He Mangled Her. She Used Her Last Words to Name Him.
Calove Lynn Sackman was born on July 26, 1991 in Kia Cook, Iowa to parents Daniel Houston and Tracy Sackman. Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Grand Rapids. She grew up alongside her three brothers, a sister and a stepsister as part of the local LDS church. From a young age, Calove had a love for children.
She babysat her nieces and nephews and would design handmade costumes for school events in Halloween. She also loved animals. She had a dog named Satie and kept an aquarium. In 2007, then 16-year-old Calove became pregnant with her first child. Throughout her pregnancy, her family and especially her dad, Daniel, stood firmly by her side. Calove could turn to her father for literally everything.
He encouraged her throughout her pregnancy and soon she became a devoted and loving mother. Even after giving birth, Calove was determined to get her diploma. And in 2010, she graduated from Metro High School. Although she had a pause her studies at times, she kept pushing to build a stable life for her family. She tried going back to school in 2014, but had to step away.
In the years that followed, Calove welcomed two more children into her life. By 2013, she had two sons. We’ll call them DJ and LT, and a daughter we’ll call ET. Around this time, Calove was working at Walmart. She was also very active on Facebook, where she frequently shared updates about her interests in her everyday life. Many of her posts centered around her children.
She often took them on outings and included other children from the extended family in their adventures. In these moments, Calove seemed just as carefree as the children themselves. On one occasion when she had to bathe nine kids at once, she simply took them to the lawn, gave each child a bar of soap, and sprayed them with a garden hose. From the outside, it looked almost like a perfect family of four.
But behind the smiles and pictures, Calovewas secretly crumbling. She wanted to find real love, but long-term relationships never seemed to work out for her. Around 2013, Calove moved back to her family home in Kakuk. According to her mother, it was simply more affordable for her to live there. It also made finding work easier in her hometown where she had family support nearby. But things didn’t get any easier for her.
To add to her financial struggles, her second son, LT, was diagnosed with multiple conditions, including ADHD and autism. In a Facebook post, Calove opened up about her situation, asking for help and expressing hurt towards relatives who had once promised support, but now had become so distant that her children barely even knew that they were family.
She also shared that she had to travel to Iowa City monthly, sometimes twice a month, for LT’s medical appointments. At only seven years old, LT was on multiple medications just to regulate his behavior. According to doctors, developmentally, he was closer to four years old. Raising LT alone as a single mom was already an enormous challenge for Calove, and somehow she managed it, which made it all the more remarkable according to people who knew her.
Calove never spoke negatively about her son. If anything, she said she learned a lot from him. In that same post, she wrote, “I wish I could be like him. He’s so strong. I wish I could be like him. My other children are strong, too. They love him. They never ask why he is different.” Despite everything, Calove kept going.
She struggled to hold down a steady job because her children needed so much of her time and care. But she never let her hardships show in front of them, even when money was tight. No matter how hard life became for her, her children always came first. 2016 brought a lot of changes for Calove. Her beloved father Daniel passed away at his home on April 27th at just 45 years old. And in late 2016, she met Adam Golden McCain.
Adam’s life was very different from Caos’s, and he struggled heavily with drug use. Born in Houston, Texas, Adam was primarily raised by his extended family in Memphis, Tennessee. By his own account, he had been diagnosed with ADHD, ADD, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and anxiety and panic disorder. He said he was on medication for all of it.
Adam described himself as someone who had trouble concentrating, especially with math and reading, and who mostly kept to himself. That last part, however, changed in 2017. Shortly after meeting him, Calove fell head over heels in love. The relationship moved quickly and she made it public on January 3rd, 2017. According to Adam, Calove conceived her fourth child that same day.
By January 12th, she had reposted a message that read, “I can’t wait to marry the love of my life.” Very likely referring to Adam. However, Adam had zero stability in his life. Although he claimed to be enrolled in an industrial maintenance technology program at Southeastern Community College, he wasn’t working to turn his life around. Even worse, he had been in and out of jail on drugrelated charges.
Still, Calove loved him and she wanted to build a family with him. Tracy got wind of the relationship and was not happy about it. Caloveand her mom had talked plenty of times about the kind of man she wanted to be with, and Adam was nothing like that. Tracy tried to keep an open mind because as long as her daughter was happy, she wanted to be supportive of her.
She even spoke directly to Adam about the importance of staying clean and sober, but her words didn’t seem to have much impact. Calove later told her that Adam had been using crystal. Still, she reassured Tracy that he was trying to get better. In April of 2017, Calove was hit by a vehicle on US Highway 136 near Whand, Missouri. She had seen a 2-year-old child running toward the highway and without hesitation threw herself in front of the child.
Tonight at 6, a Cahoka resident and child were hit 2 miles west of Wayland in Clark County, Missouri. This happened yesterday afternoon. The Clark County Sheriff’s Office says Clove Sackman was trying to remove a 2-year-old child from running on the highway, Highway 136 specifically, when they were both hit. Sackman and the child were transported to a local hospital for moderate injuries.
No citations were issued. Neither of them were seriously hurt. But for Calove, who was pregnant at the time, the incident was far more serious than it initially appeared. She experienced complications with her pregnancy, including bleeding, and spent much of the pregnancy on bed rest. She recovered and thankfully gave birth later that year to a beautiful daughter, whom we’re referred to as WH.
With four children to care for, Calove and Adam were really struggling financially. Adam’s drug use and his inability to hold down a job were the main reasons as to why. Calove worked hard to provide for the household all by herself, but Adam repeatedly showed that he had no interest at all in supporting the family.
Even worse, he ended up back in prison for his drug issues. While in prison, he would send passive aggressive letters to Calove. According to Tracy, the letters included stuff like, “I love you, but I can’t stand this.” And I want to have a relationship with you, but I can’t do the role with four children. After he got out, he came right back to Calove, but the relationship was very strained.
Calove and Adam would often argue over his inability to provide for the family. She called him lazy and told him he didn’t even care about his own daughter. Adam’s response was to get violent physically and verbally. He often called her fat and accused her of sleeping with other men behind his back. While Tracy was aware the relationship was in serious danger, Calove kept the physical violence hidden from her mother.
In June of 2018, however, the truth began to surface. One of the children told Tracy that Calove had bruises that Adam had given her. The child also revealed that Adam would slam Calove’s head against the wall whenever she talked about leaving him. Another child shared that during a heated argument in the car, Adam became so enraged that he ripped off the door handle.
Tracy also recalled an incident at her own home. Adam and Calove got into an argument after Adam gave their daughter a present that Calove had bought with her own money. Tracy stepped in and warned Adam that if he ever laid a hand on her daughter that she’d have him arrested. But that wasn’t all. A woman who had rented a home to the couple in Riviera, Missouri, later testified that she had seen bruises on Calove. An employee at George Washington Elementary also gave testimony against Adam.
Allegedly, one of Calove’s sons was visibly afraid to go home with Adam. The child said that when Adam was alone with him, he wouldn’t feed him, leaving him hungry until his mother came home. After learning more about what was happening, Tracy begged her daughter over and over to get a restraining order. But Calove continued to give Adam more chances to change.
In August of 2018, Calovebegan working at Henus Automotive. According to Tracy, this job gave her daughter a new sense of confidence. Paid well, and she began to feel more independent and hopeful about her future. Yet, her relationship with Adam remained toxic. By November of 2018, she reached out to a close friend, Don Brownley, and asked her to move in.
Four years earlier, the two had shared a duplex together. They share the responsibility of looking after each other’s children, running errands, and doing chores. Calove was hoping to have that same setup again. She even referred Dawn to Henus, and the two became co-workers with alternating shifts. But at the time, Adam was still living with Calove.
And during the few days that Dawn stayed there, she witnessed how horrible Adam was to Calove. On November 22nd, Calove, Adam, and the children attended Thanksgiving at her aunt Sally’s house, but Adam started a fight that quickly turned ugly. He threatened to kill Calove and her kids if she ever left him. Calove brushed it off as just another fit of rage and told him to shut up. What she didn’t know was that Adam meant every word he said.
The final breaking point came on January 22nd, 2019. Calove learned that Adam had placed a pillow over one of her son’s heads and sat on it in attempt to suffocate him. She had tried to kick him out before, but it never stuck. This time, however, she wasn’t going to take it anymore. She called Tracy and asked her to come over to 1910 Concert Street to kick Adam out once and for all. Tracy arrived.
She told Adam that he had 15 minutes to pack his things and leave. Adam looked at Calove, saying, “Well, this isn’t fair.” Calove shot back, “Don’t look at me. My mom’s the one talking to you.” After that, Adam was gone. That night, he texted Tracy one last time and told her that when his daughter grows up, he’d tell her that Tracy was a piece of [ __ ] for messing up his life. Adam remained in contact with Calove.
However, two would still exchange texts and calls. Calove shared those messages with Tracy, who asked her to get a restraining order for her own safety, but she didn’t do that. On February 5th, at around 8:24 p.m., Adam texted Calove asking her what she was doing. He accused her of sleeping with another man. Calove denied the allegation.
Adam told her he was coming to get their daughter, WH. Calove told him that wh was sleeping, but Adam insisted on seeing Calove, claiming that he had a surprise to give her. Calove was reluctant, but Adam said that he only wanted to see her in his sleeping daughter. Calove made it clear that he was not taking WH along with him, and Adam agreed.
She asked him why he wanted to see her and what the surprise was, but he wouldn’t give a straight answer. At one point, he texted her maybe to give a $1,000 and then immediately said, “Maybe not.” Calove knew that Adam wanted something out of her. She hadn’t agreed to meet him, but Adam drove over anyway. At 9:41 p.m., he texted her again to ask where she was.
Calove was with Dawn, who had taken her to a Casey’s convenience store so she could grab a drink. When she came back to her house, Adam picked her up in his white Chevy Monte Carlo. According to Adam, he went to see Calove that night to talk about money. Now, he claimed that he had put money towards the down payment on the house that she shared with Dawn, and he felt he was owed an explanation on why a house that he helped pay for, he wasn’t allowed in.
But Calove didn’t want to talk, and she tried to get out of the car while it was still moving because he refused to slow down. He admitted to investigators that he wouldn’t let her leave, saying he wasn’t done talking. He eventually pulled into the parking lot of the River City Mall, and that’s where everything exploded. Adam grabbed Calove by the shirt, hit her once, and then stabbed her.
Calove got out of the car and ran. Adam chased her down and stabbed her once again. As she struggled to survive, Adam climbed back into his car, accelerated forward, and crushed her between the vehicle and a bolted down garbage can in the parking lot. He drove off, then went to a friend’s house and described what had happened.
The friend thought that Adam was exaggerating and didn’t report it to the authorities. A little after 10 p.m., a man named Harley Clark noticed a white vehicle speeding recklessly along the icy roads. It was the same Chevy Monte Carlo that Adam had used to ram Calove into the garbage can. Harley watched as the car tore down South 21st Street and rear ended two vehicles parked along the right side of the road.
He called 911 and began following the car at a safe distance. The vehicle eventually blew a tire from the reckless driving and had to pull over on Highway 61. A patrol officer was sent to the scene. And here’s what happened. Evening. Good evening. Deputy County Sheriff’s Office. How are you? I’m Could be better.
What’s going on? Got flat tire and some messed up stuff over there on the right hand side of my car and it won’t run. All right. Well, let’s step out of the roadway. All right. How’d you get the damage of the car? Uh, I slid into a pole in a Kia cup. Okay. You slid into a pole? Yes. Not another vehicle? No. Okay. Where did that take place at? Uh, down on Second Street going down the hill.
Down on Second Street. Second Street going down the hill toward the river. Okay. You got an ID on you? Yeah. Is this your vehicle? Yes. Where’s the plates on it? I just got it. You got a title and everything like that? You got a bill of sale? No. What about insurance? I haven’t got insurance. I just got it 3 days ago. Okay.
You don’t have insurance on it? Not yet. Okay. Adam was later handcuffed and escorted to the Kia Cookook PD. Over on the other side of town, a passing woman heard desperate cries for help. She slowed down her car, followed the cries, and stumbled upon Calove, who was barely alive. She rushed over and called 911. County 911. Where’s your Just stay there, sweetie. Hi, I am in front of the Kio Mall. There’s a lot of blood loss.
This girl has been stabbed. She’s on Main Street. Um, she’s she’s laying here. I just want you to leave to work. She’s laying here. She’s she’s bleeding. Okay. We’re on Main Street like she’s on the ground. Okay. Don’t hang up with I need an ambulance like quick. I’m in route. Where is she stabbed at? Uh, um, where is it at, honey? Where are you stabbed at, sweetie? In your back.
Okay, just lay still, sweetie. Yeah. Oh my god. Okay, lay still. I’m so sorry. Captain Brian Der Priest was dispatched to the River City Mall. When he got there, Calove had shallow breathing and a faint pulse. Performed life-saving measures, but Calove wasn’t responding. The paramedics arrived. Calove was cold to the touch. She had five stab wounds to her chest, one to her back and one to her hand.
She was transported to Unity Point Health in Kakook, but it was already too late. By 11:05 p.m., Calove was pronounced dead. Before she had passed away, Calove had used her final words to name her killer. Do you know who did it, sweetie? Who was it, sweetie? Huh? Who was it, sweetie? Adam. Adam. Yeah.
Adam who? An autopsy conducted the following day showed that Calove had died from stab wounds to the chest that punctured her lung and heart. Her manner of death was ruled a homicide. The next day, authorities executed a search warrant on Adam’s vehicle. There was clear physical evidence connecting him to the murder. Calove’s blood was found on the front bumper and inside the vehicle.
Adam confessed to everything, but he tried to frame himself as the victim. Made me get my [ __ ] and get out of my own house in 15 minutes. And just the pain and the loneliness that caused me just caused me to snap. So I [ __ ] killed her, dude. Okay. Hey, Adam. She’s gonna feel the pain that I felt. It’s all what it was. Okay, Adam. It takes a It takes a lot to say that, man. It’s all It’s all it was, man.
She doesn’t deserve to do that to any other man. She has four four children by four different baby daddies. I know one of them. I’m sure she did that to every ass last one of them. She’s not going to do it again. How how uh how you been sleeping lately? How’s this? Not good at all. Okay. So, tell me about that.
Like, how much how often would you normally sleep? I’ve got like two and a half 3 hours sleeps ever since she made me get out. And how long how long has that been since she had asked you to get out? Four or five days ago. Four or five days ago. Okay. So, where have you been staying since then? My grandmother. Your grandma’s. All right. I could have, you know, bullshed you and let the investigation go on and on and on and on and on and on, but that’s just I just don’t want to do that, man. Okay.
I knew I knew what was going to happen if I were made decisions on it. Did she ever threaten you? Like, tell me about that. Yeah, she after we broke up and she kicked me out. She’s blackmailing me, talking about if you don’t give me, you know, all this money that I need and I’m going to your life up. I called my dad and I told him the other night. I told him I’m not living like that anymore.
I’m not going to be controlled by a woman like that. Okay. You know, so yeah, I was doing good. I’m a good [ __ ] dude. Doing really good in life. I just got with the wrong woman and wanted to treat me the wrong type of way. I’m not the one, man. Not the one. But I put up with it for as long as I could.
I talked to everybody I could about my family and everybody and sad. I just couldn’t handle it anymore. I couldn’t handle just, you know, being taking the pain and noting there being any repercussions for it. So, she had to feel some of that, too. Adam also alleged that he had no plans to kill Calove that night and had just gone to see her to talk about their financial situation.
However, he said things got heated and he lost his temper. With solid evidence against him, the case moved fast. In October of 2019, Adam was convicted of first-degree murder. Most potential jurors had either dealt with Adam personally or already knew about the case. Many had strong opinions about his guilt. So, Adam waved his right to a jury trial.
He stated, “I believe that the area is way too small to have a fair trial. I think everybody knows everybody. And even though some people say, “Yeah, I can do it. Yes, I can do it.” I don’t think I’m going to have any sort of fairness out of this trial. Prosecuting attorney Ross Braden said that he was surprised by the timing of that decision.
According to him, people do for different reasons ask to have their cases tried by a judge, but usually before this points. Adam’s defense team did not argue that he didn’t kill Calove, but instead they argued that the killing was not premeditated. They claimed that Adam had a limited almost childlike capacity and was completely incapable of premeditation.
Also, they said he had been sleep deprived in the days leading up to the murder. The defense pointed out that Adam was driving in icy conditions and suggested he didn’t have any escape plan. They also emphasized that during interrogation, Adam got emotional and came across as overwhelmed. Adam had also texted Calove about giving her money.
According to the defense, this was a clear indication that he didn’t go there with the intent to kill. Calove’s phone was found nearby, and the defense argued that Adam may have left it there so she could call for help. They further claimed that because the autopsy did not list fractured bones, there was no proof he actually rammed her with his vehicle. State saw it differently. Adam had shown up with a knife.
This wasn’t a sudden uncontrollable act. If it wasn’t premeditated, then why stab her multiple times? Could have walked away at any point and he could have called for help for her. Instead, when Calove tried to escape, he chased her and stabbed her again. And when he thought she was still moving, he returned and slammed her with his car.
State also pointed out that in his own confession, Adam admitted he did it so Calove couldn’t hurt another man. There was also no medical evidence to support the claim that Adam had the mental capacity of a child. In fact, he had been halfway through an industrial maintenance degree. During his arrest, Adam showed little to no remorse. In the end, Judge Maryanne Brown agreed with the state and Adam was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Through her victim impact statement, Tracy gave voice to the grief and heartbreak that no mother should ever have to go through. She said, “I’ve watched my daughter grow up so much in the last few months of her life. And even though she was already a hero, a loving mother, and one of the most giving people I know, I’ll have to live with not knowing the woman that she was meant to be, I will forever be heartbroken by the loss of my daughter.
From my personal standpoint, sleepless nights, the stress, the nerves, the shakes my body goes through. I worked 6 days a week, 12-hour days. I did not return back to work. Calove’s sister shared that she had been on medication for anxiety and depression to cope with the loss of her sister. then read a letter written by one of Calove’s sons who was 11 years old at the time.
It read, “You hurt my feelings and you hurt me, taking my mom away.” “You hurt my mom a lot. You called me mean names. You hurt me when you hit me. You hit me with your hand and it hurt so much. Eating a piece of your candy bar didn’t give you the right to hit me. You didn’t make my mommy feel safe. She was safe when you stayed at the card shop all night.
Feel like you hurt all of us a lot. You hurt my feelings when you called me poop mongrel and slowpoke. Because of you, my mom died. Calove’s funeral was held on February 9th, 2019. Friends and family gathered at Vigen Memorial Home in Kio to pay their last respects. After the service, Calove was laid to rest at Oakland Cemetery in Lee County, Iowa.
In her obituary, her family wrote, “Cale enjoyed crafting and was good at everything she did. She also enjoyed girls night out at the casino with her mom, sister, and grandma. She was a loving and generous person who was always willing to help out her friends and family. Calove deeply loved her children and was a wonderful mom. She brought joy to their lives and will be greatly missed by everyone who loved her.
