Room 260: The Unsolved 1980 Double Murder at the Amana Holiday Inn
On September 12, 1980, two people checked into Room 260 at the Amana Holiday Inn in Williamsburg, Iowa. They had driven 265 miles from St. Joseph, Missouri, for a secret weekend together. By the next afternoon, both were dead — killed in one of the most disturbing and baffling double homicides in Iowa history. Forty-five years later, their murders remain unsolved.
This is the story of Rose Burkert, Roger Atkison, and the crime scene that still haunts everyone who has ever looked at it.
Who Were the Victims?
Rose Z. Burkert was 22 years old, a single mother, and a nursing student. She was working to build a life for herself and her young daughter in St. Joseph, Missouri. By all accounts, Rose was determined and full of energy — a young woman fighting to move forward despite increasingly dangerous circumstances in her personal life.
Roger Erskine Atkison was 32, a repairman and installer for General Telephone Company. He lived with his wife, Marcella Shat, in St. Joseph. Roger had a reputation among colleagues and acquaintances for being flirtatious, particularly with female customers on his service calls. He reportedly went so far as to perform faulty installations to create excuses to return to certain homes. Rose was one of the women Roger met through his work, and the two eventually began an affair.
Their trip to the Amana Holiday Inn was meant to be a clandestine getaway — far enough from home that no one would see them together. Neither could have known that someone already had.
The Night of September 12, 1980
When Rose and Roger arrived at the Holiday Inn that Friday evening, they were told the hotel was fully booked. A morticians’ convention — the Iowa Funeral Directors Association — had reserved virtually every room. But a last-minute cancellation freed up one room: number 260, located at the end of a long second-floor hallway, accessible only from inside the building. They checked in at 7:40 p.m.
The evening that followed was, by all appearances, uneventful. The couple ordered room service. They were asked by hotel staff to move their car from a handicap-accessible parking space. Three phone calls came into the room: two from Rose’s babysitter back in Missouri, and one from an unknown caller whose identity has never been determined.
At some point during the evening, Rose went to the hotel lounge and had a confrontation with the bartender on duty. The nature of the argument has never been made public.
No hotel guest or employee reported hearing anything unusual from Room 260 during the night.
The Discovery
Shortly after noon on Saturday, September 13, the couple had not checked out. A housekeeper knocked on the door of Room 260 and received no answer. She could hear the faint sound of a television playing inside. After retrieving a passkey from the front office manager, she opened the door.
What she found was a scene of extraordinary violence. Rose and Roger were lying face down on the bed, partially covered by blankets. Blood spatter covered the headboard and the wall above the bed. Iowa County Medical Examiner Dr. Stacey Howell would later determine that both victims died of acute blood loss and brain injuries caused by repeated blows to the head with a sharp-bladed instrument — most likely an ax or roofing hatchet.
Roger was found in his shorts. Rose was fully clothed. Several of Roger’s fingers had been partially or fully severed — defensive wounds from attempting to shield himself during the attack. Investigators described the level of violence as “overkill,” far exceeding what was necessary to kill.
The murder weapon was never recovered.
The Crime Scene That Defied Explanation
Beyond the murders themselves, the scene inside Room 260 contained a series of details that have puzzled investigators for decades.
The chairs. Two chairs from the room had been repositioned next to the bed, facing it, as if someone had sat down for a conversation with the victims. Evidence suggested that someone had rested their feet on the nightstand while sitting in one of the chairs. Whether this happened before or after the attack remains unknown — but both interpretations are deeply unsettling. If before, the killer was likely invited in and spoke with Rose and Roger before attacking. If after, the killer sat beside their bodies in a display of chilling comfort.
The wallets. Roger’s wallet was found on the floor beneath the chairs, its contents scattered across the carpet as though it had been rifled through. Rose’s wallet appeared untouched. Money was taken from the room, but investigators did not believe robbery was the primary motive.
The bathroom. The sink showed evidence that the killer had washed blood from their hands. A bloody towel — later found to contain unidentified male DNA — was left behind. Toothpaste had been deliberately squeezed around the bathtub in what appeared to be an intentional, ritualistic act with no practical purpose.
The soap. A bar of hotel soap had been carved or whittled, with shavings found on the carpet near one of the chairs. The killer had apparently sat beside the bed and methodically cut pieces from the soap, taking their time.
The mirror. Using the carved soap, the killer wrote a message on the bathroom mirror — then wiped it away. Only a single word remained legible when investigators processed the scene: “This.”
No one has ever determined what the full message said. The word has haunted the case for forty-five years.
The Investigation
The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), the Iowa County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI all participated in the investigation. DCI supervisor Tim McDonald told the Cedar Rapids Gazette that teletypes were sent to law enforcement agencies across the country in search of similar crimes. Approximately 400 people were interviewed — hotel guests, convention attendees, and staff — but no one reported hearing or seeing anything from Room 260 on the night of the murders.
Iowa County Sheriff James Slockett stated in 1992 that he believed the murders were motivated by revenge, a conclusion supported by the deeply personal nature of the violence. But the bizarre details of the crime scene — the toothpaste, the soap carving, the mirror message — complicated the straightforward revenge theory and opened the door to other possibilities.
There was no forced entry. There were no signs of a struggle beyond the attack itself. The door to Room 260 was locked from the inside when the housekeeper arrived. The killer had apparently let themselves out and pulled the door shut behind them.
The Suspects
Danny Burton — Rose’s Ex-Boyfriend
Danny Burton had been living with Rose before she ended the relationship and asked him to leave, reportedly due to his drug use. After the breakup, Burton began stalking Rose aggressively. According to multiple sources, he sat in a van outside her home and workplace around the clock and left threatening notes on her car windshield.
In the weeks before her death, Rose filed a formal complaint with the Andrew County Sheriff’s Department in Missouri. She told deputies that if she was ever found dead, it would be “because of her ex.” She got a dog for protection. Shortly afterward, the dog was found butchered and hanging in front of her home. Rose was actively making plans to move and change jobs in order to escape Burton.
Despite the overwhelming circumstantial case against him, Burton provided an alibi for the night of the murders and passed a polygraph examination. The details of his alibi have never been made public. He was never charged.
Charles Ray Hatcher — The Serial Killer Uncle
Charles Ray Hatcher was a confessed serial killer and the uncle of Roger’s wife, Marcella. His known victims were primarily children and young men, and he had a decades-long history of violent crime and escapes from custody. Around the time of the Burkert-Atkison murders, Hatcher had escaped from a mental health facility in Nebraska and was unaccounted for.
Marcella herself went to police after Hatcher confessed to other murders and asked whether he could have been responsible for Roger’s death. Investigators looked into the connection but ultimately ruled Hatcher out, concluding that the Holiday Inn murders did not match his established pattern of offending. Hatcher killed himself in custody in 1984.
The Hotel Bartender
A bartender working at the Holiday Inn lounge on the night of September 12 reportedly had a confrontation with Rose. After the murders were discovered, the bartender did not return to work, left without collecting his final paycheck, abandoned his truck in Iowa City approximately 22 miles east of the hotel, and enlisted in the military — effectively disappearing.
His behavior has been described as classic flight behavior, and some theorists have noted that as a hotel employee, he would have had access to the building layout and potentially to room keys. A scenario in which he came to Room 260 under the pretense of apologizing for the earlier argument — and was invited inside — could explain the chairs, the lack of forced entry, and the apparent conversation before the attack.
The extent to which he was investigated has not been made fully public.
The Farmhand
A lesser-known suspect is a hired hand who worked on a farm near Rose’s home in Missouri. Rose had reportedly claimed that this individual broke into her house at least once and stood over her bed while she was sleeping. He was believed to have been in the Amana Colonies area — approximately 12 miles north of the Holiday Inn — at the time of the murders.
Roger’s Co-Workers
Roger’s telephone crew members routinely carried machetes for clearing undergrowth around telephone poles. The coroner noted that such a tool could have been used as the murder weapon. Co-workers on Roger’s crew would likely have known about the couple’s weekend plans, potentially giving them both means and knowledge of the victims’ location.
Raymundo Esparza — The Highway Hotel Killer Theory
This theory gained significant traction in 2019 when retired investigator Paul Holes — best known for helping identify the Golden State Killer — examined the case for the Oxygen series The DNA of Murder with Paul Holes.
Holes identified striking similarities between the Burkert-Atkison murders and two other unsolved hotel killings:
William Kyle, 28, a traveling salesman bludgeoned to death with a hatchet in Room 217 at the Sheraton Motor Inn in Galesburg, Illinois, on July 1, 1980 — approximately ten weeks before the Iowa murders. The hotel sat directly off Interstate 74. Toothpaste had been squeezed into the toilet at the scene.
Jack McDonald, 23, bludgeoned to death at the Travel Inn Motel in Meridian, Mississippi, in 1970. He was found face down, bent over the side of the bed. Toothpaste had been squeezed into the toilet.
All three murders occurred at highway-adjacent hotels, involved blunt force trauma to the head, and featured the unexplained presence of deliberately placed toothpaste in the bathroom.
The primary suspect in the Kyle murder was Raymundo Esparza, a drifter and heroin addict from Los Angeles. Multiple witnesses placed Esparza at the Sheraton Motor Inn on the night Kyle was killed, carrying a bag full of tools. He was also confirmed to have been in Iowa City — roughly 30 miles from the Holiday Inn — on September 12, 1980.
Esparza was never charged in any of the cases. He died in 1983. Holes has suggested that Esparza’s body be exhumed for DNA comparison against evidence from the crime scenes, including the bloody towel found in Room 260.
New Hope: The 2015 Reopening
In 2015, Iowa County Sheriff Rob Rotter — who was twelve years old at the time of the murders and vividly remembered the fear that gripped the community — reopened the case. He and his team systematically reviewed every piece of physical evidence preserved since 1980.
That review led to the discovery of a new piece of evidence, the details of which have not been disclosed. Touch DNA testing was conducted on items from the crime scene, and investigators traveled to St. Joseph, Missouri, to revisit witnesses and collect blood samples for comparison.
Roger’s ex-wife Marcella, who has advocated publicly for the case for decades, published a book about the murders in 2023 titled Axed! The 1980 Amana, Iowa Ax Murders.
As of early 2026, The Deck podcast reported an exclusive update suggesting that a significant development may be imminent — one that could potentially solve the case after nearly half a century.
Forty-Five Years Later
The Amana Holiday Inn still stands along Interstate 80, now operating under a different name. Room 260 is still there. The hotel has changed hands, changed branding, changed everything about itself except the geography — and the memory of what happened on that second floor in September 1980.
Rose Burkert was twenty-two. She was a mother, a nursing student, a woman trying to outrun a dangerous man and build something better. Roger Atkison was thirty-two, flawed and complicated, but no less deserving of justice. Both are buried in Saint Joseph Memorial Park in St. Joseph, Missouri.
Their families have waited forty-five years. The evidence has waited too. And somewhere — in a DNA profile, in a name on a register, in a memory someone has carried for decades — the answer to what happened in Room 260 is waiting to be spoken.
If You Have Information
If you know anything about the murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison, no matter how small, please contact:
- Iowa County Sheriff’s Office: (319) 642-7307
- Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation: (515) 725-6010 | dciinfo@dps.state.ia.us
- FBI ViCAP: (800) 634-4097 | vicap@fbi.gov
Listen to the full two part episode here: Find part 1 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube and find part 2 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or find Crime Clueless wherever you listen to your podcasts!
If You Found This Story Interesting, You May Also Like…
1. Dorothy Jane Scott
Our write up on the story here – I’ve Got Her: The Haunting Case of Dorothy Jane Scott
If the story of Rose Burkert stayed with you, Dorothy Jane Scott’s case will hit the same nerve — and hard. Dorothy was a young single mother in California who was being terrorized by an obsessive stalker. He called her constantly. He told her he was watching her. She reported it. She told people she was afraid. And then, in 1980 — the same year Rose and Roger were killed — Dorothy vanished after rushing a coworker to the hospital, and her car was seen speeding out of the parking lot with someone else behind the wheel. Her stalker continued calling her family for years after she disappeared. Like Rose, Dorothy knew she was in danger. Like Rose, she told people exactly who she was afraid of. And like Rose, no one was able to protect her in time. If the Danny Burton angle of Room 260 is the theory that keeps you up at night, this case will feel hauntingly familiar. Listen to our episode on the case of Dorothy Jane Scott here, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Youtube, or anywhere you stream podcasts.
2. The Highway Hunter: Tracking the I-70 Killer
Our write up on this case here – The Highway Hunter: Tracking the I-70 Killer
If Paul Holes is right — if Rose and Roger were killed not by someone they knew, but by an unidentified serial predator operating along the interstate highway system — then the I-70 Killer is the closest parallel in American crime history. In 1992, someone murdered six people at small businesses along the I-70 corridor in Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas over a span of just 30 days. Same weapon. Same method. Same type of location. Same stretch of highway. Like the unknown killer Paul Holes believes may have murdered travelers at highway hotels from Mississippi to Iowa over a decade, the I-70 Killer chose the interstate as his hunting ground and vanished into the flow of traffic after every attack. He’s never been identified. If the serial killer theory behind Room 260 is the one that grips you — the idea that Rose and Roger were simply in the wrong room on the wrong night along the wrong highway — this case takes that fear and stretches it across six hundred miles of open road. Listen to part one on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and part two on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
3. Blair Adams
Our write up on the story here – The Bizarre Murder of Blair Adams: One of America’s Strangest Unsolved Cases
Blair Adams is the case to read if what haunts you most about Room 260 isn’t the suspects — it’s the crime scene. Blair was a Canadian man who exhibited increasingly erratic and paranoid behavior before traveling across the border into the United States, seemingly fleeing something only he understood. He ended up in a parking lot in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was found murdered — his clothes removed, his belongings scattered around him, and details at the scene that have never been satisfactorily explained. Like Room 260, the Blair Adams case is defined by evidence that clearly means something but no one has been able to decode. The carved soap, the toothpaste in the bathtub, the word “This” on the mirror — those details are Room 260’s version of Blair’s inexplicable final hours. Both cases sit in that deeply unsettling space where the facts are stranger than any theory that tries to explain them, and where the crime scene seems to be telling a story in a language no one speaks. Listen to part one of the case here: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Youtube and part two here: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Youtube or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
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Resources:
Newspaper & News Articles
Autopsies: Head blows killed 2. (1980, September 18). The Des Moines Tribune.
Cunningham, R. (1980, October 1). Motel murders linked. Quad City Times.
Darr, K. (1981, September 14). One year ago — horror in Room 260. Quad City Times.
Mystery woman’s sketch draws flood of calls to Cedar sheriff. (1980, September 20). Quad City Times.
Muller, L. (1983, May 16). Authorities probe link between murder suspect, motel slayings. Iowa City Press Citizen.
Smith, R., & Burnham, J. (1992, March 15). Motel ‘fling’ deadly. Cedar Rapids Gazette.
Cooper, R. J. (2009, September 20). Rumors surround 1980 killings. St. Joseph News-Press. Rumors surround 1980 killings
Rathjen, B. (n.d.). Years later, deaths of hitchhiker, hotel guests remain a mystery. The Pioneer-Republican of Iowa County.
Cold case: 32 year old murder still leaves questions. (2012). The Register-Mail.
Sherman, C. (2021, May 25). Iowa’s unsolved: Hotel murders still haunt Amana community, 40 years later. KGAN CBS2 Iowa. Iowa’s Unsolved: Hotel murders still haunt Amana community, 40 years later
Sherman, C. (2023, May 17). Iowa’s unsolved: Story of 1980 Amana ax murders surges after national listicle. KGAN CBS2 Iowa. Iowa’s Unsolved: Story of 1980 Amana Ax murders surges after national listicle
They were killed in an Amana hotel room — and no one was ever caught. (2025, October 14). KHAK. 45 Years Later an Amana Hotel Double Murder Remains a Mystery
Books
Ganey, T. (1989). Innocent blood: A true story of obsession and serial murder. Carol Communications.
Ganey, T. (1989). St. Joseph’s children. Carol Publishing Group.
Hatcher-Atkison, M. (2023). Axed! The 1980 Amana, Iowa, ax murders. Amazon.
Television
Holes, P. (Host). (2019, October 12). Hotel homicide (Season 1, Episode 1) [TV series episode]. In The DNA of murder with Paul Holes. Oxygen.
Hayden, A. (2023, December 28). Is a serial killer responsible for 4 brutal hotel murders? Oxygen.com. Is A Serial Killer Responsible For 4 Brutal Hotel Murders? | Oxygen
Podcasts
Flowers, A. (Host). (2026, February 4). Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison (9 of Diamonds, Iowa) [Audio podcast episode]. In The Deck. Audiochuck. Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison – 9 of Diamonds, Iowa – The Deck
Last Seen Alive. (2020, July 31). Unsolved homicide: Rose Burkert & Roger Atkison [Audio podcast episode]. UNSOLVED HOMICIDE: ROSE BURKERT & ROGER ATKISON – LAST SEEN ALIVE
Criminology. (2021). The Amana hatchet murders [Audio podcast episode]. The Amana Hatchet Murders – Criminology – Apple Podcasts
Online Sources & Databases
Iowa Cold Cases. (n.d.). Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison. Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison
Iowa Unsolved Murders. (2014, September 24). Death at the morticians’ convention: Murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison 1980. Death at the Morticians’ Convention: Murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison 1980
OneNie. (n.d.). Criminal territories: The murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison. Criminal territories: The murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison
Deutschmann, J. (2022, August 15). The mysterious unsolved 1980 murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison. Grunge. The Mysterious Unsolved 1980 Murders Of Rose Burkert And Roger Atkison – Grunge
Baxter, J. (2022, June 22). The Amana ax murders: Who killed Roger Atkison & Rose Burkert? Medium. The Amana Ax Murders: Who Killed Roger Atkison & Rose Burkert? | by Jenn Baxter | Medium
IowaWatch. (2026, February 11). Unsolved Iowa cold cases that still haunt the Hawkeye state. Unsolved Iowa Cold Cases That Still Haunt the Hawkeye State
Law Enforcement & Government Sources
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. (2020, March 25). ViCAP Alert #2020-03-03: Seeking information — Homicide investigation — Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison. https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/rose-burkert-and-roger-atkison/vicap-alert-2020-03-03/
Iowa County Sheriff’s Office. (n.d.). Case file: Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison double homicide, September 12, 1980. Williamsburg, IA.
Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. (1980–present). Case investigation: Burkert-Atkison double homicide, Iowa County.
Related Case & Suspect References
Wikipedia contributors. (2025). Charles Ray Hatcher. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Charles Ray Hatcher – Wikipedia
Radford University Department of Psychology. (n.d.). Charles Ray Hatcher [Serial killer database entry]. Charles Ray Hatcher
Iowa Unsolved Murders. (2014). Thrown away: Murder of Sandra Jo Pittman 1980. Thrown Away: Murder of Sandra Jo Pittman 1980 – Iowa Unsolved Murders: Historic Cases
Social Media & Advocacy
Justice for Rosie [Facebook page]. (n.d.). Facebook. Justice for Rosie
Note: Some newspaper articles from the 1980s (Cedar Rapids Gazette, Quad City Times, Des Moines Tribune, Spencer Daily Reporter) were accessed through archived editions and may not have persistent URLs. Dates and authors are provided where available. The 1992 Cedar Rapids Gazette “Murdered, Missing, Unsolved” series by Rick Smith and Jeff Burnham is frequently cited as the most comprehensive contemporaneous investigative reporting on this case. Highly recommend.
