An ax murder that has haunted Warren County for more than a century is heading to the big screen just miles from where it happened. Indianola's Paramount 7 Theatre plans four showings of “A Jury of Her Peers,” a 2025 film inspired by the unsolved 1900 murder of John Hossack, with a lobby meet-and-greet set before the opening night screening.
According to the Independent Advocate, the theater will show the film at 6:15 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 14, at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 16, and again at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 19. Des Moines filmmaker William Rock and actress Cheyenne Goode are scheduled to attend a meet-and-greet in the theater lobby at 5 p.m. before that opening Saturday showing, giving local audiences a chance to meet the people behind the project before the lights go down.
The film draws its story from the real-life killing of John Hossack, who was murdered with an ax while sleeping in his bed on Dec. 1, 1900, in Medora, per the same report. His wife, Margaret Hossack, was charged with murdering him in Warren County, Iowa. Her second trial was held in adjacent Madison County.
A Conviction Undone, A Case Never Closed
Margaret Hossack was initially convicted, but that verdict did not hold. As Kyle Munson reports, the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the conviction, and her retrial ended in a hung jury. There was no third trial, and no one else was ever charged with the crime, according to Iowa Cold Cases, leaving the killing unresolved to this day.
The case didn't fade from public memory, in part because a young journalist named Susan Glaspell covered the Hossack murder trial before going on to graduate from Drake University, per the Independent Advocate. Glaspell later turned her coverage into fiction, drawing on both her reporting and the trial itself. Rock has said he drew inspiration from Glaspell's one-act play Trifles and her short story A Jury of Her Peers, the Independent Advocate reports.
Glaspell's Trifles premiered in Provincetown in 1916, according to Munson, and the story's grip on popular culture didn't stop there. Alfred Hitchcock adapted Glaspell's tale for an episode of his television series in 1961, Munson notes, and a 30-minute film version of A Jury of Her Peers earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film in 1980.
From a Drive Through Medora to a Finished Film
Rock's own path to the project began with a drive through Medora in 2020, per the Independent Advocate, where the history of the case apparently stuck with him. He has said he was thrilled to bring the film to the area where the historical mystery unfolded, the Independent Advocate reports.
Accounts differ on exactly how long the shoot took. The Independent Advocate's fact record states the film was filmed in 19 days at a historic property near Madrid and at Living History Farms, while Munson's account describes a shoot of 23 days, spread across weekends over four months, with a cast and crew of about 60. The film features an entirely Iowa-based cast, and director William Rock has said nearly everyone involved, including all of the actors, was from Iowa, with the only exception being a few musicians, according to The Scarlet & Black.
Indianola native Cheyenne Goode stars in the film as Eliza, the sheriff's wife, per the Independent Advocate. Goode graduated from Indianola High School in 2011 and works in the insurance industry by day, the Independent Advocate notes, making her return to the area for the meet-and-greet something of a local homecoming.
A Roadshow That Keeps Finding Audiences
The film has already built momentum well beyond Warren County. It won gold at the Cedar Rapids Film Festival, was featured at the Los Angeles Crime and Horror Festival, and has played to packed crowds across Iowa, according to the Independent Advocate.
That run has included stops around the state as part of an expanding tour. After its Des Moines world-premiere weekend, the filmmakers announced a roadshow tour, with additional screenings planned at independent cinemas across Iowa and the Midwest, per River Cities' Reader. A screening at Grinnell's Strand 3 was followed by a Q&A with Rock on March 28, The Scarlet & Black reports, and the tour has also stopped in Decorah on April 4, Storm Lake on April 19 and Centerville on May 3.
Indianola's four dates add the town at the center of the original case to that growing list of stops. For a story that has survived a hung jury, a century of retellings and at least one Hitchcock adaptation, the unresolved question at its heart — who killed John Hossack — remains exactly that: unresolved.
