William Beeman, serving life in prison in the 1980 stabbing death of Michiel Winkel at Wildcat Den

State Park, wants a new trial.

In early June, Beeman’s attorneys wrote in a 43-page motion filed in Muscatine County District Court
there is “important, favorable, and material, previously suppressed and new evidence that petitioner
could not have discovered sooner that demonstrates Beeman did not get a fair trial.”

“So much exculpatory evidence that was not run over by his trial team,” said Erica Nichols Cook, one
of Beeman’s attorneys and the Director of the Wrongful Conviction Division of the State Public
Defender’s Office to TV6 in June after the motion was filed.

After a series of filings by the State and Beeman’s attorneys, on July 22, the State filed a resistance to
the motion for a new trial and a motion to dismiss the motion for a new trial.

“Forty years after the brutal murder of Michiel Winkel her killer seeks a new trial. He does so by
claiming that the prosecution suppressed favorable information,” wrote prosecutors.

In the motion, the prosecution wrote, “He argues that this information shows doubt about his
conviction and that he should receive a new trial. But her killer cannot establish any element
necessary to entitle him to a new trial. Not one.”

The State argued in the filing on the 22nd, “Beeman must be able to prove that he discovered evidence
after the verdict that could not have been discovered with due diligence, is material and not
cumulative, would have changed the result of his trial, and that there is good cause to litigate these
issues now. Beeman cannot prove any of these.”

According to the motion, prosecutors argue the evidence was not suppressed and that the defense
knew about other timeline witnesses and other suspects.

They also argued the evidence would have been discovered by exercising due diligence and is not
new material.

Among other reasons listed in the court filing, prosecutors say the new evidence would not have
changed the result of the trial and that Beeman made “two highly incriminating statements.”

The State said there is no good cause for a judge to consider a motion for a new trial nearly 40 years
after Beeman’s conviction and asked for the dismissal of Beeman’s motion for a new trial.

In a response to the July 22 filing by prosecutors, attorneys for Beeman wrote on July 28, “In the end,
the case is simple. The State had in its possession, but withheld, plainly exculpatory and material
evidence.”

Beeman’s attorneys argued prior to his murder trial the State had in its possession, but did not
disclose, evidence Winkiel was seen alive the day after they alleged Beeman killed her, along with
‘essential facts’ about multiple alternative suspects that were investigated.
The defense said the State also failed to disclose a “host of relevant evidence regarding the victim’s
family and personal history.”

“Throughout its Resistance, the State never once contends that it did, in fact, disclose the evidence
Beeman identified. Rather, the State sifts through some of the identified pieces of evidence, claiming
that each individual piece, standing alone, is neither exculpatory nor material,” argued Beeman’s
attorneys.

Court records show the motion will still be heard on Aug. 3.

The State filed a resistance to Beeman’s request for a hearing on a motion for a new trial, but Judge
Stuart Werling ordered the hearing proceed.

Beeman’s request for a new trial came months after the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Division of
Criminal Investigation (DCI) said it did not have items in the case, a matter which has still not been
resolved.

The case
Winkel’s nude body was found at Wildcat Den State Park on April 26, 1980, near a campground just
off a walking trail.

A deputy medical examiner at Beeman’s trial testified the 22-year-old had been dead for at least 24
hours because of the state of her body. He testified Winkel had a head wound, lacerations around her
neck, and stab wounds to the left chest.

Prosecutors’ theory at trial, according to Beeman’s motion for a new trial, is that Winkel was killed
shortly after she was seen by a witness leaving a spa with an unknown male on April 21, 1980.

Prosecutors did not dispute that Beeman had “airtight” alibis on April 22, 1980, making it impossible
for him to commit the crime after that, according to the motion.

Prosecutors argued at trial that Beeman picked up Winkel on his motorcycle after she left the spa,
drover her out to Wildcat Den State Park, and assaulted and stabbed her to death.

At trial, Beeman presented three alibi witnesses for April 21, 1980, and also called a witness who said
she saw Winkel alive the next day.

Beeman, now 63, has argued for years that his confession to the crime was false and he signed it to
end an unrecorded interrogation that left him scared and confused.

“We also found his confession and the way in which it was obtained was very problematic and not
reliable,” said Nichols.
The motion for post-conviction DNA testing
Beeman is represented by Nichols Cook and attorneys from the Exoneration Project and the Midwest
Innocence Project.

In June 2019, the attorneys filed a motion for DNA testing. Prosecutors resisted, saying the motion
should be denied because they could not find the evidence Beeman requested to test.

In August, Judge Stuart Werling ordered the Muscatine County Attorney’s Office to obtain any law
enforcement investigative records relevant to Winkel’s death and the conviction of Beeman. The judge
further ordered prosecutors to work with the Department of Public Safety and DCI to allow the
inspection of the files.

Prosecutors provided documents totaling 833 pages from the DCI investigative file in December.

Beeman’s attorneys wrote in the motion they informed the judge the file was incomplete and missing
photos of the crime scene and evidence, chain of custody documents, and field investigation notes at
a minimum.

Prosecutors told the judge there was another box of DCI material that it would produce, and
Beeman’s attorneys filed a motion to compel discovery on Feb. 5, according to the motion for a new
trial.

The documents disclosed in December, Beeman’s attorneys wrote in the motion, contained
exculpatory evidence and information that had not been produced or provided before his trial.

According to the motion, attorneys discovered for the first time in December that six different
witnesses said they saw Winkel after April 21, 1980.

The attorneys further argued in the motion that prosecutors failed to turn over “detailed information”
about 11 alternate suspects, including a man Winkel considered a boyfriend and her father, they
pursued.

The attorneys also argued prosecutors failed to disclose that Winkel had a rocky family history, prior
psychiatric hospitalizations, was a known runaway, had reportedly experienced violence by her father,
and had become infatuated with a “boyfriend” previously that ended in court intervention.

According to the motion, the undisclosed evidence turned over the defense also contained new
information that campers at Wild Cat Den State Park, including Boy Scout leaders and Boy Scouts,
told investigators they heard a woman’s scream around 1:00 am on April 26, 1980, which was only
hours before Winkel’s body was found.

The attorneys also argue that new scientific evidence further undermines the theory that Winkel died
on April 21, 1980.
“Analysis of the body’s decompensation, including entomology observations, support a much smaller
window of time between death and discovery, which the State maintains is five days,” the attorneys
wrote in the motion.

The attorneys argued in the motion that Beeman’s disputed confession is “the only evidence that ever
really connected Mr. Beeman to the crime—there are no eyewitnesses or reliable forensic evidence
that have ever connected him to this crime.”

“The undisclosed, only recently-discovered, powerful exculpatory evidence reinforcing Mr. Beeman’s
innocence, including powerful evidence that Ms. Winkel was alive at the time the State alleges Mr.
Beeman killed her and that the State suppressed credible alternate suspects with potential motives,
requires this Court to vacate Mr. Beeman’s conviction and order a new trial in the interest of justice,”
attorneys for Beeman argued.

Beeman’s attorneys wrote, “the investigative reports disclosed almost 40 years after Mr. Beeman’s
conviction included evidence about alternate suspects and evidence—reinforced by science—that Ms.
Winkel was alive long-after the State maintains Mr. Beeman killed her. All of this was evidence
favorable to Mr. Beeman, material to the issue of guilt, and suppressed by the State.”