The October 12, 1998 Incident: Harry Greenwell, a Stabbing, and the Gun Nobody Talks About

Years before DNA identified Harry Edward Greenwell as the I-65 Killer, a domestic disturbance in rural Iowa led to his arrest and the seizure of a firearm that raises questions still unanswered today

On October 12, 1998, an incident unfolded at a rural residence near New Albin, Iowa that, viewed through the lens of history, deserves far more attention than it has received.

According to contemporaneous reporting by the La Crosse Tribune, 15-year-old Eva Smith was accused of stabbing Harry Edward Greenwell at the family’s home along Highway 26. The incident resulted in criminal charges against both individuals. Smith was referred to juvenile authorities, while Greenwell was arrested by the Allamakee County Sheriff’s Office and charged with simple assault and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

At the time, Greenwell was 53 years old.

Today, he is known for something far more sinister.

More than two decades later, law enforcement would identify Harry Edward Greenwell through forensic genealogy and DNA evidence as the man responsible for a series of murders and sexual assaults spanning multiple states. The offender known for years as the I-65 Killer had been living quietly in rural Iowa when this incident occurred.

The newspaper account itself is brief. Sheriff Neil Becker confirmed the disturbance occurred at the Greenwell residence, but few details were released publicly. Greenwell was held on a $10,250 cash bond and scheduled for a preliminary hearing later that month.

What stands out now is not merely the domestic disturbance.

It is the firearm.

A convicted felon was found in possession of a gun. That gun was seized by law enforcement. At the time, no one publicly knew Greenwell would one day be identified as a serial killer. Yet the question remains: what became of that weapon?

Was it tested?

Was it subjected to ballistic examination?

Were shell casings compared against unsolved homicides?

Was the firearm entered into national databases such as the ATF’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN)?

If those steps were taken, the results have not been publicly discussed. If they were not taken, one must ask why.

These questions are not academic.

By October 1998, authorities were unknowingly dealing with a man who had spent years traveling throughout the Midwest and South. Greenwell had already committed the crimes for which he would later be identified. Investigators now know his criminal history was not confined to a single jurisdiction, a single victim, or even a single decade.

A firearm recovered from such an individual is not merely evidence of a prohibited possession offense. It is a potential investigative lead.

The case itself would quietly fade. Court records indicate the charges against Greenwell were ultimately dismissed on November 1, 1999. The public moved on. Law enforcement moved on.

The firearm, however, remains a question mark.

Somewhere in the history of the Greenwell investigation sits a simple but profoundly important question: What happened to the gun?

If it was retained, tested, and documented, those records could prove valuable to understanding Greenwell’s movements and activities during the final years of his life.

If it was returned, destroyed, or otherwise disappeared into the bureaucracy of the criminal justice system, another opportunity to better understand one of America’s most elusive serial offenders may have been lost.

For a man who spent decades evading identification, sometimes the most revealing clues are found not in the murders themselves, but in the seemingly ordinary encounters with law enforcement that occurred along the way.