Police found the body of a Council Bluffs man, murdered, in his home Monday afternoon. Officers were sent to the house after the victim’s housemate allegedly confessed to the killing. Forty-four-year-old Scott Reed is charged in the slaying of 68-year-old Richard Griffin. Neighbor Ray Davis was stunned Griffin had been killed.
Davis says: "He didn’t have an enemy in the world. I don’t know how anybody could actually be that kind of a person and stoop that low." Davis says Griffin moved in recently and they immediately became friends. He says they had a verbal agreement to watch out for one another.
Davis says, "I’ll keep and eye on you and your place when I can and he says I want you to keep an eye on my place and me." Davis says he was pleased when Griffin moved in and he was a very quiet neighbor. Davis says: "I said at least we got a good neighbor. He said, ‘I don’t drink and I don’t party and I tend to my own business.’"
The suspect, Reed, turned himself in at the Nemaha County Sheriff’s office in Nebraska less than an hour after the murder and allegedly confessed to the crime. Reed was taken into custody in Auburn, Nebraska, and later, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, issued a warrant for second-degree murder. Reports say Griffin died of blunt force trauma to the head.