Years of DNA testing leads to arrest in nearly 42-year-old Iowa cold case murder

• A suspect has been arrested in Oregon for the 1983 murder of Ronald Lee Novak in Linn County, Iowa.
• DNA evidence, including samples from Novak’s socks and a hammer, allegedly linked Michael S. Schappert to the crime scene.
• The investigation remains open as authorities believe others may have been involved.
• Ronald Lee Novak, 24, was found murdered in his Linn County farmhouse on Christmas Eve 1983.
• Investigators used DNA evidence from Novak’s sock and a hammer to identify Michael Schappert, 64, of Oregon, as a suspect.
• Genetic genealogy and covert DNA sampling played a crucial role in solving the decades-old cold case.

Ronald Lee Novak suffered a gruesome and mysterious Christmas Eve death in rural Linn County.

Novak’s brother Jon found his body. It was in an unheated utility/mudroom that led to the kitchen of Novak’s farmhouse between Walker and Center Point, north-northwest of Cedar Rapids.

Linn County sheriff’s deputies found the 24 year old’s hands had been bound behind his back with a nylon cord, according to court documents. His face and head had been beaten and investigators found two hammers, a piece of firewood and a golf club with a bent head, all with traces of hair and blood on them.

He’d also been shot. A .22-caliber bullet entered the middle of his right shoulder from above and penetrated his right chest.

And he’d been left to freeze in sub-zero temperatures. An autopsy determined he had succumbed to a combination of injuries from the beating, the gunshot, shock and the cold.

In an interview with Oregon television station KPTVNovak’s sister, Patti Wilson, recalled getting the tragic news.

“We were having Christmas Eve celebration with my husband’s family,” Wilson said. “That’s when my brother, Bob, came over and I instantly knew something was wrong‚”

There was no immediate suspect in the Dec. 24, 1983slaying, But now, almost 42 years later, there has been an arrest.

How did investigators finally crack the case?

Novak had been a marijuana dealer, and investigators found $32,000 in cash and marijuana they valued at $7,650 at his home, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

While the money and drugs were intact, Novak’s wallet, which usually had several hundred dollars in it, was missing, leading investigators to suspect he’d been the victim of a violent robbery.

The lower-right portion of a window in the door between the kitchen and utility/mudroom appeared to have been broken in from the outside. Footprints in the snow outside led from the driveway to a tree where someone could have acted as a lookout while another person went inside the home.

There were bloody footprints throughout the house and blood splattered on the door to the kitchen and on the walls of the utility room.

Investigators interviewed Novak’s known associates and developed a list of suspects but lacked enough physical evidence to charge someone.

They had to wait for science to catch up.

Years of DNA testing involving genealogy and covert samples lead to a suspect

DNA testing wasn’t yet a law enforcement tool when Novak died. It was first used in the late 1980s, and even then took years to become a widespread method.

In recent years, it has played a prominent role in solving some long-dormant cases in Iowa — perhaps most famously the killing of 18-year-old Michelle Martinkowho was found stabbed to death in her family’s car in the parking lot of a Cedar Rapids mall in 1979.

The case went unsolved for 39 years until police used DNA obtained from a genealogy test taken by the cousin of a suspect to identify a likely tie to blood found at the scene, then shadowed him to obtain a sample of his DNA from a straw he discarded after eating at a Pizza Ranch.

The DNA matched the blood and Jerry Lynn Burns was arrested in 2018. Burns was convicted of first-degree murder two years later.

Novak’s case followed a similar course after investigators In July 2011 sent evidence from the case to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Laboratory for DNA testing.

The lab was able to develop a partial male DNA profile from traces of another person’s DNA on Novak’s socks.

The Linn County Sheriff’s Office began working in early 2019 with Florida-based DNA Labs International and Virginia-based Parabon Nanolabs and developed a snapshot of a suspect.

Parabon in June 2020 identified three possible relatives of the unknown male suspect through genetic genealogyand detectives then obtained DNA from distant relatives that allowed the company to narrow the genealogy down to three brothers.

Detectives then covertly obtained DNA samples from each brother and eliminated two of them as potential suspects. Detectives in August 2022 worked with the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon to covertly obtain a DNA sample from the third brother, identified in court documents as the defendant, Michael Schappert, 64.

That sample could not rule out Schappert as the source of the unknown DNA profile found on Novak’s socks. So, police in December 2023 collected a known sample of Schappert’s DNA and interviewed him.

Detectives said that in the interview, Schappert placed himself in Iowa in late 1983, having hitchhiked there from Oregon before Christmas. But he did not explain why his DNA might allegedly have been at the crime scene.

In a second interview, detectives said, Schappert told them he had been at Novak’s residence but did not explain why. But in a phone call with a brother on or around Dec. 21, 2023, that detectives said they monitored, Schappert told one of his brothers he had been at Novak’s home because he’d been injured while trapping game in the area with another person and knew Novak, so he went to there to clean up.

But Novak was not known to let people into his house — he kept a loaded shotgun by his door.

Further DNA testing in February 2024 determined it was 650 trillion times more probable that the DNA on Novak’s sock originated from Schappert than another unknown person.

A January 2025 report to the Linn County Sheriff’s Office on further DNA testing showed the grip of a claw hammer found at the crime scene contained the DNA of three people and it was 570 trillion times more likely that one of those three people was Schappert than another unknown person.

Investigators using DNA samples from the blue jeans and a blue coat Novak had been wearing similarly determined he had been at the crime scene. Their report also said they could not rule out Schappert as a source of DNA found on the nylon rope Novak had been bound with.

On Wednesday, May 28, Multnomah County sheriff’s deputies accompanied by an FBI agent from the Cedar Rapids field office arrested Schappert on a charge of first-degree murder.

Oregon’s KPTV reported Friday, May 30, that Schappert agreed at a court hearing to be extradited to Iowa. He was held in an Oregon jail awaiting the Linn County Sheriff’s Office to take him into custody.

No court date had yet been scheduled in Iowa, and Schappert was denied bond.

‘He got to live his life. My brother didn’t’

Schappert reportedly had married in the 1990s. His now ex-wife said he never really talked about his life before they met.

They had two daughters together, one of whom had lived with Schappert in Fairview, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, and the other with his ex-wife in Boise, Idaho.

Schappert reportedly lived for the past 25 years at Blue Lake Village, a mobile home park in Fairview.

Wilson, Novak’s sister, said people have no idea how the long-unsolved slaying affected her family. Novak was survived by three brothers, another sister, his mother and other relatives, according to an obituary published in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

“He got to live his life, my brother didn’t,” Wilson said.

Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner said in a news release he recognized what that family had to endure during its long wait for justice. Gardner also credited the deputies who initially investigated the crime with properly collecting and safeguarding evidence, and the deputies who over the years continued to pursue new leads and technologies.

“The Linn County Sheriff’s Office remains committed to seeing this case through,” Gardner said.

The sheriff’s office said the quest continues for anyone else who may have been involved in the killing.

The DNA testing involved was partially funded by Season of Justicea nonprofit that raises money to fund advanced DNA testing in support of cold case investigations. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office in Florida also assisted with the investigation.

(This story was edited to clarify information.)

Phillip Sitter covers the suburbs for the Des Moines Register. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com. Find out more about him online in the Register’s staff directory.