Call us 24/7: (515) 279-9700

Nursing home operator won’t be prosecuted for abuse for fear of closing facility

Criminal prosecutors have dropped felony abuse charges against an Iowa nursing home operator, arguing that his conviction would have harmed the facility’s residents.

Des Moines County Attorney Amy Beavers said if she pursued the prosecution of Marc Johnson, whose company runs the Danville Care Center in southeast Iowa, the facility might have been forced to close, displacing its three-dozen residents….

Satanism and Guilt-Free Murder in Iowa

On the evening of July 18, 2013, Kathy Barlas returned to her home in Mason City, Iowa, to find her adult son waiting in the garage in his underwear, dripping with blood. “Mom, I killed Satan,” Tom Barlas Jr. said to his mother. Did he mean he hurt the dog? “No, Mom, I killed Satan,” he repeated. Kathy entered the house, heading toward her bedroom where she found her husband, Tom Barlas Sr., lifeless on the floor, bleeding from multiple stab wounds. He was dead…

Barlas found not guilty by reason of insanity

MASON CITY, Ia. – Thomas Barlas Jr. was found not guilty by reason of insanity this summer in the 2013 stabbing death of his father. Court observers say they think it was the first time such a defense was successfully argued in Cerro Gordo County.

A judge found that Barlas was mentally ill when he murdered his father, Thomas Barlas Sr., at the elder man’s Mason City home. The rarely used defense was unsuccessful in three other high-profile murder cases in the region….