Iowa baby's death: His uncle describes a short, neglected life

ALTA VISTA, Ia. — Anger, grief, guilt, bewilderment.

Citizens in this small town a few blocks wide have wrestled with a storm of emotions in the week since authorities charged Zachary Koehn and Cheyanne Harris in the death of their nearly 4-month-old son Sterling Koehn.

Although few had met the family, many plan to gather Saturday night for a candle light vigil for the baby they say they never knew. They say they struggle to understand how this could have happened in their town.

“A lot of crying being done and feeling sorry,” said Fran Boehmer, who works at the public library. “It wrecked our town. We’ve got a bad reputation now.”

Among the mourners at the vigil will be Koehn’s brother Danny Koehn, who provided the first account from family on what came before the horrific discovery detailed in court documents last week.

The maggot-covered body of tiny Sterling Koehn was found after Zachary Koehn made a 911 call to the Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Office Aug. 30.

The infant was in a powered swing and weighed less than 7 pounds, vastly underweight for his age group.

A forensic entomologist determined the child had not been removed from the baby seat in more than a week and didn’t have a diaper change or bath in that time, court records show.

Koehn, 28, and Harris, 20, were charged with murder and both remain in custody. The State Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death as failure to provide critical care.

Danny Koehn, 31, of Clarksville, Mississippi, said his brother Zachary grew up in nearby McIntire with three siblings and strict Mennonite parents.

His brother began using drugs as a teenager, Danny Koehn said. He later married and divorced, and has a 7-year-old child that lives with Koehn’s parents in Oklahoma.

Zachary Koehn had another daughter, who is nearly 2, with his girlfriend Harris when they lived in Riceville — Harris’ hometown. The family moved to Alta Vista sometime after Sterling’s birth, he said.

Zachary Koehn got a job driving trucks and told his brother that he frequently was gone for days at a time.

“I talked to Zach a lot. He did have concerns about the child being taken care of while he was gone," Danny Koehn said. "He’d call and say the baby wasn’t changed for a week when he wasn’t home. ... 

“It’s still the responsibility of the parents of the child, so I’m not saying he’s innocent.”

Neither parent had a serious criminal history before their arrests, although Zachary Koehn was charged with theft for turning on the water to his home in Riceville when his service was shut off for an unpaid bill, court records show.

Charges were dismissed when he agreed to make restitution to the city.

But Danny Koehn said he knew the couple had drug problems. In court records filed after the arrest, Harris reported last using methamphetamines two to three weeks before and Koehn said he last used meth two months ago.

In a social media account listed in his name, Koehn wrote on Oct. 3: “Enjoying the clean life.”

Harris is also being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sterling Koehn’s death comes amid a surge in child deaths in Iowa. A Des Moines Register investigation earlier this year showed that 11 children died in 2016 from suspected abuse.

And the Child Death Review Team, operating out of the State Medical Examiner’s Office, showed that in 2013 the seven homicides they investigated mostly were caused by caregivers involved in drug use or altercations.

Danny Koehn said he has talked to his brother since he went to jail and he was happy to see that citizens were coming to the jail to pray for him.

“He told me, ‘I think the public realizes I’m not as bad a person as they think,' " Danny Koehn said.

“But I told him, ‘No, people do that all the time. They come to prison to pray for prisoners. This is serious. It will be a miracle for you to get out of jail.’

“I honestly think he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”

The couple was rarely seen in this Chickasaw County town of 260 people, even among neighbors.

They lived in a complex of three one-story brick buildings with four apartments in each on the edge of town.

A soybean field stretches to the east. The hum of a nearby grain storage facility to the west was the only noise on a recent afternoon.

Bella Snyder and Cam Haar, who live in an apartment down the hallway from where the baby was found, were horrified by what happened so close to them.

They have an 11-month-old child and knew the couple also had a baby but never saw him, or the father.

“It’s sick," Haar said angrily. "You couldn’t put anything else in the newspaper. Being a father myself, there is no (expletive) way to explain it.”

Three other neighbors also said they rarely saw the couple.

In town, the outrage was still fresh. It’s been a topic of heavy lament every night in Schucky’s Bar & Grill, one of the few businesses in town.

“A lot of people are asking how someone could do something like that to a baby,” said employee Debbie Crooks.

It will damage trust in people who move to town, often seeking cheaper rent, said Boehmer. Now they will look at those strangers with questioning eyes, she said.

Some expressed guilt that they didn’t notice the family or the child’s suffering. Others are seeking ways to makes sense of something so hard to understand.

“I would hope that they could understand (the parents’) point of view and they could find it in their hearts to try to forgive them for the harm they did to the child,” said Sue Cira, a student pastor at Zion Lutheran Church in Alta Vista.

Father Mark Murphy of St. Bernard’s Catholic Church in Alta Vista said he doesn’t know if any message will help citizens feel better, but gathering together to say goodbye to the child will.

“The candle is light in the darkness,” he said.

The candlelight vigil for Sterling Koehn will be held in an empty lot flanked by a picket fence next to Schucky’s, where American flag siding covers the south wall.

“I was so angry I felt I needed to do something,” said Kim Judge of nearby Elma, who organized the vigil. “I grew up in a big city and you see this, but in a small town it hurts more. Hopefully we can bring awareness to child abuse and neglect.

“But mainly we felt we needed to do something for this baby,” Judge said.

So did the baby’s uncle, who will travel from Mississippi for the vigil and turn right back around to go back to his construction business.

“I wanted to support their awareness for child abuse,” he said. “No child deserves to go through anything like that.”

He said arrangements are pending for Sterling Koehn but the family hopes to bury some of his ashes next to his grandfather’s grave in McIntire.