By Deb Nicklay

Mason City Globe Gazette

OSAGE, Iowa — The 13-year-old rural Osage boy accused of murdering his mother is also accused of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse against her, according to a news release issued by the Mitchell County Sheriff’s Department.

Allegations against Noah Riley Crooks include first-degree murder, a Class A felony; and the allegation of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, a Class C felony.

Crooks is accused of murdering his mother, Gretchen, 37, on Saturday, March 24, at the family’s rural home, about eight miles west of Osage.

He is being held at the North Iowa Juvenile Detention Center in Waterloo and will remain there indefinitely.

Noah Crooks was apprehended without incident just after 7:30 p.m. on March 24, at the rural acreage where he lived with his mother, and father, William Crooks. Deputies responded to a 911 call and found Gretchen Crooks’ body inside.

An autopsy determined Crooks died of multiple gunshot wounds.

Gretchen Crooks, a 1992 graduate of Mason City High School, was a critical care nurse at Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa in Mason City.

A delinquency petition naming the acts allegedly committed by Noah Riley Crooks was filed in Mitchell County Juvenile Court on Wednesday, according to court documents.

Also filed was a waiver of jurisdiction in a petition for youthful offender status which, if granted, would allow the boy to be under the supervision of the judicial system past his 18th birthday. No hearing date has been set.

The investigation into the death is continuing by the Mitchell County Sheriff’s Office, the State Medical Examiners Office, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Mitchell County Attorney’s Office.

Younker said this is the first murder in Mitchell County since December 1898. In that case, Deforest Fairbanks shot and killed village blacksmith George Robbins in David, northeast of Osage.

Fairbanks was convicted and died in prison in 1933.