THE DARK SIDE OF IOWA
Unsolved
Jimmy Bremmers
photo courtesy Iowa Cold Cases
After dinner on Tuesday, August 31, 1954, 8-year-old Jimmy Bremmers went to his friend Joey Hamel’s house two doors down from the Bremmers home on Sioux City’s west side. Jimmy’s parents had gone to lay brick for the basement of their new home, and though Jimmy usually helped, this night he’d stayed behind to go visit his friend.
Jimmy suffered from a speech impediment and didn’t have a lot of close friends; his closes companion was his small black and white dog named Specks.
At 8 PM, just as Life with Father began to air on television, Jimmy, along with Joey’s cousin Steve Counterman, 13, left the Hamel house to head for their respective homes. When Steve started up a hill for his home, he looked back and saw Jimmy standing alone near a tree by the Hamel’s porch. It was the last time anyone saw Jimmy alive.
On Thursday, September 2, Ernest Triplett – an itinerant music salesman for Flood Music in Sioux City – was questioned by police and then taken into custody. On September 16, Ernest volunteered to the Mental Health Institute at Cherokee. There he received a number of drugs administered by Dr. Anthony Sainz.
A county crew building a snow fence in a pasture north of Sioux City stumbled upon Jimmy’s remains on September 29. The young boy had been decapitated and his crushed skull lay several feet away from his upper decomposed body. Both his hands were missing.
On October 5, Ernest Triplett appeared before the Woodbury County Insanity Commission with no legal representation and was involuntarily committed to the Cherokee mental hospital. The following day, doctors injected Ernest with 80 mg of the amphetamine Desoxyn and three grains of the barbiturate Seconal, even though Ernest hadn’t eaten since the previous day. By days end, Ernest confessed to killing Jimmy Bremmers.
Ernest was formally charged with Jimmy’s murder on March 3, 1955. On June 17, a jury found Ernest guilty of murder in the second degree and returned him to the Plymouth County Jail to await sentencing. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Fort Madison State Penitentiary.
On October 17, 1972, Ernest’s conviction was overturned and he was released from prison the following day. No other individuals have been charged in Jimmy’s murder. If you have any information regarding Jimmy’s unsolved death, please contact the Sioux City Police Department at 712.279.6440.
Jimmy suffered from a speech impediment and didn’t have a lot of close friends; his closes companion was his small black and white dog named Specks.
At 8 PM, just as Life with Father began to air on television, Jimmy, along with Joey’s cousin Steve Counterman, 13, left the Hamel house to head for their respective homes. When Steve started up a hill for his home, he looked back and saw Jimmy standing alone near a tree by the Hamel’s porch. It was the last time anyone saw Jimmy alive.
On Thursday, September 2, Ernest Triplett – an itinerant music salesman for Flood Music in Sioux City – was questioned by police and then taken into custody. On September 16, Ernest volunteered to the Mental Health Institute at Cherokee. There he received a number of drugs administered by Dr. Anthony Sainz.
A county crew building a snow fence in a pasture north of Sioux City stumbled upon Jimmy’s remains on September 29. The young boy had been decapitated and his crushed skull lay several feet away from his upper decomposed body. Both his hands were missing.
On October 5, Ernest Triplett appeared before the Woodbury County Insanity Commission with no legal representation and was involuntarily committed to the Cherokee mental hospital. The following day, doctors injected Ernest with 80 mg of the amphetamine Desoxyn and three grains of the barbiturate Seconal, even though Ernest hadn’t eaten since the previous day. By days end, Ernest confessed to killing Jimmy Bremmers.
Ernest was formally charged with Jimmy’s murder on March 3, 1955. On June 17, a jury found Ernest guilty of murder in the second degree and returned him to the Plymouth County Jail to await sentencing. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Fort Madison State Penitentiary.
On October 17, 1972, Ernest’s conviction was overturned and he was released from prison the following day. No other individuals have been charged in Jimmy’s murder. If you have any information regarding Jimmy’s unsolved death, please contact the Sioux City Police Department at 712.279.6440.
Source: Iowa Cold Cases
