Room 260: The Morticians' Convention Murders (part one)

September 1980. A young couple drives four hours from Missouri to a Holiday Inn in rural Iowa for a secret weekend together. When they arrive, the hotel is fully booked — a morticians' convention has taken every room. But a last-minute cancellation opens up Room 260.

By the next afternoon, both are found dead — hacked with an ax, face down on the bed, in one of the most disturbing crime scenes in Iowa history. Chairs pulled up beside the bodies. Toothpaste squeezed around the bathtub. A bar of soap carved into pieces. And a single word left on the bathroom mirror, written in soap and then wiped away: "This."

In Part One, we introduce Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison — a 22-year-old nursing student being terrorized by a violent ex, and a 32-year-old married telephone repairman living a double life. We walk through the night of September 12th, the haunting crime scene, and the question at the center of everything: who knew they were in that room?

If you have any information about the murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison, contact the Iowa County Sheriff's Office at (319) 642-7307, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation at (515) 725-6010, or the FBI's ViCAP at (800) 634-4097.

To see more about this case, as well as the sources used to create this episode, visit our Blog Here.

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