On January 13, 2003, 62-year-old Karen Kay Duncan of Spencer, Iowa, did not show up for her shift managing a local Subway. Co-workers went to the trailer court where Karen and her husband Harold Arthur Duncan lived in a motor home; when knocks went unanswered a landlord alerted police. A Spencer officer entered through a window and found Karen and Harold on their bed. Karen was face down with two shotgun wounds, one to the front and one to the back, and was pronounced dead at the scene. Harold was face up with a severe gunshot wound to his face and alive; a shotgun and an open box of 12-gauge shells were found in the motor home.

Harold was taken to hospital and later, after transfer, told a Division of Criminal Investigation agent that he had shot his wife twice and then turned the gun on himself. He was charged January 29, 2003, with first-degree murder; in a pre-trial stipulation he admitted firing the two blasts that killed Karen. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to life in prison in 2004.

Did anyone in Spencer remember Karen from the Subway or know of tensions in the couple’s life that might shed light on what led up to that January morning?