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What should we do with this guy if he is convicted??
Authorities say boyfriend killed
woman, 5 children
Moss accused of killing man, too
By THOMAS BEAUMONT and KEN FUSON
Register Staff Writer
09/01/2001
Sioux City, Ia. - The fear that enveloped Sioux City
after the bodies of a woman, her five children and a
businessman were found Thursday evening ended Friday
with the arrest of a 23-year-old man.
The community now must wait while investigators try to
unravel the reasons behind the deaths - Iowa's
second-worst mass killing of the past 100 years.
Adam Matthew Moss, a lifelong Sioux City resident with
a history of minor arrests, was apprehended just before
noon without a struggle after eluding 50 police officers
since Thursday night. Police said he would be charged
with seven counts of first-degree murder, which carries a
mandatory sentence of life in prison if he is found guilty.
The manhunt, which started with the discovery of the
seven bodies, kept neighbors on edge and children
locked inside their schools.
The victims were identified as:
* Leticia Aguilar, 31, who supported her children on her
wages from Smurfit-Stone Container Co., a
cardboard-box manufacturing company.
* Aguilar's five children: Claudia, 12; Zach, 11; Larry, 9,
and Lisa, almost 7, all with the last name Saldana, and
Michael Aguilar, 6.
* Ronald Earl Fish, 58, president of Ben Fish & Sons, a
Sioux City tire and auto service station.
The victims, all found at their homes, are believed to have
been killed Tuesday and Wednesday. Authorities would
not say how they died. Autopsy results were slowed,
officials said, because the bodies of Aguilar and her
children had decomposed.
The murder scenes were so gruesome that Sioux City
police Chief Joe Frisbie lost his composure briefly when
he announced Moss' capture at midday Friday. He said
he is glad that most of his officers did not view the
carnage.
"This is one of the most heinous and brutal homicides I've
ever witnessed," said Frisbie, who investigated the city's
last mass killing, a triple murder 26 years ago in the city's
Morningside neighborhood.
Police said Moss stands as the only link between Aguilar
and Fish, who apparently did not know each other. Moss
is not the father of any of Aguilar's children, Frisbie said,
but he was her boyfriend.
That still leaves unanswered the question of motive.
Frisbie would not speculate on why Moss allegedly killed
the seven. The police chief said he had been advised not
to by Woodbury County Attorney Tom Mullin.
"When you start talking about the death of five innocent
children, I can't give you any rationale for this at all,"
Frisbie said. "I think it lacks reason. What can you say
about something like that?"
The murder scenes were discovered within minutes of
each other Thursday evening, but the neighborhoods and
the people killed could not be more different.
Leticia Aguilar was a single mother who raised her
children in a rented, two-story white house at 311 West
St., a neighborhood filled with narrow roads and older
homes in various states of disrepair. Neighbors said the
children, who loved going to church, played outside on
skateboards and bicycles on the overgrown, fenced-in
lawn.
Fish lived alone at 3815 Sylvian Way, in northwest Sioux
City's affluent country club neighborhood. He was the
heir to the tire business started by his grandfather, Ben,
and passed on to him by his father, Louis.
Aguilar and her five children probably were slain
sometime Tuesday, Frisbie said, the same day Sioux City
school officials said that they noticed the children were
absent. Fish probably was killed Wednesday, the chief
said.
Frisbie said investigators believe they have recovered the
murder weapon, but he would not describe the weapon
nor say whether the same instrument was used to kill all
seven victims. He referred to traumatic wounds, the kind
that might be caused in a beating, and at one point said:
"You don't need a gun to cause a lot of damage."
The bodies of the mother and her children were identified
by Leticia Aguilar's sister, Frisbie said.
Investigators withheld their theories on the cause of death
until forensic pathologists have finished the autopsies,
which began Friday morning. Chief Deputy State
Medical Examiner Dennis Kline and Woodbury County
Medical Examiner Tom Carroll worked through the day
performing the autopsies.
A truant officer from the Sioux City school district visited
Aguilar's West Street home Tuesday and saw a sign
pasted to the door that said "on vacation," school officials
said.
"We were getting concerned, just because of the students
not being here," said Michael Rogers, principal of West
Middle School.
The note on the door allayed that concern, he said.
Those worries turned to grief - then fear - with the
discovery of the bodies Thursday evening. At Everett
Elementary School, near the Aguilar home, officials
locked the building Friday morning, posted monitors at
the door and would not allow students to play outside at
recess. Grief counselors were dispatched to area
schools.
Frisbie said Moss and Aguilar met last year working the
3-to-11 p.m. shift at the Smurfit-Stone plant on the west
side of Sioux City.
Myrtle Cress, 89, Aguilar's next-door neighbor, said
Moss had been living with Aguilar for a couple of
months. She said Moss recently helped her fix her
telephone when it stopped working and told her that if
she needed anything to let him know.
Donna Stabile, the children's baby sitter, said she did not
know Moss well.
"He was always polite," Stabile said. "The kids liked him.
She liked him. But I had my suspicions. He was a nice
enough guy, but I didn't see them together a lot."
Another of Aguilar's neighbors, Perri Harper, said Moss
had gone to the woman across the street and asked for
keys to the house a few days ago, saying he had been
locked out.
Stabile found the bodies of Agui- lar and her children
Thursday afternoon.
She said she had a key to Aguilar's back door and went
to check on the family after the children failed to show
up. "When I walked in, the first thing I noticed was that
their 32-inch TV was missing," Stabile said.
Then she went upstairs.
"I saw two kids lying face down, and there was a lot of
blood," she said. "I could barely see them because the
place was such a mess."
She said she could not bring herself to look further and
called police.
An employee found Fish dead in the doorway of his
home Thursday evening when he went to look for Fish,
who had failed to show up for work that day.
Frisbie said police have "documented evidence" that
Moss and Fish had known each other for at least five
years. He would not elaborate on what he described as a
personal relationship they had.
Police found Fish's car and suspected Moss was the link
between the two. Moss was allegedly sighted several
times during the night Thursday on the city's near-west
side.
A hotel guest saw a man in a black Monte Carlo at the
Economy Inn but thought nothing of it until police
knocked on her door and told her they were looking for
the man she had seen.
Police said Moss was spotted on foot within several
blocks of Agui- lar's house and the schools the children
attended about 7:30 a.m. Friday. Police arrested him
shortly before noon at a storage building on West
Seventh Street after staking out the alley between a
tavern and a small factory about four blocks from Fish's
business.
Moss did not resist when he was taken into custody,
authorities said.
About 50 of Sioux City's 125 police officers were
scouring west-side neighborhoods for Moss. At one
point, a frustrated Frisbie reported: "It seems like we've
been about a half-hour behind him all night."
Police earlier had issued a warrant charging Moss with
the theft of Fish's car. Moss was scheduled to appear in
court on that charge at 10 a.m. today.
"Obviously we've been in the midst of a very dangerous
situation," Frisbie said. "There has been a fear for our
wives and our families.
"I feel extremely relieved we have this person in custody.
There's no doubt in my mind he's the right guy," the chief
said with tears in his eyes. "It's been a white-knuckle ride
all night."
Authorities say boyfriend killed
woman, 5 children
Moss accused of killing man, too
By THOMAS BEAUMONT and KEN FUSON
Register Staff Writer
09/01/2001
Sioux City, Ia. - The fear that enveloped Sioux City
after the bodies of a woman, her five children and a
businessman were found Thursday evening ended Friday
with the arrest of a 23-year-old man.
The community now must wait while investigators try to
unravel the reasons behind the deaths - Iowa's
second-worst mass killing of the past 100 years.
Adam Matthew Moss, a lifelong Sioux City resident with
a history of minor arrests, was apprehended just before
noon without a struggle after eluding 50 police officers
since Thursday night. Police said he would be charged
with seven counts of first-degree murder, which carries a
mandatory sentence of life in prison if he is found guilty.
The manhunt, which started with the discovery of the
seven bodies, kept neighbors on edge and children
locked inside their schools.
The victims were identified as:
* Leticia Aguilar, 31, who supported her children on her
wages from Smurfit-Stone Container Co., a
cardboard-box manufacturing company.
* Aguilar's five children: Claudia, 12; Zach, 11; Larry, 9,
and Lisa, almost 7, all with the last name Saldana, and
Michael Aguilar, 6.
* Ronald Earl Fish, 58, president of Ben Fish & Sons, a
Sioux City tire and auto service station.
The victims, all found at their homes, are believed to have
been killed Tuesday and Wednesday. Authorities would
not say how they died. Autopsy results were slowed,
officials said, because the bodies of Aguilar and her
children had decomposed.
The murder scenes were so gruesome that Sioux City
police Chief Joe Frisbie lost his composure briefly when
he announced Moss' capture at midday Friday. He said
he is glad that most of his officers did not view the
carnage.
"This is one of the most heinous and brutal homicides I've
ever witnessed," said Frisbie, who investigated the city's
last mass killing, a triple murder 26 years ago in the city's
Morningside neighborhood.
Police said Moss stands as the only link between Aguilar
and Fish, who apparently did not know each other. Moss
is not the father of any of Aguilar's children, Frisbie said,
but he was her boyfriend.
That still leaves unanswered the question of motive.
Frisbie would not speculate on why Moss allegedly killed
the seven. The police chief said he had been advised not
to by Woodbury County Attorney Tom Mullin.
"When you start talking about the death of five innocent
children, I can't give you any rationale for this at all,"
Frisbie said. "I think it lacks reason. What can you say
about something like that?"
The murder scenes were discovered within minutes of
each other Thursday evening, but the neighborhoods and
the people killed could not be more different.
Leticia Aguilar was a single mother who raised her
children in a rented, two-story white house at 311 West
St., a neighborhood filled with narrow roads and older
homes in various states of disrepair. Neighbors said the
children, who loved going to church, played outside on
skateboards and bicycles on the overgrown, fenced-in
lawn.
Fish lived alone at 3815 Sylvian Way, in northwest Sioux
City's affluent country club neighborhood. He was the
heir to the tire business started by his grandfather, Ben,
and passed on to him by his father, Louis.
Aguilar and her five children probably were slain
sometime Tuesday, Frisbie said, the same day Sioux City
school officials said that they noticed the children were
absent. Fish probably was killed Wednesday, the chief
said.
Frisbie said investigators believe they have recovered the
murder weapon, but he would not describe the weapon
nor say whether the same instrument was used to kill all
seven victims. He referred to traumatic wounds, the kind
that might be caused in a beating, and at one point said:
"You don't need a gun to cause a lot of damage."
The bodies of the mother and her children were identified
by Leticia Aguilar's sister, Frisbie said.
Investigators withheld their theories on the cause of death
until forensic pathologists have finished the autopsies,
which began Friday morning. Chief Deputy State
Medical Examiner Dennis Kline and Woodbury County
Medical Examiner Tom Carroll worked through the day
performing the autopsies.
A truant officer from the Sioux City school district visited
Aguilar's West Street home Tuesday and saw a sign
pasted to the door that said "on vacation," school officials
said.
"We were getting concerned, just because of the students
not being here," said Michael Rogers, principal of West
Middle School.
The note on the door allayed that concern, he said.
Those worries turned to grief - then fear - with the
discovery of the bodies Thursday evening. At Everett
Elementary School, near the Aguilar home, officials
locked the building Friday morning, posted monitors at
the door and would not allow students to play outside at
recess. Grief counselors were dispatched to area
schools.
Frisbie said Moss and Aguilar met last year working the
3-to-11 p.m. shift at the Smurfit-Stone plant on the west
side of Sioux City.
Myrtle Cress, 89, Aguilar's next-door neighbor, said
Moss had been living with Aguilar for a couple of
months. She said Moss recently helped her fix her
telephone when it stopped working and told her that if
she needed anything to let him know.
Donna Stabile, the children's baby sitter, said she did not
know Moss well.
"He was always polite," Stabile said. "The kids liked him.
She liked him. But I had my suspicions. He was a nice
enough guy, but I didn't see them together a lot."
Another of Aguilar's neighbors, Perri Harper, said Moss
had gone to the woman across the street and asked for
keys to the house a few days ago, saying he had been
locked out.
Stabile found the bodies of Agui- lar and her children
Thursday afternoon.
She said she had a key to Aguilar's back door and went
to check on the family after the children failed to show
up. "When I walked in, the first thing I noticed was that
their 32-inch TV was missing," Stabile said.
Then she went upstairs.
"I saw two kids lying face down, and there was a lot of
blood," she said. "I could barely see them because the
place was such a mess."
She said she could not bring herself to look further and
called police.
An employee found Fish dead in the doorway of his
home Thursday evening when he went to look for Fish,
who had failed to show up for work that day.
Frisbie said police have "documented evidence" that
Moss and Fish had known each other for at least five
years. He would not elaborate on what he described as a
personal relationship they had.
Police found Fish's car and suspected Moss was the link
between the two. Moss was allegedly sighted several
times during the night Thursday on the city's near-west
side.
A hotel guest saw a man in a black Monte Carlo at the
Economy Inn but thought nothing of it until police
knocked on her door and told her they were looking for
the man she had seen.
Police said Moss was spotted on foot within several
blocks of Agui- lar's house and the schools the children
attended about 7:30 a.m. Friday. Police arrested him
shortly before noon at a storage building on West
Seventh Street after staking out the alley between a
tavern and a small factory about four blocks from Fish's
business.
Moss did not resist when he was taken into custody,
authorities said.
About 50 of Sioux City's 125 police officers were
scouring west-side neighborhoods for Moss. At one
point, a frustrated Frisbie reported: "It seems like we've
been about a half-hour behind him all night."
Police earlier had issued a warrant charging Moss with
the theft of Fish's car. Moss was scheduled to appear in
court on that charge at 10 a.m. today.
"Obviously we've been in the midst of a very dangerous
situation," Frisbie said. "There has been a fear for our
wives and our families.
"I feel extremely relieved we have this person in custody.
There's no doubt in my mind he's the right guy," the chief
said with tears in his eyes. "It's been a white-knuckle ride
all night."
