Judge Tod Deck declared a mistrial on Monday, Aug. 24, after jurors in Thomas Popp’s murder case could not reach a verdict, leaving the decades-old prosecution unresolved and starting a 90-day window for the case to be retried.
The mistrial matters now because the case sits at a turning point: the trial ended without a decision, but the charge is not gone. Woodbury County Attorney James Loomis said he plans to review the case again, weigh how the trial unfolded and speak with Terri McCauley’s family before deciding whether to seek another trial. He said he does not have a specific timetable, but expects a decision sooner rather than later.
McCauley was 18 when she disappeared in September 1983 after meeting friends in downtown Sioux City and never coming home. Her mother called the Sioux City Police Department on Oct. 1, 1983, then filed an official missing persons report on Oct. 5, 1983. Terri McCauley’s body was found 24 hours later, near 33rd Street and Pavonia, now known as Glen Oaks Blvd, and investigators say she had been shot point-blank with a 20-gauge shotgun.
That history is why the deadlock carried more weight than a routine trial setback. Josh Taylor said the mistrial did not exonerate Thomas Popp, and he said he expects the charges to remain the same. That view tracks with the court’s ruling: a hung jury ends this trial, but it does not end the case. The prosecution still has the option to go again, and the next move belongs to Woodbury County Attorney James Loomis.
Loomis said he first met the McCauley family in 2023 after taking office as County Attorney, when they asked him to look into the case. He said he gave them his word that he would and has stayed in contact with them since. He also said he works hard every day to help victims and hold defendants accountable, adding that there are times when the results are disappointing but that he remains committed to doing the work as best he can for all victims because that is what the people of Woodbury County expect.
The open question is not whether the trial ended cleanly; it did not. It is whether Woodbury County will put the case before another jury inside the 90-day window. For McCauley’s family, the mistrial did not close the book on the murder case. For Popp, it means the prosecution remains alive while Loomis decides whether to try again.
