Husband Arrested 28 Years After His Wife’s Death

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — “Cokie” Uban was a timid woman, the type to lock and chain the door and then put soda bottles next to it so they would be sent clattering if a burglar tried to enter.

So why would she venture out for sandwiches in the middle of the night and end up on a lonely road, nowhere near a restaurant?

That question has haunted her parents for 28 years, ever since Coleen “Cokie” Uban’s body was found in the smoldering wreck of her car and her death was written off as an accident.

Her parents now have some answers: Police have charged their daughter’s husband, Karl Uban, with murder.

Cliff Ziemer, 76, and his wife, Isabel, 74, still haven’t learned the motive, but what they do know has been enough to satisfy them that the investigation had been bungled from the start.

The Ziemers got a call from their son-in-law shortly after midnight on April 9, 1968. He said his 24-year-old wife was missing.

By the time they traveled from their Peoria home to their daughter’s home in Bloomington, her body had been found. Coroner Curtis Gilberts said she died of a skull fracture after losing control of her car on a curve, and from severe burns from a fire in the vehicle.

But things didn’t quite add up.

She was nowhere near the restaurants she might have visited, her parents said. Sheriff’s Deputy Sam Babbitt noted other peculiarities a few days later: “The ditch the car went into wasn’t very deep. . . . There were no skid marks on the road. The steering wheel of the car wasn’t even bent.”

The coroner decided not to conduct an autopsy, and despite pleas from the Ziemers and an editorial in the local paper, the coroner and sheriff ruled the death an accident, Ziemer said.

Nothing happened even when, according to the Ziemers, a woman moved in with Uban a month after his wife’s funeral.

Uban moved to Indianapolis a year later and eventually rose to vice president of American States Insurance. He reared the three children he had with his wife, and twice remarried and divorced.

The Ziemers moved to Florida in 1972 to get away from the painful memories. They returned to Peoria in 1991, intent on getting answers.

“Maybe Karl and his family think we were out to get him, but that’s not true,” Isabel Ziemer said. “We never, ever, accused him of anything.”

What they did was explain some of their questions about the case to a detective and gave him their collection of newspaper clippings. The detective, Lt. Brett Beyer, was surprised to learn there had been no autopsy.

He consulted with the current sheriff, coroner and state’s attorney and got permission a year ago to reopen the case. Detectives interviewed 50 people in three states, from the Uban children to Karl Uban’s co-workers and former neighbors.

Authorities also exhumed Cokie Uban’s remains and performed an autopsy. They concluded she died from being choked into unconsciousness and then inhaling smoke. Her skull had not been fractured.

Beyond the cause of death, officials won’t discuss the evidence. They have said only that they are trying to determine whether anyone else played a role in Cokie Uban’s death or lied to the grand jury.

Uban, now 54, was arrested May 31. He faces 14 years to life in prison if convicted.

Thomas Penn, one of Uban’s lawyers, said his client is innocent. But he said defending Uban will be difficult because many of the original investigators are now dead, including the original coroner.

The Ziemers’ reaction to Uban’s indictment is more puzzlement than rage. They say they simply don’t understand how he could have done such a thing.

“We can never get over our daughter’s death,” Isabel Ziemer said, “but at least we can lay it to rest.”