Henry County State’s Attorney Catherine Runty is pursuing a governor’s warrant for Jamison Fisher, after he refused to waive extradition to face murder chargers in the disappearance of Trudy Appleby.
Fisher, 50, has long been a suspect in Trudy’s 1996 disappearance.
He is in the Scott County Jail on unrelated drug charges, as well as an interstate detainer from Illinois in relation to the Henry County murder charges.
On Aug. 14, Runty and Moline Police Chief Darren Gault announced that a Henry County grand jury had indicted Fisher on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of concealment of a homicidal death. The charges allege Fisher strangled Trudy and then concealed her death.
During an extradition hearing in Scott County District Court on Aug. 26, Fisher refused to waive extradition to Henry County and asked that an attorney be appointed to represent him in the extradition case.
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Scott County Magistrate Cynthia Taylor ordered Fisher held for no more than 30 days as Runty seeks a governor’s warrant.
A governor’s warrant is only concerned with if the person being held, in this case Fisher, is the correct person the charging county is seeking, Runty said. It does not address guilt or innocence.
To procure a governor’s warrant, Runty said, her office has to send the case information, including the charging document, mugshot and fingerprints, to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker for review. If Pritzker’s office agrees with Runty that the man being sought is Fisher and he is being held in the Scott County Jail, then Pritzker will forward that paperwork to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’s office.
If Reynolds’ office also agrees, a judge will sign an order for Fisher to be sent to Henry County, regardless of if he wants to go.
Trudy was 11 years old when she disappeared Aug. 21, 1996. She was last seen climbing into a silver or gray four-door car in the driveway of her Moline home with an unknown man in his 20s.
Since that time Moline police have continued their effort to learn what happened to Trudy, including hundreds of interviews and multiple search warrants. At vigils, they’ve asked anyone with information to come forward.
In 2020, Moline police issued a news release calling Fisher, then of Silvis, and David L. Whipple, of Colona, persons of interest in the case. Whipple died in 2022 at age 61.
In 2017, police identified William “Ed” Smith, Whipple’s father-in-law as a “person of interest” in the case and said he may have been the last person seen with Trudy. Smith died in December of 2014 at the age of 72. Fisher is a lifelong family friend of the Smiths.
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