Opening arguments are expected this morning in the trial of a carnival worker, charged in the murders of a northeast Iowa mother and her child. According to pre-trial arguments, 25-year-old Clay Irwin Thomas told his wife she could either help him load the bodies of a woman and her daughter into his trunk, or she could join them. Thomas is accused of killing 25-year-old Angela Hyke and her eight-year-old daughter Ashley Lucas in July of 2001 in Cresco. Their bodies were later recovered from a shallow grave in Kansas. Thomas is a Kansas native. He was a carnival worker who traveled through Iowa, including the Howard County Fair. The trial was moved from Howard to Allamakee County due to pre-trial publicity.
