I spent two weeks covering a first-degree murder trial against Ethan Landon Davis. He was ultimately found guilty by a jury of killing a deer hunter from Cedar Falls on public hunting ground located near Rathbun Lake. During the trial, I produced coverage for print and digital, including stories and updates as well as photos and video. All story elements were moved on quick deadlines.
Linked below is each day's trial coverage:
Sheriff’s offices typically aren’t big on revenue generation. But in Wayne County, overflowing inmates from contiguous counties have been contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to their budget. The biggest customer? Lucas County, where locals opted to build a 24-hour holding facility instead of replacing their jail. Next is Appanoose County, where the jail struggles to hold even one-fourth of its inmate population.
The two counties have paid just shy of $1 million to Wayne County since 2009 to hold overflow inmates.
An internal investigation led to the firing of two community college baseball coaches, including one who was a 26-year hall of fame veteran head coach. The college initially marketed their departures as a change of direction though through the reporting of myself and a sports writer we determined it was in fact after the college's internal investigation found the coaches were abusive toward players and had potentially led many of them to break immigration laws.
The college stonewalled our public records requests and still declines to discuss the matter. I took the lead on the story, and was assisted by a sports writer on our staff.
I helped lead a three-part series on mental health in Iowa for twin-weeklies in Knoxville and Pella, Iowa. The series won awards with the Iowa Newspaper Association and the Inland Press Association. The first part of the story speaks about bed availability as well as how private hospitals used a state board to stymie the construction of additional beds.