Clifford Mutum was a 62-year-old retired foundry worker living in Davenport, Iowa, when he left home one January night in the winter of 1972 to buy a beer for himself and a soda for his wife. A group of young men from Rock Island, Illinois, crossed the Mississippi River intending to rob the Shamrock Tavern. Three men went inside; when they left, Clifford Mutum and two other men were dead and three others were seriously wounded.

Four young men were arrested. Seventeen-year-old Sherman White served as a lookout and was convicted of first-degree murder and given life without parole; the shooter received the same sentence. Two accomplices pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and were each sentenced to ten years. Clifford’s son Ed testified for the prosecution; he later became a minister and, years afterward, visited Sherman White in prison and forgave him. White later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and expressed remorse, and his sentence was revised to make him eligible for release.

Does anyone have memories of the Shamrock Tavern or the Davenport community reaction to this case?