Convicted Cedar County murderer dies at IMCC

Lang
4/26/23

A convicted murder from Cedar County has died in prison in Coralville.

According to the Iowa Department of Corrections, 74-year-old John Frank Roth was pronounced dead due to natural causes at 7:10 a.m. last Friday at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center. Roth had been serving a life sentence for 1st Degree Murder from Cedar County. His sentence began on April 4th, 1985.

Roth was convicted of killing his stepdaughter, Tina Harper, whose body was found with seven bullet wounds along a roadside north of Clarence. He initially tried to blame his wife, who had previously been convicted of 2nd Degree Murder in 1965. Roth claimed his wife killed Harper because she thought they were having an affair. But witnesses testified that before the murder they had seen Roth and Harper leave his house together before he came back to get the gun used in the shooting.