In the lawsuit, Morris claimed that he incessantly stalked, wrote love letters and fondled her, and on one occasion even locked her in a cleaning closet in an attempt to force her into having sex.
[2] On August 23, 1993, the body of 36-year-old Patricia Lange was found in room 732 of a Holiday Inn in West Des Moines, Iowa, by an employee who worked there.
[3] At the time of her death, Lange had just recently returned to her native Iowa from Denver, Colorado and started a job as a database administrator for Northwest Mortgages, Inc.[4] As she was known as an academically gifted woman with no known enemies, the killing came as a shock to everyone who knew her.
Sakanovic, who had recently immigrated to the States with her family from Teslić, Bosnia and Herzegovina, worked as a maid at the hotel along with other refugees fleeing persecution in their native country.
[9] Before any charges were brought against him, he agreed to be interviewed by The Des Moines Register, in which he complained that the police surveillance was ruining his family life and had cost him his job due to their practises.
[16] At the sentencing phase, Sakanovic's sister-in-law Emsuda made a statement in court proclaiming that their family despised him and wished for his suffering in prison, to which Piper did not reply.
Shortly before the start of Lange trial, The Des Moines Register published in an article in which it was claimed that multiple police agencies were investigating Piper as a suspect in the murders of four additional women.