Not Many Men Could Keep Up With June Bidleman, Except For The Man That Killed Her.

June Mary Williams Bidleman

June loved life and was a lot of fun to be around. She was a generous woman who often loaned money to people in need. She was a go-getter. She ran a greenhouse, a dog breeder and helped run Jones Packing. Not many men could keep up with her. She was a master chef, too. When she worked at the Welcome Inn motel, she didn't need the job, she just loved to work. She loved dogs and was going to continue to breed them after she left the motel.  June loved her scotch and would drink the men in her life under the table. "But what is funny is I never saw her drunk." said June's son James. She was a member of the Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Kinsley and VFW Auxiliary.

She was born on June 30th, 1926 in Leicester, England. She married William M. Coover on April 8th,1946. Together they had four children; Courtney, Marcus, James and Caressa. William passed on March 5th, 1978. June later married a cattle buyer named G. DeLos Bidleman on April 30th, 1965. G. died on March 14th, 1982. 

On March 23rd, 1985, 58-year-old June had been working as a motel clerk on the overnight shift at the former Welcome Inn Motel, 1610 W. Wyatt Earp Blvd in Dodge City, Kansas. 

She was found the next morning by a co-worker who arrived at work to relieve her. She had been robbed, strangled, raped and murdered sometime between 1 and 5 a.m. that day. It was evident June fought her attacker. She lost a fingernail in the struggle which was later recovered by police.

Months before her death, June's home had been robbed, which led her to ask for a pistol. 

"I definitely knew it scared her, because she hated guns, so when she asked me for one, I knew she was spooked." said her son James.

The major suspect had that time has never been arrested or contacted as far as i could gather. He was a black male and at the time was approximately 32-years-old. He was around 6 foot tall with a pock marked face and wearing an army fatigue jacket. The shoes he was wearing left a distinctive shoe print. The prints were discovered across the street from the motel suggesting that he probably sat there and watched June for unknown length of time. Cigarette butts from that location along with a piece of cardboard  matched the shoe print found on June's coat in The Welcome Inn. 

All the people staying at the motel night and the morning in question were located and interviewed. Two witnesses that live in Dodge City were located and separately were able to give a description of a black male suspect possibly in his early thirties.  One of the witnesses claims that the suspect went behind the counter where June's private room was. In an interview of an employee of another motel, named, Martin, said the suspect took a bus out of Dodge City early that morning on a bus headed to or an undisclosed town in Missouri. Officers in that town where notified and told of the facts known at that time. Because of reasons undisclosed they were unable to meet that bus.

In June of 2013, Lieutenant Colleen Brooks-Francis received a phone call from James Coover, who was inquiring about the status of his mother’s case. It was at that time that Lt. Brooks-Francis began re-investigating this cold case. Many leads have been thoroughly pursued, and forensic evidence has also been re-submitted to both the KBI lab and FBI lab for examination.

Anyone with information on this case is asked to contact Lt. Brooks-Francis at 620-225-8126 ext. 1218, or email her at colleenf@dodgecity.org.