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TOLEDO -- A wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of the estate of a Chelsea man who was shot and killed during a standoff with Tama County deputies in 2021 has been voluntarily dropped with no settlement reached.
According to court documents, Shawn R. Fowlkes, the executor of the late Dewey Dale Wilfong III's estate, withdrew the lawsuit on Jan. 25 without prejudice, meaning it could still be filed again in the future. Tama County Sheriff Dennis Kucera confirmed that no settlement money was paid out or exchanged.
As previously reported in the T-R, deputies were dispatched to a residence on Station Street in Chelsea after receiving reports of gunshots being fired on Oct. 28, 2021. Once on the scene, law enforcement officers from several agencies observed Wilfong III displaying a handgun toward others in a threatening manner.
The Tama County Attorney's Office reported that a standoff with law enforcement ensued and escalated to the point where Wilfong fired the handgun. Deputy Heath Brown, who was put on administrative leave immediately following the incident but has since returned to the field, shot one round, hitting Wilfong in the upper torso.
Thomas Frerichs, the attorney who represented Fowlkes and Wilfong's estate, could not be reached for immediate comment. In the original lawsuit, Frerichs disputed the official version of events as presented by law enforcement and widely shared in a subsequent press release from the Iowa Department of Public Safety, instead claiming that Wilfong was never a danger to anyone around him and never pointed a gun in a threatening manner.