On the evening of September 13, 1985, 36-year-old Newton, Iowa police officer Daniel Mark McPherren Sr. responded to an armed robbery at a Hy-Vee grocery store. Positioned at the rear of the store with fellow officers, McPherren encountered two armed suspects; a lookout and an armed robber. A shootout broke out and a single .357 caliber round penetrated between the panels of his protective vest, killing him.

The two suspects, later identified as Lawrence Gladson and Dennis Lamar, had recently escaped from a minimum-security prison in Newton and fled the scene wounded. Gladson was captured the next day in Des Moines; Lamar was captured several weeks later in Minneapolis. Both were convicted of first-degree murder for Officer McPherren’s death and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Gladson died in prison on March 21, 2017; Lamar remains incarcerated. Officer McPherren was survived by his wife and three children.

Did anyone in the community know Officer McPherren or have memories of that night to share?