CORALVILLE – An Iowa man who molested children and raped another individual died in prison.
Clarence Elton Widner was pronounced dead due to natural causes at approximately 12:32 p.m. on Thursday, April 27, 2023 while in hospice at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center where he had been housed due to chronic illness. Widner was 65 years old at the time of his death.
Widner had been serving a life sentence for the crime of Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree, Second or Subsequent Offense from Buchanan County. His sentence began on September 2, 2021.
Clarence Elton Widner, of Jesup, Iowa, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the Iowa District Court for Buchanan County on October 1, 2021.
On September 15, 2021, Widner was found guilty of Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree as a Second or Subsequent Offender, a Class A Felony, following a bench trial on June 16, 2021. In its ruling the Court found that between October 1, 2018 and November 30, 2019 Widner performed a sex act with another individual against that individual’s will or by force in Buchanan County.
Widner was previously convicted of one count of Lascivious Acts with a Child in Black Hawk County, Iowa on November 15, 1985; and two counts of Lascivious Acts with a Child in Black Hawk County, Iowa on July 10, 1995.
Widner’s life sentence was ordered to run consecutive to the 30 year prison sentence Widner received in Buchanan County on April 13, 2021, for a second or subsequent offense of Failing to Comply with the Sex Offender Registry as a Habitual Felon arising from an incident on November 29, 2019, as well as violating his probation for a similar offense that had occurred on August 30, 2019.
(PHOTO: Clarence Widner jail photo)
