. That's what I didn't get, too. When I saw the first one, I said, yeah, that's what I thought, too. But then I saw the other one. I'm like, no, this is crazy. Things to do here. The Muscatine County Fair, everybody. Yeah. Let's do it. By the way, I went to the Dutchess County Fair so I could help make fun of it on the show here. And it was worth it. There was a guy. I went with Sarah and we did the squirty things. Speaker 1 (9:57) We were just having fun. We were going around eating hot dogs and looking at cows and shit. Those are a scam somehow and I don't know how. Speaker 2 (10:03) We did the squirty and we're like, yeah, yeah, we'll do it. We sit down and they're like, oh, we need like three more people before we can start. We're like, okay. So then we sat there for ten minutes while this guy. Speaker 2 (10:13) Dude, carnies used to be good. They used to be like, hey, come over here. I can win that lady a prize. Come on over here. They'd give their pitch. This guy was literally going, we need three more people. Come on, guys. We need three more people. And Sarah and I are looking at each other like, this is the worst pitch of all time. Give Speaker 1 (10:30) us Speaker 2 (10:31) the stuffed Speaker 1 (10:31) animal. We'll fucking Speaker 2 (10:32) do the pitch. But it took a while before we actually Speaker 1 (10:34) did Speaker 2 (10:35) it. I Speaker 1 (10:35) did that with my daughter and my son. I won once. And then I kept sitting there trying to win again because I got two kids. I can't leave here with one fucking stuffed animal. I'm Speaker 2 (10:46) going Speaker 1 (10:46) to be the worst dad ever. Eventually, I just bought all of the seats just so that my son could get a toy, too. I was like, I can't leave with this. And they made me do like six rounds of it. And I kept losing. I'm like, you're scamming me. And I don't know how. Speaker 2 (11:00) I know it's making me really Speaker 1 (11:02) mad. I was like, watch, I'm going to scam you. I'm buying all the seats. Give me a prize. Speaker 2 (11:07) I'm going to scam you. Here's all my money. Speaker 2 (11:11) And they're like, boy, he sure did get us, didn't he? Boy, did he pull one over on us. Man, he figured it out, boy. Speaker 2 (11:19) We're going to have to start making rules against that. You know what I mean? Anyway, this place has a queen and princess contest, which is always uncomfortable. No kings. No kings, no. Bacon buddies, which is actually kind of nice. They get developmentally disabled children and they show pigs. They do the pigs in the pig show. They like teach them how to do it and they get into it. Oh, that's fun. That's a nice thing to do. It's really nice. I don't know. I hope they explain to those children that we're going to slaughter these. Like you like bacon? They're bacon buddies. I'm sure they get the kind of, you know, I don't know how delayed you have to be, but you're going to get that reference, you know. Trailer race. There's a trailer race. I don't know. However that is. You get your house and pull it on down. And a Bill Riley talent show. Not Bill O'Reilly. Bill Riley talent show. Don't know what happens there. And the lineup musically will be Confederate Railroad, which that sounds. No. Wow. Okay. I'm not listening. Josh Ross. Sounds kind of plain. And Mark. Oh, God. Jesus Christ. I assume that's Chestnut. I put Mark Chessbutt, which is not what it is. He'd be in the internet. Mark Speaker 1 (12:41) Chessbutt's good. Speaker 2 (12:42) How about Mark Chessbutt? Is he any good? You look like an old guy. Speaker 1 (12:48) Yeah. I feel like he's trying to think because there's a chestnut. I don't know if it's Mark Chessnut. It's got to be Mark Chessnut. That's Speaker 2 (12:56) who Speaker 1 (12:56) they've got to get. Who the fuck knows? Late 90s, early 2000s country singer. He's fine. Speaker 2 (13:01) There's also the Great Plains Puppet Train Regional Puppet Festival. Know what they have there? Puppets? Fucking puppets. Moving on. Let's talk about some murder. Who cares? We're going to talk about puppets. They do marionette shows. They literally have a workshop on shadow puppets there. Speaker 1 (13:18) A workshop on shadow puppets? Yes. Speaker 2 (13:20) To show you how Speaker 1 (13:21) to... Speaker 2 (13:21) Which is a great skill when you're eight. And there's a film strip, but I don't think they show film strips anymore, so it's really a lost art at this point. There's a guy Speaker 1 (13:28) on Instagram that I watch that's amazing at it. Yeah. It's kind of fun. Speaker 2 (13:33) Okay. There you go. Maybe he's teaching the workshop. So that said, let's talk about some murder here. Let's do it. Let's talk about a young man first here. Corey Lee Wieneke. W-I-E-N-E-K-E. Corey. Corey's born March 25th, 1970. He's the only child of James and Susan Wieneke. He went to West Liberty High School, played center on the football team, was a starting center. He's only like 5'9", but he's over 200 pounds. He's a sturdy, thick dude. But not like a fat guy or anything. Just like a real thick guy. One of those little fireplug guys. The team went all the way to the Class AA semifinals. He graduated from high school in 88. His dad said this about him. Corey was just like a big brother to everybody in the whole neighborhood. He's very good socially and he's very kind of an outgoing guy, Corey. All right. Another friend said this. He was a fun guy. He was friendly, outgoing, charming. Everybody was his friend. I mean, I didn't know anybody that didn't like Corey. That's high school Corey. Nobody didn't like him. Good guy. Now, his job when he graduates is. I don't think he went to college or anything. Instead, he worked at Wink's Tap, which is a bar that his family owns. His grandmother, Betty, owns it. So it's kind of the – it's in downtown West Liberty. It's the bar in downtown West Liberty. The Speaker 1 (15:07) bar, Speaker 2 (15:07) yeah. Yeah. Wink's? Wink's. Wink, like wink. Yeah. Wink. Wink's Tap. Yeah, because it's Winnikey. I guess it's Winkie probably. He started there as a kid, you know, just – doing the ice and that kind of shit. And then he ended up on his 18th birthday. Maybe that's the law in Iowa. I don't know. But that's when he moved behind the bar when he was 18. Oh, yeah. The bartender. And within by the time he's 21, he's like, you know, he's a hugely popular guy in town. He's the bartender of the downtown bar. He serves you beers every night. Speaker 1 (15:41) Yeah. Speaker 2 (15:41) Everybody knows him. He works the late shift. So he's the guy that's there at closing time becomes real popular. He's got a, by 1992, he's bartending. He drives a blue Cadillac, a big old, like a 70s Cadillac from what I gathered. Yeah. Speaker 1 (15:58) Like Speaker 2 (15:58) one of the boats like my grandmother had where the doors, when they slam, they're like, like it sounds like a bank vault closing. Yeah. Yeah, one of those. It's got a 454 in it. It's a big one. Huge monster. So this means everybody knows his car. It's a bright blue, enormous Cadillac. Yeah. Oh, there's Corey driving by. You can't miss him, basically. By 22, he's also into partying. I mean, he's Speaker 1 (16:22) a Speaker 2 (16:22) bartender, and he works till 2 in the morning, and he's into partying. He knows where they're at. He smokes some weed. He does some coke here and there, too. Likes some coke, smokes some weed, does some drinking. And apparently, too, there's a bunch of different guys he gets drugs from. There's a guy named Slim Zamora, which is the best drug dealer name of all time. Slim Zamora. That sounds awesome. Not bad. Another guy way less cool of a drug dealer name, Ken Hammond. That's not fun. That's like a sitcom, Dad. That's no fun. Slim at least sounds Mexican. He might get you good shit. At least he's got a nickname. You know what I mean? Slim. Slim does so much coke, he's Slim. I don't know, something. But then there's Otis Sanders, which is kind of in between. as for a drug dealer name, not here nor there. Now, he's not really selling drugs or anything, Corey, but he's the bartender that if you want something, he can make a phone call and get it for you. He's that guy. So he might make 20, he'll make an extra 20 bucks off an eight ball or something, but he's, the bartender knows everything, everybody, the bartenders have connections. I know there's a lot of, whenever I mention working in restaurants, people, explain I work in a restaurant and I never had those experiences. Good for you. That's great. I'm sure you didn't. But every restaurant I ever worked at and I grew up working in restaurants and my family, like everybody there knows how to get drugs and does drugs. It's just one of those things. If you work till two in the morning, you tend to do more likely that you're doing drugs. Speaker 1 (17:59) Yeah. Speaker 2 (17:59) Don't know why. You're just bored. Speaker 1 (18:01) There's a difference between working at an actual restaurant with a sous chef than working at fucking Panda Express. That's not a restaurant. Speaker 2 (18:08) No, no, that's not a restaurant. Well, it's a restaurant. Jesus, because I got yelled at for making. Never mind. Forget it. I'm not even going to bother. What? Speaker 1 (18:19) Not belittling your career. However, you know that it wasn't your first choice. You Speaker 2 (18:24) didn't. Speaker 1 (18:24) On career day, you didn't say, I'm going to work the fries. Yeah. Speaker 2 (18:28) Exactly. You didn't say that. Thank you. You say it because they treat you like a special Olympian or something. They do. They do. They treat you like you're, he's brave to come out here. He's Speaker 1 (18:39) so brave to put himself out there. Speaker 2 (18:42) That's how they treat. Speaker 1 (18:43) It's fucking insane. Don't worry, guys. They don't parade me out with the bacon buddies. No. Speaker 2 (18:51) You're going to get Jimmy a bacon buddy is what it sounds like sometimes. I'm like, stop treating Jimmy like that. He's a grown man. Speaker 1 (18:58) I like Speaker 2 (18:58) my own ass. He's a grown man, and he's a dick sometimes, too, unlike Special Olympians, which is why I love him. That's the point. That's why I love