EARLVILLE, Iowa (AP) — A May trial has been scheduled for a northeast Iowa man accused of using a corn rake to stab his wife while killing her. Delaware County District Court records say 42-year-old Todd Mullis last week entered a written plea of not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder. He was arrested last month. His trial is set to begin May 13.

The Delaware County Sheriff’s Office says an autopsy showed Amy Mullis died after receiving injuries that included multiple stab wounds to her back with a corn rake. Authorities initially reported that the 39-year-old woman had been fatally injured in a fall at her farm about 4 miles northwest of Earlville.

Red Oak Police report the arrest at around 7:25-p.m. Sunday, of 35-year old Wendi An Johnson. The Red Oak woman was taken into custody on a valid Pottawattamie County warrant for Operating a vehicle without owners’ consent, and Theft in the 3rd Degree. Johnson was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $2,000 cash bond.

(Radio Iowa) — Governor Kim Reynolds toured flood damage in western Iowa Sunday. “I continue to be just overwhelmed and impressed and grateful to our emergency managers, our EMS, our first responders, our volunteers, just the community as a whole,” Reynolds told reporters.

She started in Missouri Valley, then traveled north to the Woodbury County town of Hornick. Many streets were still flooded. “We were on the ground to understand what was going on, to make sure wewere meeting the needs, to make sure the communication and coordination was taking place,” Reynolds said. “as well as making sure that we’re assessing the damage as we move forward with the recovery.”

The governor went inside a few of the homes in Hornick, some still with several feet of water in their basements. “The water has started to recede just a little bit,” Reynolds said. “I think one of the homes that we toured it had gone down a foot since its high-water mark, but they still have a long ways to go and they know that.”

Thirty-eight Iowa counties are included in the governor’s disaster declaration for this latest round of flooding. Reynolds will tour flood damage in Hamburg, Pacific Junction and Montezuma today (Monday).

(Radio Iowa) — Residents of flood-striken Hornick were allowed back in the western Iowa town for a few hours Sunday so they could survey damage to their homes. Electricity to the town is still turned off, so residents had to be out before sunset. Dale Ronfeldt is a volunteer firefighter who has lived in Hornick since 1979. He allowed local media into his home which still has several feet of water in the basement. “I’ve got about four feet of water,” he said. “It is sewer back-up, but 99 percent pure water because of how inundated the sewer plant got.”

The last major flooding in Hornick happened in 1960. After a flood threatened the community in 1996, the town constructed a dike to protect the town. “Every year we have a scare of a flood and we make preparations and we do this and we do that…but we never know quite how far to go,” he says. “This time we had enough advance warning, but you get cried wolf so many times that you don’t know if it’s going to happen or not. This time it was real and we paid for it.”

Ronfeldt is thankful for the help he and other residents have received so far, but he expects many will never return to live in Hornick, including an older neighbor: “He’s not going to rebuild and I’ve heard that from a few others,” Ronfeldt says.  The town’s water supply was not swamped by flood waters, but crews from MidAmerican Energy were in Hornick Sunday to start restoring power where floodwaters had receded.

DES MOINES – Gov. Kim Reynolds will hold a press conference in Council Bluffs today (Monday, March 18th) to give an update on the flooding from rain and melting snow. Several media-only events will take place around southwest Iowa, prior to the press conference:

• Gov. Reynolds will meet with local officials and tour flooding in Glenwood at 10:30-a.m.
• She’ll be in Pacific Junction at 11:30-a.m.
• Gov. Reynolds next stop is in Hamburg at 1-p.m., where she will meet with local officials and tour flooding.
• And at 3:30-p.m., she will hold a press conference in Council Bluffs.