The Triple Murder of Justin Hook, Sarah Link, and Tina Lade

On April 13, 1984, firefighters in rural Drakesville, Iowa, were called out to extinguish a trailer fire. And although they did their best, the trailer couldn’t be saved, because the damage was too extensive. But while they were on the scene, the firefighters found the burnt body of a young man lying outside of the trailer. They quickly alerted the police.

The Davis County Sheriff’s Office began to investigate the death of the unknown man. The dead man was identified as twenty-year-old Justin Alfred Hook — a Drakesville local. He was the owner of the burned trailer. It was determined that he had been bludgeoned to death.

Once Justin Hook had been formally identified, the next step was for the police to inform his mother about Justin’s unfortunate death. Justin’s mother was forty-one-year-old Sarah Link, from Farmington. The police tried to get in contact with her, but they were unable to locate Sarah Link. The police learned the concerning news that Sarah Link had been reported as a missing person around the same time as her son’s murder, and they ramped up the search for her.

Sarah Link’s body was discovered on April 16, three days after her son’s burned body had been discovered. She had been found in a rural field in Eldon, Iowa. town. The body dumpsite had been on a gravel road. When the…