Opening arguments got underway today in Woodbury County District Court in Sioux City in a 40 year old murder case.
Sixty-three year old Thomas Popp is charged in the shooting death of 18-year-old Terri McCauley in 1983. McCauley disappeared on September 27th after a night out with friends and her body was found less than 24 hours later.
Popp was living and working in Sioux City at the time and was the primary suspect in the case, but wasn’t arrested until last year after police took another look at the case. Woodbury County Attorney James Loomis mentioned the technology changes in his opening statement. “As you can imagine, in 1983, police work was different. There were no body cameras worn by officers. No patrol car video. No cell phones to download, DNA testing was not even something that anybody thought about,” Loomis says. Loomis says McCauley’s friends last saw her leave in a car matching the color of one owned by Thomas Popp. He also owned a similar gun.
Popp’s defense attorney John Loos says there was not one piece of hair, one fingerprint, or one piece of fiber from the clothing Terri McCauley was wearing that was found in Popp’s car. He says that is unusual when someone is killed with a shotgun. “From that close, you assume there’s going to be some blood on you,” he says. Loos says 40 years later there is no physical evidence, including DNA, linking his client to McCauley’s death. “As techniques have gotten better, as more science has been applied to this, there is nothing else,” Loos says.
Prosecutors expect to call 15 witnesses, including McCauley’s best friend and a former investigator who says Popp should have been tried years ago. Popp is also expected to testify.
(By Sheila Brummer, Iowa Public Radio/Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)