Appeal dismissed in 1980 Muscatine murder case

MUSCATINE, Iowa (KWQC) – A judge has denied a request for a post-conviction stay for William Beeman, convicted in the 1980 death of Michiel Winkel, whose nude body was found at Wildcat Den State Park in Muscatine.

His last request was filed in November 2023, court records show.

Beeman initially cited several reasons for his request, but after motions and hearings, the only issue that survived was the biological evidence: a sexual assault kit and a box containing other physical evidence, including her clothing and other personal items.

According to the judge’s written decision, the assault kit was lost or destroyed sometime after Beeman’s trial.

Beeman’s lawyers argued that prosecutors should have been aware of the potentially exculpatory nature of the evidence and destroyed it.

He also said the kit contained a blood sample that did not match his own group.

“The Court finds that Mr. Beeman has not met the burden of proving bad faith,” the judge wrote in his decision.

“To conclude that the State acted in bad faith, the Court must be satisfied that the State knew of the exculpatory value of the evidence. In this case, the State had no reason to know that the blood evidence could exculpate Mr. Beeman.

“First, the blood type matched that of the victim, so the State could reasonably have concluded that the blood belonged to the victim.

“Second, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) identification testing was not a common investigative technique until around 1986 in the UK and around 1987 in the US.

“It is impossible for the Court to attribute knowledge of the potential exculpatory value of evidence to those who lived before that value became widely known. This is not a case where the State destroyed evidence in order to harm the defendant’s case; at most, the State inadvertently and unintentionally eliminated evidence that it believed to have been helpful.”