Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison: Amana Hotel Cold Case and DNA

The Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison murders remain one of Iowa’s most disturbing unsolved crimes. On the night of September 12, 1980, the couple checked into Room 260 of the Amana Holiday Inn near Williamsburg, Iowa, for a weekend together. By the following afternoon both were dead, bludgeoned with a hatchet in a locked hotel room. More than four decades later no one has been charged, though investigators now hold a partial male DNA profile they believe may belong to the killer.¹

What Happened at the Amana Holiday Inn

Burkert and Atkison checked in at about 7:40 p.m. on September 12, 1980. They had secured the room only because of a last-minute cancellation; the hotel was otherwise fully booked for a morticians’ conference in the area. The next day, after repeated knocks went unanswered past the noon checkout, a housekeeper used a passkey from the manager and opened the door. Blood was splattered across the headboard, walls, and carpet.¹

Both victims were found lying face down on the bed. Iowa County Medical Examiner Dr. Stacey Howell determined they died from acute blood loss and brain injuries caused by repeated blows to the back of the head with an ax or hatchet. Atkison had several severed fingers, which investigators read as defensive wounds. Burkert was fully clothed. Atkison was wearing only his shorts.¹

Inside Room 260

There were no signs of forced entry, and the room could only be reached from inside the building. Two chairs had been pulled next to the bed, suggesting the victims may have been talking with the killer before the attack. The television was still on when the bodies were found.¹

Several details were strange. The killer had carved a piece of soap and written the word “This” on the bathroom mirror. Investigators believed the perpetrator had rested his feet on the room’s desk at some point. A tube of toothpaste had been emptied into the bathtub. That last detail would matter decades later, when the case was compared with similar hotel killings in other states.²

Who the Victims Were

Rose Z. Burkert, 22, was a nurse trainee at St. Joseph Hospital in Missouri. Roger E. Atkison, 32, was a telephone installer-repairman for General Telephone Co. in Savannah, Missouri, and a Navy veteran who served during the Vietnam War. Both lived in St. Joseph, Missouri. Atkison was married to another woman, Marcella Shat, at the time, and the trip to Amana has been described as a romantic weekend.¹

Suspects Who Have Been Investigated

The Iowa County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation led the case, with help from Missouri and Illinois agencies. Agents interviewed roughly 400 people in the early phase, including hotel guests and Holiday Inn employees. Over the years three names have drawn public attention, and all three have been cleared or excluded.¹

Danny Burton was Rose Burkert’s ex-boyfriend. He had reportedly been stalking her, and she had filed a police complaint against him. She had also said someone killed her pet dog and left it displayed in front of her home. Burton was investigated, gave an alibi, and passed a polygraph. Investigators cleared him.¹

Charles Hatcher was a known serial killer and Atkison’s uncle by marriage, through Atkison’s wife Marcella Shat. Hatcher had escaped from a Nebraska mental health facility around the time of the killings, which fed speculation. Investigators confirmed he was in a different state when the murders happened and ruled him out. A 1992 report in the Cedar Rapids Gazette was headlined “Serial killer not tied to murders.”³¹

Raymundo Esparza was a vagrant and heroin addict who died in 1983 and was a suspect in the similar William Kyle murder in Galesburg, Illinois. Witnesses had placed him at the Galesburg hotel with tools on the night Kyle was killed. He was never charged. As of October 2025, the Iowa County Sheriff’s Office said Esparza is “not a match” for the DNA evidence from the Amana scene.¹

Some acquaintances of the victims have raised the possibility that someone connected to Atkison’s wife may have been involved, given the extramarital relationship. No public evidence supports that theory.

The Serial Offender Theory

Former cold case investigator Paul Holes examined the murders for the Oxygen series The DNA of Murder with Paul Holes, working with crime scene investigator Yolanda McClary. Holes identified strong similarities between the Amana killings and two other unsolved hotel homicides. All three involved a hatchet, victims found face down, and manipulated toothpaste at the scene.²

William Kyle, a 28-year-old salesman, was bludgeoned with a hatchet in Room 217 of the Sheraton Motor Inn in Galesburg, Illinois, on June 25, 1980, less than three months before the Amana murders. Kyle was found face down with a comforter over his upper torso, his wallet contents had been emptied under a chair, and toothpaste was squeezed onto the carpet. Jack McDonald, 23, was killed at the Travel Inn Motel in Meridian, Mississippi, in 1970. He was found bent face down over the side of the bed, bludgeoned with a hatchet. Toothpaste had been squeezed into the toilet, and his wallet was missing.²

Holes said publicly that he believes a single offender is responsible for all three. A forensic psychiatrist consulted during the Kyle investigation suggested the toothpaste behavior could be a form of “ejaculation simulation” seen in heroin addicts with erectile dysfunction. That theory originally pointed toward Esparza in the Kyle case, but Esparza has since been excluded from the Iowa DNA. Holes recommended that the Iowa County Sheriff’s Office seek an exhumation order for Esparza’s remains to obtain a DNA sample for comparison, and the Sheriff’s Office was reported to be pursuing that order. The available research does not confirm whether an exhumation was ultimately carried out.²

Where the DNA Evidence Stands

In 2015, Iowa County Sheriff Rob Rotter ordered a fresh review of all evidence preserved at the sheriff’s office. The re-examination turned up what officials called a new piece of evidence: a bathroom towel from the crime scene yielded an unidentified sample of male DNA.⁴ In 2016, evidence was sent to a laboratory for “touch DNA” testing, which analyzes skin cells left on objects, and detectives traveled to St. Joseph, Missouri, to re-interview witnesses and collect blood samples for comparison. In March 2020 the FBI issued an alert through its Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) seeking information.¹

As of October 2025, Sheriff Rotter said investigators hold an “incomplete DNA profile that may belong to our suspect.” The profile is detailed enough to confirm or rule out a specific person, but it does not yet carry enough data for familial DNA searches, the technique that has cracked other cold cases by identifying relatives of an unknown offender. Rotter said the case is essentially waiting for DNA analysis technology to catch up with what the evidence can give.¹

The case was featured on the 9 of Diamonds card in the Iowa Attorney General’s Cold Case Playing Cards program after the office established its own Cold Case Unit in 2023.⁵

How to Share Information

Anyone with information about the murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison can contact the Iowa County Sheriff’s Office at (319) 642-7307, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation at (515) 725-6010, or the Iowa Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit at 800-242-5100.¹⁵

1
Iowa Cold Cases. Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison Case Summary
2
Oxygen. Is a Serial Killer Responsible for Brutal Hotel Murders
3
Oxygen. Iowa County Sheriff’s Office Discusses
4
CBS2 Iowa. Iowa’s Unsolved Hotel Murders Still Haunt Amana Community 40 Years Later
5
Iowa Attorney General. Iowa Cold Case