Murder at the Roosevelt Hotel in Cedar Rapids

“Fantastic . . . Sheds new light on the case . . . No stone is left unturned . . . Provides a remarkable snapshot of life in Cedar Rapids in the late 1940s” ( The Gazette ). Byron C. Hattman sealed his fate when he checked into the Roosevelt Hotel on December 13, 1948. A maid found his body in a blood-spattered room two days later. An investigation linked him to the young wife of St. Louis pediatrician Robert C. Rutledge, who confessed to the brutal attack after trying to poison himself. The sca