A prison guard at the facility in Oakdale is accused of armed robbery in Cascade. Dubuque County Sheriff’s Captain Bob Lynn says 40-yearly John Woerdehoff was arrested Thursday following a search of his home in Cedar Rapids.
On February 20th, a Cascade woman reported being robbed by a masked gunman in her garage at 5:15 a.m. “He basically waited in the garage. He had knowledge that she left the house at that time and when she stepped into the garage, he produced a handgun and demanded her purse,” Lynn said.
Investigators didn’t have a very difficult time linking Woerdehoff to the crime. “John Woerdehoff made the mistake of using credit cards stolen from the victim,” Lynn said. The search warrant also connects Woerdehoff to a couple of residential burglaries in Cascade late last month. “Not only did we find items associated with the (February 20th) robbery, we found items connected to the two residential burglaries in Cascade on January 30th,” Lynn said.
Woerdehoff is charged with first-degree robbery for the February 20th incident. Charges are pending for the two previous burglaries in Cascade. Woerdehoff is employed as a guard at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center and is a native of Cascade.