Mother’s Day in 1965 was a terrible day for 16-year-old Wendy Holman.
Her mother, Lillian Randolph, was missing. The 56-year-old mother of four had vanished from her Iowa home the previous Sunday afternoon — May 2.
On May 11, Lillian’s body was found in the trunk of her car, which had been abandoned in the parking lot of Des Moines Municipal Airport.
Six decades of Mother’s Days have passed and Lillian’s case is still not solved.
Wendy Holman is in her late seventies now. She’s spent more time missing her mother than her mother got to live. “She was a wonderful person,” Wendy told Dateline. Lillian was a second-generation Swedish immigrant who put herself through school to become a teacher during the Great Depression. “She had the determination to be a teacher and loved her children deeply,” Wendy said. And Lillian was a woman of many talents. “She played the piano by ear, she played ukulele. She could sew. She could sing.”
Lillian was devoted to her family. After the sudden death of her first husband and a divorce from her second, Lillian married businessman Howard Randolph in 1959, hoping to provide for her four children. The family settled in Guthrie Center, Iowa. Howard adopted the children, and Wendy’s two older siblings lived in the area and worked for Howard.
According to Wendy, Howard developed and produced powdered eggs for the military, building his wealth during World War II. He was widely known in the Guthrie Center area, according to Wendy, but not in a good way. “I have to use the word hated because that really describes how people felt about him in that little town we lived in,” Wendy said. “He had just done so many people wrong and he was money hungry.”
According to Wendy, the marriage was not a healthy one. “She put up with it just for others, just for the sake of her kids and her family,” she said.
But in 1964, Lillian found a lawyer who helped her start the legal separation process. “He was able to get support from Howard,” Wendy said. And Howard had to leave the home they shared. Lillian stayed in the house along with her two youngest daughters. Howard had visitation rights with the girls.
On May 2, 1965, Howard picked up Wendy and her sister for his standard visitation. “We had a day planned to go to Des Moines and see the Ice Capades,” Wendy recalled. “He picked us up, and he didn’t use the correct route.” Instead of going straight to the highway, Wendy remembers Howard first drove to her older sister’s house nearby and went inside for a bit. Then they drove to his office and he made some phone calls.
Right away I knew something was happening."
Wendy Holman
When they finally headed to the highway, Wendy could see her house from the car. She remembers seeing a white Cadillac in the driveway. They didn’t own a white Cadillac. “Right away I knew something was happening,” she said. When Howard saw her staring at the house, he looked over as well, then turned back to her. “He said, ‘What are you looking at?’” Wendy remembered. Then they went on with their Ice Capades plan. “It was just an uneasy time,” she said.
Wendy says that when Howard dropped her and her sister back home after the show, their mother wasn’t there and her 1965 blue Dodge wasn’t in the driveway. The Lutheran church Lillian attended was hosting an early Mother’s Day party that afternoon, so Wendy headed over there to see if her mother was there. “I got to the doors and said, ‘I’m looking for my mom,’” she said. “And the women were pissed because she hadn’t shown up.”
Wendy says she then went to her older sister’s house, who also hadn’t seen their mother. Her sister called the Guthrie County Sheriff’s Office and reported Lillian missing. “Some men who were friends, they even went out looking for her in different places around the area,” Wendy said.
Iowa state investigators interviewed the family. According to Wendy, law enforcement initially looked at Lillian’s disappearance as a potential kidnapping. There were also rumors around town that Lillian had run off with someone. “She wouldn’t have done that,” Wendy said. “I was hoping that that’s what happened. But of course, that didn’t turn out.”
On May 11, nine days after Lillian was last seen, her blue Dodge was found abandoned in the parking lot of Des Moines Municipal Airport. Agents with the Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation responded to the scene.
Dateline reached out to the Iowa Department of Public Safety for comment on the case and received a report filed on June 18, 1965, that contained a synopsis of the scene and initial findings. Iowa DPS also noted that “any additional case information, to the extent that it exists, is confidential and not subject to disclosure,” according to Iowa law.
According to the report, the car was found with the keys in the ignition and the engine off. Agents observed a foul odor coming from the car, and when they opened the trunk, they found Lillian’s partially decomposed remains. She had been stabbed multiple times in her torso and once in her back. Agents at the scene conducted a latent print examination of the car, but didn’t get any prints suitable for identification.
Police described the killing as the work of a professional."
The Courier, May 1965
According to a May 1965 article in The Courier, Lillian was stabbed with a small pocket knife. “Police described the killing as the work of a professional,” it said. Police were also seeking information on “a mysterious white Cadillac seen near Mrs. Randolph’s sumptuous home.”
After her mother was found, Wendy doesn’t recall much of the investigation. “It turned into, ‘OK, now how are we gonna survive?’” Wendy and her sister went to live with their older sister.
Wendy finished high school the next year, and then went to business college. After that, she left Iowa. “I’ve been in California since 1968,” she told Dateline. “I did it for my own survival.” Her knowledge of the initial investigation ends at this time. “I can’t remember talking to anybody.”
That changed in 1987. “I had a call from the Guthrie County District Attorney in Iowa,” Wendy recalled. According to Wendy, they were ready to prosecute her mother’s case, and asked if she would return to Iowa to testify against Howard on the stand, to which she agreed. They talked about making arrangements for Wendy to travel with her baby, but then nothing happened. “In order to just be a mom, and you know, continue on, try to function, I just didn’t pursue it,” Wendy said.
Howard Randolph was never charged or prosecuted in Lillian’s case. He died in 1994.
Sixty-one years later, Lillian’s case remains cold. Wendy realizes it will probably never wind up in court. But she still hopes for some kind of public resolution. “I would just like to see that happen, that whoever did this is — it’s down on record somewhere,” she told Dateline.
As the years pass, Lillian is still remembered and cherished by her family. “You never want to stop seeking justice for your loved one,” Wendy said.
If you have any information regarding Lillian’s case, please contact the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation at 515-725-6010.
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