It’s been nearly 30 years since popular husband-and-wife funnel cake vendors were murdered at the Iowa State Fair, but their son-in-law, one of three convicted of their killing, is still trying to challenge his life sentence in court.
Bobie and Marilyn Blewer, proprietors of Florrie’s Funnel Cakes, were shot to death in their trailer at the fair campground in August 1996. Investigators later accused their daughter and son-in-law, Jamie and Rodney Borushaski, of paying one of the Blewers’ workers, Jerimy Sneed, to kill the couple and steal the proceeds of their concession stand. All three ultimately were convicted.
Rodney Borushaski appealed his conviction unsuccessfully and in 2000 filed a postconviction relief petition claiming new evidence, which also was denied. He filed a second postconviction action in 2018, which after years of litigation was denied by a district judge in 2025.
Borushaski appealed that ruling as well, and on Wednesday, Jan. 28, the Iowa Court of Appeals again turned him down.
According to court filings, Borushaski argued new evidence had arisen to challenge his guilt, including statements by other family members that his wife had told them he was not involved in the killing. They also claimed there’d been problems during his original trial, with Borushaski’s attorney failing to follow up on comments by a jury member overheard in a courthouse restroom that “I don’t know who to believe.”
The court ruled that, while the various statements “create… additional layers of nebulousness,” the new evidence either could have been brought up earlier or was cumulative to evidence at the trial, where jurors heard and rejected Jamie Borushaski’s testimony that her husband was innocent.
“In short, the evidence Borushaski now challenges has either been previously considered, is unlikely to change the result of trial, or was based on historical information available to him if he looked,” Senior Judge Thomas Bower wrote for the court.
William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Court upholds conviction in notorious 1996 Iowa State Fair murders
Reporting by William Morris, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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