Let’s Talk About It: John Iverson

This week’s “let’s talk about it” is John Gordon Iverson, who may or may not have been kidnapped from his Lake Havasu City, Arizona home on January 4, 1991.

Iverson’s live-in girlfriend (who was also his ex-wife) claims he was abducted at gunpoint by a man they knew. The kidnapping suspect turned up four months later, sans Iverson, claiming there had been no kidnapping and Iverson and his girlfriend had tried to set him up. With no other witnesses or additional evidence, charges against the suspect were dropped.

Iverson himself was a bit of an eccentric, to put it mildly, and there’s some suspicion that the “kidnapping” was staged so he could walk out of his life and his responsibilities. Among other things, he was on probation for theft, he was in trouble for nonpayment of taxes, he was reportedly having problems with his girlfriend and was thinking of leaving her, and he may have had a drinking problem also. I should note that Iverson was a genius with electronics but according to his associates, he had violent prejudices and liked to tell tall tales about his imaginary accomplishments. If Iverson is still alive, he’d be 68 today.

EDIT: My friend Sean Munger is a published author and, years ago, I asked him how he would answer the many questions in the Iverson case if it were fiction. He sent a very entertaining response and has given me permission to share it. You should read the casefile I wrote first or Sean’s story isn’t going to make much sense. I do want to emphasize that this story is just the fruit of Sean’s imagination and not his theory as to what actually happened:

Kathy Munro [the girlfriend] and Jack Weber [the kidnap suspect] were secretly having an affair. Weber kept pressuring her to leave Iverson, but she felt he was too good a meal ticket to give up and she wanted a piece of his money. They decided to murder him together, but each would blame the other; the inconsistency between their stories would keep the police guessing and also lull people into thinking they were adversaries instead of allies.

The story about the super-gun is obviously false. Instead of a gun, let’s say it’s some sort of electronic program — maybe one that can hack encrypted files or something like that, something that would be profitable if sold to the right buyer but would get its creators in serious legal trouble. Iverson is hoping to sell the program to someone who has connections with Chinese intelligence.

Unbeknownst to Munro or Weber, Iverson discovers that they are plotting to murder him. He pretends to go along with Munro to meet the Chinese buyer in the desert, and they drive there in Weber’s van. Iverson knows that the plan is that Weber will kill him and bury his body somewhere in the desert. Before this can happen, Iverson takes the program and runs away. He lays low in a place (a cave or something) where he stashed some food and supplies earlier.

Weber panics, fearing that the Chinese buyer will kill him if he shows up at the drop empty-handed. Hurriedly he drives back to Lake Havasu City. He and Munro cook up the kidnapping story, and Weber comes up with the clunky story about the super-gun.

In the meantime Iverson leaves his desert hideout and goes to Mexico. He eventually makes contact with the Chinese buyer to rearrange the deal for the program. At the drop, the Chinese buyer double-crosses Iverson, takes the program, shoots him and leaves his body in a dumpster in a slum in Mexico City. The Chinese buyer gets away, figuring that if the body is ever found and identified, the police will blame it on either Munro or Weber.