From the archives: 30 years passed since the Drake Diner murders in 1992
In 1992, around 7 p.m. on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, at least 40 people packed the Drake Diner in Des Moines. A line trailed out the front door into the cool, drizzly night.
A man wearing a hooded sweatshirt rushed passed the crowd and grabbed the manager, Cara McGrane, 25, by the neck. The man shot her point-blank. She died instantly.
Today, Nov. 29, 2022, marks the 30th anniversary of the Drake Diner murders, a shooting resulting in the deaths of McGrane and another manager, Tim Burnett, 28.
Burnett, who had come into Drake Diner on his day off to set up a Christmas tree, ran to help McGrane. The man shot Burnett, and he too died instantly.
The man grabbed less than $500 from the cash register and fled the Diner as others ducked for cover.
In the weeks after murders, Bill Moulder, then the Des Moines police chief, and Bill McCarthy, assistant chief and head of investigations, led a search for the killer.
A few days after the murders, a 17-year-old named Joseph "Jo-Jo" White Jr. and several others held a party with illegal substances at the downtown Holiday Inn. Witnesses later told police that White flashed a large amount of cash.
Meanwhile, police were tracking the weapon used in the attack.
Watch:Remembering the 1992 Drake Diner Murders
The gun used at Drake Diner was a .44 Magnum handgun, police determined, and the gun itself was a rare LAR Grizzly Win Mag, the most powerful handgun in the world at the time. Only 450 had been sold in the United States, and police began tracking every one.
Informants soon told the police that White had fired a handgun at a party in a house on Carpenter Avenue. When police searched the house, they found slugs embedded in a furnace vent that matched the slugs that killed McGrane and Burnett.
White was arrested on Dec. 5, 1992, six days after the murders. Police located the original owner of the gun used in the attack, and the gun owner's daughter later told police that White had visited her and had taken the gun from them.
In May 1993, testimony from witnesses, the gun owner and the gun owner's daughter persuaded a jury to convict White of the two murders. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
More:From the archives: Drake Diner murders terrified Des Moines in 1992
While in prison, White became a violent inmate, and state authorities arranged to transport him to from Iowa to Texas, suspecting he would pose less of a problem in a prison where he wasn't well-known. He escaped in transit — a federal crime — and was subsequently sent to federal prison.
In 2016, following a U.S. Supreme Court case that deemed it unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life without the possibility of parole, White filed paperwork to receive a resentencing.
More:'I will meet you at the gates of hell,' victim's brother tells killer
White, who was one month shy of 18 before his arrest, was ultimately resentenced to two consecutive life sentences without parole. Today, White is incarcerated in a maximum security federal prison in Colorado.
Nina Baker is a news reporter at the Des Moines Register. She can be reached at NBaker@gannett.com or on Twitter @Nina_M_Baker.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Archives: Drake Diner murders took place 30 years ago in Des Moines
