Angela “Angie” Buck | The Life, the 1995 Murder and the 2026 Charges

The Full Case Summary

Angela Renee Buck had a life long before her name became part of a homicide file. Born in Waterloo on April 17, 1958, she was a daughter, mother and sister. Her family remembered someone whose concern for other people ran deep. She loved her four children, enjoyed riding horses and had played the violin in her school orchestra. She had worked in nursing care and was taking steps toward a new career in broadcasting, studying to become a radio announcer. Those were her interests and ambitions, not clues invented to explain what happened to her.

Angie’s mother, Lorene, had served on the Evansdale City Council. Her death in 1992 was painful for Angie, family members later recalled. Contemporary interviews also describe hardship in Angie’s adult life. People can struggle without being defined by their hardest years. Angie was still a person with relationships, work experience, musical talents and plans for the future. The picture of her life comes mainly from family accounts preserved by Iowa Cold Cases and contemporary newspaper reporting, not from speculation about her final hours.

On the morning of August 11, 1995, two men scouting locations for turtle traps crossed a bridge along North Pilot Grove Road east of Waterloo. They spotted a woman’s body near the creek. They did not disturb it and sought help to contact authorities. Deputies and investigators searched the area. The woman was identified as 37-year-old Angie Buck. An autopsy determined she had died from a gunshot wound, and the death was ruled a homicide. The photograph of a bridge in our artwork illustrates this location; it is not an authenticated photograph of the actual scene.

The early investigation followed standard questions: Who had last seen Angie? Where had she traveled? Was she killed near the creek or moved there? Investigators searched the area and gathered material, according to contemporary newspaper accounts later preserved by Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers. Reports show that officials could not immediately establish the location of the shooting. We do not have the original warrant returns, scene diagrams, collected-evidence inventory, laboratory submissions or full medical-examiner file needed to answer those questions today.

As Angie’s family mourned, detectives interviewed acquaintances and followed possible leads. The Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers historical file records that Angie had worked as a nursing aide and had been training for a radio career. It also recounts a brief comparison with another Iowa homicide from the same period. Police said in 1995 that the two cases were not linked. That negative finding matters: a similar date or shared social circle is not proof of one connected murder investigation.

What the original 1995 scene coverage adds: The historical account preserves reporting that as many as 20 investigators searched the creek and surrounding fields and ditches on August 11, taking away bags that journalists believed held evidence. The two people who found Angie reportedly gave written statements. Deputies later recorded motorists’ contact information near the bridge, while investigators asked whether the creek had flooded. The actual evidence inventory, written statements, scene diagrams, and water testing are still missing from public materials. We should not treat an eyewitness’s impression of possible staining or an officer’s flooding question as a forensic finding. The archival reporting says Angie’s identity was confirmed through fingerprints and dental records, and that Dr. Francis Garrity performed an autopsy on August 12. The full medical examiner report is confidential under Iowa law and cannot simply be obtained by an unrelated requester. Original newspaper excerpts in the Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers archive.

One unresolved date: The Iowa Cold Cases index lists August 9, 1995 as the incident date; however, 2026 court reporting describes alleged events on August 10 and 11. The original archival account confirms when Angie was found but does not establish a certified August 9 time of death. That conflict is recorded in the case chronology and records ledger rather than being silently resolved.

The story investigators allege today begins before the discovery. According to local and national reporting based on a 2026 criminal complaint, Angie had been at a residence on Cottage Street in Waterloo during the night of August 10 and early morning of August 11. Prosecutors allege a confrontation occurred and Angie was assaulted. A witness reportedly said that two men took her from the house and forced her into a vehicle. The next morning, she was found about eight miles away. These are charging allegations and reported witness accounts, not independent findings that either defendant committed the homicide.

Police continued interviewing people over the following years. Reporting on Kelly Joseph Grant’s charging complaint describes an associate’s January 1996 account of a statement allegedly suggesting Angie was killed because the men believed she had stolen something. The witness’s exact wording and whether it changed remain questions until we can inspect the original account. An alleged statement repeated through another person must not be reported as a confirmed confession.

Investigators also interviewed Grant repeatedly. FOX 9’s examination of the criminal complaint describes different answers about where he lived in 1995, who he knew, and whether Angie or other men had been in his vehicle. In one reported later interview, Grant acknowledged knowing Angie from previous work. In a March 2025 interview, according to the complaint summary, he described stopping by a house where a distressed woman resembling Angie and several men were present, and later giving them a ride. The prosecution considers those changing accounts significant. The defense is entitled to examine the complete interviews, context, dates, any recording quality and the reasons for any discrepancies.

In 2025, investigators reportedly learned about another proposed motive. Prosecutors say some people wrongly believed Angie was informing law enforcement about drug activity in the Cottage and Sumner Street area. A mistaken belief could be relevant to a prosecution’s alleged motive, but it is not evidence that Angie was an informant. It should never be printed as though she was. Neither the alleged theft theory nor the informant theory has yet been proved by a jury, and we have not obtained a filed exhibit establishing precisely how investigators tested those accounts.

The arrests came more than three decades later. On October 15, 2026, Kelly Joseph Grant, then 59 and living in Bertha, Minnesota, was arrested on a first-degree murder charge. The Iowa Attorney General confirmed that the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit, and Minnesota law enforcement partners participated. Officials announced the arrest October 16. That announcement established a pending criminal charge, not a conviction.

On October 28, the Attorney General confirmed a second first-degree murder charge, this time against Lindell Jackson, then 50 and living in Waterloo. Jackson was already held in an unrelated matter. KCRG reported he appeared in court the next morning, October 29. Its account of Jackson’s complaint describes an alleged confrontation, reported changes in his explanations over the years, and statements about having access to a relative’s handgun. Having access to a firearm is not the same as proving that firearm fired the fatal shot; no authenticated firearm test or chain of custody has been made available to us.

Grant and Jackson face distinct prosecutions, with their own rights, lawyers, evidence disputes, hearings and outcomes. A finding against one would not by itself establish the other’s guilt. The current accusation is first-degree murder for each. We have not yet independently examined the filed charging instruments to determine the precise statutory theory, docket numbers, formal arraignment dates or any changes to the counts. We will not substitute a modern model jury instruction for the instructions that may eventually be given at a trial.

Angie’s case is neither a completed trial nor a proven conspiracy. As of October 29, 2026, the public record supports saying two men have been charged and that investigators have revived long-standing witness and interview leads. It does not support naming an identified murder weapon, claiming a DNA match, presenting a confession as authenticated, or declaring what happened in the interval between Cottage Street and the creek. Those gaps are the next work, not things to make up.

After 31 years, the family has a new court process and the possibility of hearing evidence tested in public. The most respectful reporting will continue to ask what is in the actual documents, who said it, which records support it, and what has not been proved, while keeping Angie herself at the beginning of the story.