GLR January-February 2026

fore they ever arrived,” adding that she and Roy somehow knew these men weren’t sexual psychopaths but were “just human beings.” K INSHIPAND R ELEASE I TWASN ’ T JUST innate decency that made the couple empathize with those under their watch. Upon their arrival at Mount Pleas ant, they’d immediately experienced discrimination. The woman in charge of assigning staff quarters had given the sin gle Gundersen an apartment with a double bed, then lodged Roy and Jackie in one with two twins. “[She was] kind of our Nurse Ratched,” Jackie recalled with a chuckle. Roy, orphaned early in life, had been imprisoned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center, an Idaho internment camp that held thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II. In Jackie’s words” “He looked back on his camp experience in a lot of different ways. He kind of had fun there because they had no parents.” But later, as an adult, her husband saw himself in his detainees. “He knew what it was like, and felt there was probably no reason for any of them to be there.” Contrary to their fellow intern’s views, neither Roy nor Jackie felt the men could or should be cured of their sexual ori entation. “Gundersen was going to convert them, so Dick and my husband argued about that all the time,” she remembered, adding that Roy felt their job was “to help them survive through all of this … and be comfortable with themselves as they were.” Since their higher-ups didn’t feel compelled to prescribe any remedy, Roy’s approach prevailed. When it was nice out, they would take the men to play baseball against a team of female pa tients. In inclement weather, they’d play ping-pong inside. Jackie and Roy also chaperoned the men at weekly movie and dance nights attended by staff and patients. “Roy never asked permission,” Jackie recalled. “He just did it.” The residents of 15 East, many of whom were musically inclined, greatly im proved the dances by forming a band and performing. While Roy and Gundersen led regular, separate group ther apy sessions, Jackie became the guys’ confidante, seeing them individually in her office and feeling valued when she could brighten their day. “Sometimes they would come talk to me if they were having a problem on the ward where somebody was moving in on their territory,” she said, admitting to feeling woe fully inadequate counseling gay men on romantic matters. “It was just being accepting of them, listening, understanding, and making small suggestions here and there.” Jackie routinely bent the rules for the youngest in her care. “He was really trauma tized by this—not only being brought in by the police but being in a group of people he didn’t really know,” she said. “He used to come down to see me every once in a while. We’d close the door, I’d call his mom, and he got to talk with her. He really missed his mother.” The riskiest move the pair made was on behalf of Bernie— with whom they shared the closest bond—and his wife Doreen. To give them time alone, Jackie once sneaked Doreen onto the elevator and up to the Yamahiros’ apartment for an hour of pri vate conversation away from prying eyes and ears. “Roy could have gotten in a lot of trouble if they’d ever figured that one out,” Jackie said. “We’d probably [have been] out in the street.” Late that fall, the men of 15 East enjoyed a reversal of for tune. On November 2, The Sioux City Journal reported that it was

Jackie and Roy Yamahiro in 1955.

Hoegh make use of his new weapon. It was determined at a July 22nd meeting between him, members of the Board of Control (the body presiding over the state’s mental hospitals), and other officials that Mount Pleasant would prepare 15 East to accom modate approximately 25 inmates. Since ferreting out fiends would be challenging, Hoegh—in concert with Woodbury County Attorney Donald E. O’Brien— authorized Sioux City police officers to entrap harmless, un suspecting gay men. The operation was an open secret. Sioux City Police Chief James O’Keefe handpicked handsome young cops Richard Burke and Edward Verbeski for the job. This gov ernment-sanctioned “fruit-picking” expedition began over Labor Day weekend, with the undercover patrolmen descending upon the Tom Tom Room, a bar within the stately downtown Warrior Hotel, where discreet gay men were known to stealth ily assemble. It was in the hotel’s cruisy men’s room that the gay patrons were “pinched” by Burke and Verbeski. At that point each unfortunate fellow was threatened with harsh pun ishment unless he named names. In Iowa at that time, consensual sodomy was a felony pun ishable by ten years in prison. Being gay was also classified as a sexual deviation in the inaugural edition of the American Psy chiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1952). Authorities never claimed any of the men snared were connected to the child homicides. They were scapegoated to appease mass hysteria. On September 8th, a LeMars Globe-Post front-page head line blared “Crackdown on ‘Queers’ Has Begun.” The article stated: “Sioux City police yesterday arrested 19 men and a 14-year-old boy following a raid on a Sioux City tavern.” The next day, The Sioux City Journal identified Bernie McMorris, then 36, as the first person committed to Mount Pleasant after pleading guilty to lascivious acts with a child. With a wife and three young children, he was the only married man snagged in the roundup. The September 19th Globe-Post cover story re vealed the names of five more men. Looking back, Jackie asked: “What craziness is that? I think we felt for them be January–February 2026

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