Laura Van Wyhe in a photo share by her family
Just before 2 a.m. on Oct. 26, 1996, Dan Clyde was driving his truck along Route 136 in Kahoka, Missouri, not far from the Iowa and Illinois borders, when he spotted something strange on the side of the road. Looking closer, he found it was a young woman, unresponsive and near death.
Clyde called authorities, and EMS took the woman to a hospital in Quincy, Illinois. She had blunt force trauma to her head, hips and legs. Within a few hours, she was dead.
The woman was Laura Van Wyhe, a 21-year-old Iowa City mother with a passion for natural foods and childcare.