A Monster in Mount Pleasant by CJ Williams
First Chapter Preview
In the quiet town of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, the idyllic calm was shattered by a series of brutal murders in 1978. Karol Beavers, a vivacious high school junior, and her mother, Clementine, became the unsuspecting victims of a heinous act of violence that left the community reeling. For six months, the case went cold, fear gripping a town unaccustomed to locking its doors. Then, another shocking murder occurred, tying the threads of horror together.
A Monster in Mount Pleasant delves into the unraveling of this dark chapter. Drawing from years of meticulous research, the story reveals not just the pursuit of justice, but the profound emotional scars left behind. From the shattered dreams of a bright young girl to the lifelong grief of families torn apart, this book captures the deep humanity behind the headlines.
This compelling narrative is told through the eyes of a classmate of Karol—and the murderer. Now a federal judge, the author unearthed the societal cracks that shaped both the victims and the perpetrator. It’s a haunting journey into a community forever changed by tragedy, where resilience and the quest for truth stand as testaments to those lost too soon.
CHAPTER 1: Murder at the Beavers’
“There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.” – Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales
On a cool Saturday evening late in the month of October, 1978, Max and Clementine Beavers hosted a cocktail party for several friends in their brick ranch-style home in the small Iowa town of Mount Pleasant. Earlier that day, their vivacious 16-year-old daughter, Karol, had helped her mother make hors d’oeuvres for their guests. At the party, Karol mingled with the adults, chatting with them about the upcoming Powder Puff football game in which she was going to play the following week as part of the high school’s homecoming events. Everyone was in a happy mood that pleasant evening.
At one point during the cocktail party, Max escorted the other couples to the basement to show off the new rust, brown, and gold-colored shag carpeting that workers had just installed in the den that Friday. The new carpet was a gift from Max to Clementine for their 35th wedding anniversary, he explained to his guests. Clementine had been wanting new carpet for quite some time. At Clementine’s request, Max had the stairs to the basement carpeted as well; now they didn’t squeak nearly as much as they used to.
After the cocktail party, the adults drove to the Mount Pleasant Country Club on the west side of town to attend an Octoberfest party. Meanwhile, Karol went out for the evening with some of her high school friends. A little before 11:00 p.m., Max and Clementine left the party at the country club and returned home. By the time they arrived home, Karol was already there, in her bedroom across from her parents’ room, listening to music on her clock radio. Soon, they were all in bed and asleep. It would be the last peaceful sleep they would have.
The following Sunday morning, Max, Clementine, and Karol woke up early and, as they regularly did, attended mass together at the Saint Alphonsus Catholic Church. The church, a large, red-brick structure with a soaring steeple, was only a half-dozen blocks west of the Beavers’ home. The church sat at the crest of a low hill on the southwest side of town, not far from Saunders Park, named after the town’s founder.
Sunday, October 29, 1978, developed into a beautiful fall day in Mount Pleasant. The air was cool and crisp that morning, the trees sporting leaves of brown, yellow, orange and red. It became unseasonably warm later that sunny afternoon, with a high temperature in the mid-60s. It would grow chilly later that evening, however, after the sun went down with the temperature dropping down to the upper 30s by midnight.
After lunch with her family, Karol took part in practice for the Powder Puff football game that would take place the following Wednesday evening, the first of November. Practice was held at the new athletic complex on the north side of town, not far from Beavers’ Jack & Jill Market, a neighborhood grocery store Max had owned and operated by then for more than two decades. Karol drove the family van to practice. While Karol was at her Powder Puff practice, Clementine drove the family Buick to visit her elderly mother in West Point, a town of less than a thousand people southeast of Mount Pleasant. Max remained home, watching a football game on television in the basement den.
Karol returned home mid-afternoon after the Powder Puff football practice. She parked the family van in the driveway, walked through the side garage door, and came up the two steps through a door and into the kitchen. She heard the television on in the den, so she stepped downstairs to the basement. The stairs to the basement were located just inside the door leading to the garage, directly across from the kitchen. When Karol came to the bottom of the stairs she turned to the right and walked around the bar to where her father was sitting in his favorite leather chair watching a football game. She announced she was home and told him all about practice. They chatted for a while and watched a little of the game, but now that Karol had returned home with the van, Max decided after a few minutes that he would go to the store to check up on things and work on the books for an hour or two.
Clementine returned from visiting her mother in West Point shortly after Max left for the store. A little before 4:00 p.m., Karol’s married older sister, Kathy, stopped by the house and persuaded Karol to attend mass with her at the Mental Health Institute chapel. Kathy had missed mass that morning and she and Karol both liked the priest at the chapel; plus, there was the added benefit that his masses were only a half-hour long. Karol drove Kathy’s car to the chapel. As they drove, Kathy glanced over at her little sister, noticing what beautiful auburn hair Karol had. For a little while that late afternoon, while Karol was gone to mass and Max was pouring over bookwork at the grocery store, Clementine raked leaves in the front yard. She gathered leaves into small piles as the air began to cool. A little after 4:30 p.m., Kathy dropped Karol off at the Beavers’ home then drove back to her own home across town. She would never see her mother or little sister alive again.
Max returned home around 5:30 p.m. Clementine informed Max that Karol had run out to get something to eat from the A&W restaurant on the west side of town and would be home soon. The oldest of Max and Clementine’s eight children, Ron, also came over to the house at about this time. Ron and Max went downstairs and watched some of the Denver Bronchos-Seattle Sea Hawks football game on TV. Ron departed after the game ended at about the same time Karol returned home. Karol made some popcorn and then went down to the basement to watch TV with her parents for a while.
At 8:00 p.m., a new crime show that first aired in September, Kaz, came on the television. The program was a fictional drama featuring stories of a former convict turned defense attorney. The episode airing that evening involved a case of assault and battery by a baseball pitcher. Max watched the first fifteen minutes or so with his wife and daughter, but kept nodding off. Max had to wake up very early each morning to open the grocery store, so he went to bed early most nights. About 8:15 p.m., Max finally gave up his struggle to stay awake and announced he was heading to bed. As he stood up, Clementine asked Max to take the popcorn bowls back upstairs as they were done eating popcorn for the night. As Max climbed the stairs on the way to bed, he looked over to see Karol lying on the couch and his wife sitting in her favorite rocking chair, both watching TV.
A little bit later, around 8:45 p.m., Karol went upstairs while Clementine remained downstairs watching TV. Karol retreated to her room down the hall, turned on the light, and called her best friend, Lisa Howe. Karol was still enthralled with her ex-boyfriend, Brad Gardner. Her parents had made her break up with him because he was several years older than Karol and had graduated from high school already. Nevertheless, this night, Karol was trying to find him, to talk with him, even though her parents disapproved. She asked Lisa if she knew where Brad might be this evening because he wasn’t at home, but Lisa didn’t know. Unbeknownst to Karol, Brad Gardner was with another high school girl that night.
Unable to locate Brad, Karol stayed in her room and turned on her radio to listen to music. Her radio was tuned to KGRS, a local station out of Burlington, Iowa, that played popular music. The number one song on the pop charts on October 29, 1978, was Hot Child in the City. Also high on the pop charts and playing that night on the radio were “Summer Nights,” and other songs from the hit movie Grease. They were all songs about love and youth and hope. The radio played softly in her room. Karol kept the volume down so as not to wake her father who was asleep in bed across the hallway from her room.
Sometime between about 9:00 and 9:30 p.m., a man slipped into the Beavers’ garage through the unlocked side door. From there, he entered the Beavers’ kitchen through the unlocked door leading to the garage. He quietly shut the door behind him then paused for a moment, listening, looking. Immediately to his left he heard the noise of a television program emanating from the basement stairs. Ahead of him he heard music on a radio wafting down the hallway, coming from Karol’s room. The man turned to the left and crept down the stairs to the basement. The stair treads occasionally squeaked beneath his weight, but the new carpeting muffled the sound. Clementine either didn’t hear the man come down the stairs, or mistakenly believed it was Karol returning to watch TV with her.
As the man rounded the corner at the bottom of the basement stairs, he saw Clementine sitting in her rocking chair. He had likely already seen where she was sitting before even entering the home by looking through the small basement windows from the outside as he cased the house. Now, when the man had reached the basement, Clementine’s back was to the stairs, and to the man. Her attention was focused on the television; she remained completely unaware of his presence.
The man stepped behind the bar and approached the back of Clementine’s chair. He raised the barrel of a rifle over the top of the bar and pointed it at the back of Clementine’s head, only inches away from the end of the barrel.
Then he pulled the trigger, blasting a bullet into Clementine’s head.
The bullet drilled a hole in her skull, a little to the right of center and parallel with her ears. The impact of the bullet snapped Clementine’s head forward killing her almost instantly. She remained sitting upright, but slumped over to the right in her chair, bleeding profusely from the back of her head.
The killer pulled back the bolt on the rifle, discharging the spent cartridge, and chambered another round. He bent over and picked up the spent cartridge, slipping it into his pocket. Then the killer stepped around the bar, past Clementine, and switched off the television. He listened for any sounds coming from upstairs, then stepped past Clementine’s body, around the bar, and clambered back upstairs.
From her bedroom, Karol had heard the loud bang coming from the basement. She stepped out of her room and looked down the hallway, pausing a moment to listen. She heard no more loud noises but hurried down the hall anyway to investigate the source of the loud noise. Karol reached the kitchen at about the same time the killer reached it coming up from the basement stairs.
Karol stopped in her tracks, startled and surprised. From the dim illumination shed by the kitchen light above the stove, Karol must have recognized the killer. The man certainly recognized her.
He quickly raised the rifle and pointed it at Karol’s face. She instantly and instinctively raised her right hand in defense. The killer just as instantly fired.
The bullet passed through Karol’s forearm and into her cheek, fracturing the bone just below her left eye, then passed along the side of her face before it exited just above and in front of her left ear. Karol crumpled to the kitchen floor, blood pouring from her face and arm. She moaned in pain. She likely struggled to her hands and knees and attempted to crawl away, severely but not fatally injured.
The killer stood over her, pulled back the rifle bolt discharging the spent shell casing, inserted another bullet, and chambered the new round. Then he placed the barrel of the weapon near the back of Karol’s head, just above and behind her right ear, and squeezed the trigger again. The bullet pierced her skull. Karol collapsed to the floor in a pool of blood. The killer quickly pulled back the rifle bolt, discharged the spent cartridge, and chambered yet another round. Then he picked up the spent cartridges and slipped them into his pocket.
The killer paused, listened, looked. He heard no more movement inside the house. Max, in bed just down the hall in his bedroom with the door closed remained fast asleep. He didn’t hear the first shot. Or the second. Or the third. Max slept on, blissfully ignorant of the horror happening in his home.
The killer stepped out of the kitchen, back out into the garage, and peered out the side garage door, into the dark street. He saw no one there. No dogs barked, though a neighbor nearby had two large dogs he kept outside who frequently barked at the slightest provocation. But not this night. This night, all was quiet and still.
The killer set the rifle against the garage wall. He stepped out of the side door to the garage and glanced up and down the street. Off in the distance he saw a car drive down a side street and away. There was no other movement on Locust Street. Lights in the neighbors’ homes hadn’t suddenly come on. No one was coming out of their homes to investigate the gunfire. There was no movement, no sound. No sirens blared in the distance. The neighborhood was quiet, peaceful. No one had apparently heard the gun shots. No one was alerted to the mayhem. No one knew of the monster in the Beavers’ home.
The killer slipped back into the garage, shutting the door behind him, and stepped back into the kitchen. Karol still lay there on the linoleum floor in an ever-growing pool of her own blood. The killer grabbed Karol by her legs and dragged her a short distance toward the garage, then turned her around, dropped her feet. He walked around to the other side, raised her up by her armpits, and dragged her the rest of the way through the door and down two steps into the garage. He laid her down on the garage floor next to the family Buick.
Karol was still alive, still breathing, but mercifully unconscious. The killer shut the door to the kitchen. Karol lay helpless on the cold garage floor. Her face was covered with blood, still seeping from her nose, her cheek, her head, some pooling in her left ear, more beginning to pool on the garage floor. Her right forearm bled profusely where the bullet had passed through it. Karol’s skin began turning pale as blood flowed from her body.
The killer bent over Karol and stripped off her sweater, her shoes, her jeans and panties, and tossed them all aside. He pulled her bloody Iowa State T-shirt up over her breasts, and yanked her bra down, exposing her left breast. He sucked on her nipple. Then he pulled down his pants, laid on top of Karol’s limp and bloody body, and raped her as she lay dying on the frigid garage floor. The killer raped Karol so violently he tore her vagina. When he finished, he stood up, pulled up his pants, and left her there to die.
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