Community Chat

[Marp]

The first Mitchell County homicide in 114 years is as puzzling as it is heartbreaking.

At 7:31 p.m. on Saturday, Mitchell County emergency dispatchers received a call from a boy who told dispatchers he shot his mother. He gave his name — Noah Crooks — and his address in the 3500 block of Cameo Avenue, about nine miles west of Osage.

Noah Crooks allegedly fired a .22 caliber hunting rifle multiple times into his mother’s chest, officials said.

His mother, Gretchen Crooks, 37, died from her wounds. Noah Crooks, 13, was calm and stoic on the 911 recording, said Mitchell County Sheriff Curt Younker. The sheriff declined to release the 911 tape because the recording is evidence in the ongoing investigation.

Nearly four days after the shooting death, detectives can find no motivation for why the teenager would have killed his mother, Younker said.

“We’re at a loss,” he said. “These are good people, very responsible. It is the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever seen.”

There was no record of domestic disputes or other troubles at the Crooks’ home. Sheriff’s deputies showed no trips to the address.

Noah Crooks showed no signs of trouble at Osage Middle School, where he was in eighth grade, or at home, as far as investigators have found, Younker said. His mother praised his musical talents on the saxophone and he was accepted to a University of Iowa camp to learn Chinese, according to his mother’s Facebook page.

Crooks was a nurse at Mercy Medical Center-North in Mason City and a 1992 graduate of Mason City High School. She was working on a master’s degree through the University of Iowa.

Noah Crooks was taken to the North Iowa Juvenile Detention Center in Waterloo. The teenager had not been charged as of late Tuesday. Mitchell County Attorney Mark Walk said he planned to file this morning.

Walk declined to say what charges he would file, but confirmed Noah Crooks will be charged as a juvenile. Iowa law allows children ages 14 and older to face crimes in adult court.

Younker said the last homicide in Mitchell County was in 1898.

Younker, who is retiring this year, had hoped to be another in a long line of sheriffs “without a murder on his watch.”

“That's not going to be true now,” he said.