Rachel Anne Reuter

• Missing Since 06/12/2021
• Missing From Urbandale, Iowa
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Age 30 years old
• Height and Weight 5'3, 160 pounds
• Medical Conditions Reuter had struggled with methamphetamine addiction for several years prior to her disappearance.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Reuter has a tattoo on her chest; a photo of the tattoo is posted with this case summary.

Details of Disappearance

Reuter was last seen leaving the Super 8 Hotel in Urbandale, Iowa on June 12, 2021. She was in the company of a friend, James Shiloh Klever, at the time. Both of them traveled to an address in Bondurant, Iowa that night, a home owned by Pam Larson, and spent the night in Larson's garage without her knowledge or permission; Klever knew the combination to the lock.

Larson later stated she found out about their presence when Klever walked into her home early the next morning and said Reuter was out of control. She followed him outside and heard banging and shouting from the garage, but refused to get involved in the situation and told Klever to get Reuter off of her property. Larson then returned to bed.

Klever later called Larson on the phone repeatedly, saying Reuter had stopped breathing. She told him to call an ambulance and he said, "It's too late for that." She didn't call an ambulance herself, but instead left the house for a planned trip. When she returned home from the trip, she found her garage in shambles and disposed of multiple items which she believed to be bloodstained.

Klever was subsequently charged with Reuter's murder and Larson was charged with being an accessory after the fact. The motive for the murder was because Klever sold methamphetamine and believed Reuter was informing the police about his illegal activities. Larson later testified that Klever admitted to her he had killed Reuter. Larson stated Klever said he would beat Reuter severely until she passed out, then he would stop and wait for her to regain consciousness, then he would start beating her again. He claimed he had used his fists, a knife and a baseball bat to hurt her.

After Reuter died, Klever supposedly wrapped her body in a motorcycle tarp and left in the trunk of his car for sevearl days while he went to another friend's home to abuse drugs. Days later, after the smell of decomposing remains became noticeable and Klever's son asked about it, Klever took her body to the Cainsville Bottoms, a remote area in Missouri. He supposedly dumped it in a friend at first, then later moved the remains and put them in a river.

Klever's car trunk was later found to be infested with blowflies; forensic testing of the flies showed they'd been feeding on human blood. Metal fittings matching Reuter's handbag and partially burned mail addressed to Klever were found in the remains of an extinguished fire left on a road in rural Missouri.

At his trial in 2023, Klever admitted he had gotten in an argument with Reuter while both were under the influence of methamphetamine. He said she attacked him, first with her firsts and then with a baseball bat, striking him twice with the bat before he took it from her and hit her with it in the head one time, causing her death. He denied any intent to kill her, and his attorney argued his actions constituted voluntary manslaughter rather than murder.

Klever was convicted of first-degree murder in May 2023; the offense carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. At his trial he stated he'd disposed of her remains in the Grand River in Decatur County, Iowa. They have never been found.

Reuter is originally from Wisconsin. At the time of her disappearance, she was the single mother of two children aged four and six years old; their father had died in 2020. She had struggled with drug addiction for years. Several days before she went missing, she was asked to leave a treatment center after she used methamphetamine and caused a disturbance.

Foul play is suspected in her case due to the circumstances involved.