A Small Town in Iowa Was Devastated by the Murder of Two Little Girls — They Still Want Answers

There is an entire generation of individuals who had the words "stranger danger" burned into their minds. This campaign began in response to the 1979 abduction of 6-year-old Etan Patz, who disappeared mere blocks from his home in Manhattan. Although kidnappings committed by someone the victim doesn't know make up roughly 27 percent of these cases, people still tend to focus on the idea that a boogeyman could be around every corner. Sadly, that is sometimes the case.

The statistics should make parents feel better, but every once in a while a situation reminds them that it can happen to anyone. In July 2012, two little girls vanished while going on a bike ride through their small town of Evansdale, Iowa. Unfortunately, this story ended in tragedy. What happened to Lyric Cook-Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins? A documentary streaming on MAX takes a deep dive into their story.

In Taken Together: Who Killed Lyric and Elizabeth?, director Dylan Sires turned his thorough coverage of this story into a heartbreaking look at what trauma can do to a town. Sires was a news photographer who spent years documenting this crime by way of countless interviews with those involved. That, along with archival videos and photographs plus new interviews, make this documentary a fully formed piece of investigative research.

Cook-Morrissey and Collins were 10 and 8 years old, respectively, and were cousins. On the fifth anniversary of their disappearance, KCCI spoke with various family members about both girls. Callie Collins was only 4 years old when her sister left the house and never came back. She recalled wanting to go with Cook-Morrissey and Collins, but they wouldn't let her because their grandmother wouldn't be accompanying them.

Drew Collins told the outlet that he was confident both girls would have fought off whoever killed them. "They were both scrappers," he said. Amber Collins spoke about how much she missed her sister. "She's supposed to be here, and she's not," she said. "It's more than a person can deal with," said Drew. Still, he refused to give up hope then, and he certainly hasn't given up since.

The families of the two missing children held onto hope for five months until they got the news they were dreading. In December 2012, hunters in the Seven Bridges Wildlife Area of rural Bremer County stumbled upon two bodies. They were later identified as Cook-Morrissey and Collins. This was 25 miles from where they had been taken, via the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

Authorities have never released any information surrounding the causes of death for Cook-Morrissey and Collins to ensure they catch the right person. Bremer County Detective Jason Ellison started working on the case in 2017. He told KCRG: "We do believe that it is somebody that is familiar with the Meyers Lake area and Seven Bridges area," which is where their bodies were found. "You’d have to know it ... You have to know that it’s there," he said.

Investigators with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) have chased down numerous leads over the years, though one has always stood out. There was another similar abduction story that happened less than a year after Cook-Morrissey and Collins were taken. In May 2013, 15-year-old Kathlynn Shepard and 12-year-old Dezi Hughes from Dayton, Iowa were taken by Michael Klunder. He was a registered sex offender with a history of kidnapping. Hughes escaped but Shepard was killed.

Klunder later took his own life. Evansdale Police Chief Kent Smock ruled him out as a suspect in 2014, but another man thinks he was being too hasty. In July 2022, Scott Reger was the lead agent investigating the case for the DCI. "The timing of him being within nine months of this and the call to rule him out ... Those are decisions that were made by the investigators that had more to say than I would right now," he told KCRG.

The documentary also looks at Michael Klunder, though it has about as much answers as anyone. More often than not, a docuseries will get more eyes on a well-trodden story that can often lead to new information. Not only do Cook-Morrissey and Collins deserve that, but their grieving families and a devastated town do as well.

Taken Together: Who Killed Lyric and Elizabeth? is currently available to stream on MAX.