Charles City man to be returned to state to face 2012 Nashua murder charge

By Bob Fenske, editor@nhtrib.com

An arrest warrant in connection with a murder that took place in the fall of 2012 in rural Nashua has been issued for a Charles City man who has been in federal prison for the last 7½ years.

Chickasaw County Sheriff Marty Hemann informed the Board of Supervisors on Monday that an arrest warrant for Randy Patrie, 39, had been signed by District Court Judge Richard Stochl last week and that Patrie was expected to be returned to Iowa sometime in the next month.

Patrie had long been considered the chief suspect in the murder of Kenneth Gallmeyer, whose body was discovered by Chickasaw County sheriff’s deputies when they were called to do a welfare check on Gallmeyer at his home north of Nashua on Oct. 4, 2012.

In June 2014, Patrie was sentenced to life in prison in federal court after he pleaded guilty to possession of firearms by a felon as an armed career criminal and possession of sawed-off shotguns, but that sentence was overturned in 2017 and Patrie was re-sentenced in 2018 to 20 years in federal prison.

“When he had a life sentence, we didn’t think it made a lot of sense to bring him back to state court,” Hemann said. “But once that sentence got overturned, we knew that we were going to have to proceed with our case.”

After the supervisors meeting, Hemann said that he believes there is a strong case against Patrie and that there was some sense of urgency in proceeding with the case.

“It’s been almost 10 years, and we want to make sure we have our witnesses available because as time goes on, that can become an issue,” he said.

Hemann added that his office has remained in contact with Gallmeyer’s family since the murder took place.

Gallmeyer was a 70-year-old retired grocer who had moved to rural Nashua after selling his store in Clarksville.

At Patrie’s first federal sentencing in June 2014, his daughter, Marti Hornsby, said she appreciated the work done by local law enforcement on her father’s case, but also lashed out at Patrie.

“Why would anyone kill my dad? … He was a good guy,” Hornsby said. “Everyone enjoyed his good humor and infectious laugh. My dad lost his life because of Randy Patrie’s life of crime.”

In a complaint and affidavit filed in federal court, law enforcement authorities said they discovered that Gallmeyer had suffered a gunshot wound to the head and that numerous items — including several firearms and a Samsung 40-inch flat-screen TV — had been taken from his home.

The affidavit went on to say that on July 4, 2013, the Charles City Police Department executed a search warrant at Patrie’s residence in Charles City and that investigators from the Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation contacted Charles City police and obtained a copy of the items that had been seized.

It was discovered that several of the items seized were items allegedly taken from Gallmeyer’s home. They included three firearms, one of which, according to the affidavit was a .410 shotgun “consistent with the firearm used to kill” Gallmeyer.

An additional search warrant was then executed by the Sheriff’s Office and the DCI at Patrie’s home, and additional times allegedly belonging to Gallmeyer were located and seized. During the second search, officers discovered a Samsung 40-inch flat-screen TV mounted on the wall of Patire’s bedroom.

Hemann said on Tuesday that Patrie is currently in a federal prison in New Jersey, but he expects Patrie to be returned to Iowa within the next 30 days.

Once Patrie is back in Iowa, he will be held in the Fayette County Jail, which has the ability to better segregate prisoners of different classifications than the Chickasaw County jail.