The unsolved 2012 murders of two young Iowa cousins still haunts this town

It was the 13^th of July, 2012, when cousins, 8-year-old Elizabeth Collins and 10-year-old Lyric Cook, set off from Elizabeth’s home in Evansdale, Iowa, on their bicycles. Quite often, Lyric would go to Elizabeth’s home for the day while her mother went to work. That afternoon, they were being cared for by their grandmother, Wilma Cook.

The girls never returned home. Their families would search around the area for approximately on hour before calling police and reporting them missing.

A search party would be assembled as police tried to retrace the girls last known movements. Hundreds of concerned locals would participate in the search and police would quickly discover that last reported sighting of the girls was from around noon, when they were spotted in downtown Evansdale.

Evansdale was home to about 4,000 people which placed community at its center. Nevertheless, Collins said he’d never let his 8-year-old go on a bike ride without an adult.

Elizabeth and Lyric were dropped off at their grandmother Wylma Collins’s house in downtown Evansdale on the morning of July 13, 2012 to be minded while their parents — Collins is a busy tree surgeon — were at work.

The grandmother, who took a more laissez-faire approach to parenting, let the girls go out on their bicycles. They pedalled away at about 12.15pm after their grandma told them to be home “soon”.

After an hour, the girls were still not home.

The cousins were last sighted alive between 12.30pm and 1pm by Gilbert Drive, next to Meyers Lake – a favorite amongst anglers. It was about five foot deep and filled with algae, Collins recalled.

Almost three hours had passed, and Wylma alerted her daughter, Heather, who rushed home from work before, finally, calling the police.

Father’s heartbreak

Collins, Elizabeth’s father, had just got in from work when his wife, Heather, told him that the girls were missing.

“They’d gone, evaporated into thin air,” Collins said.

Upon their search, authorities and the family found the bikes, along with Collins’s cell phone inside her purse at the lake’s southeast corner. The area was surrounded by eight foot fences; Elizabeth’s purse was found strewn over one of them.

“When we found the purse over the fence, I started to really get nervous,” Collins said.

Days passed and local volunteers flocked in their droves to assist the family and police in the search for the two little girls.