Officer Geerts succumbed to gunshot wounds received three days earlier when he attempted to arrest two 16-year-olds he caught burglarizing the Naven Fuel Company. Both boys were arrested in Rock Island four days later.

Both suspects had escaped from the Home for Feeble Minded Children at Gleenwood. They were both convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in the Fort Madison Penitentiary. One was paroled in 1961 and the other in 1963.