Herman served at Cochabamba for five years, until 1971, when he moved to the parish at Morochata, 40 miles away, that required a three-hour drive on bad roads. The parish had been without a priest for some time. The parishioners, unlike those of Latino descent in Cochabamba, were indigenous, native people descended from the Incas and spoke an Incan language, Quechua.

"He learned the language pretty well; he had about 50 little missions he went out to once or twice a year, for a few days each time," in the mountain villages around Morochata, Connolly said. Herman also developed a network of native catechists to assist him in the ministry.

On Oct. 20, 1975, Herman celebrated the dedication of a 10-bed hospital, that had been remodeled and converted from a government hotel. It had also been used in the interim as a school. On that evening, Herman was murdered in his room in the rectory at Morochata.

Another missionary contemporary of Herman's in Bolivia at that time, David Donovan, now a teacher in Bellevue, was summoned from a marriage class he was teaching at Cochabamba to Morochata when some of the mountain people showed up "with bad news of Father Herman." Donovan initially thought it must have been some dizziness Herman had complained of when Donovan had visited him two weeks earlier. The nearby Maryknolls provided a station wagon in case Herman needed to be transported back to Cochbamba.

"When I got to the rectory I climbed the steep stairway to Ray's bedroom," Donovan, who taught at Columbus High School in Waterloo before going to Bolivia, recalled in a recent written account. "The room was as clean and neat as ever. I looked over to Ray's bed and his body was covered with a blanket. Everything seemed fine. It seemed he was sleeping. When I pulled back the covers Ray had two small bullet holes near his right ear. Two small streams of blood ran down his cheek. Ray had been murdered."

"I would have been there had I not broken my foot at a catechists' picnic the day before," Connolly said. "I was not able to go to the dedication. I would have been sleeping in the room right next to him when he got killed." It is a fact which Connolly says bothers him to this day, "no doubt about that."

"The autopsy revealed that Ray was brutally murdered," Donovan wrote. He had been strangled. "His neck was broken, which was the actual cause of his death, and so were his ribs. Other parts of his body were also badly bruised." Herman's Jeep and some of his personal belongings also were missing. A hastily scribbled note found near the rectory door said, in Spanish, "Meet you in La Paz," the Bolivian capital. Herman was pronounced dead at the very hospital he had dedicated the day of his death.

There were several theories as to the motive for Herman's murder, but it was never solved. One man, Omar Baeza Acha, in his early 20s, was convicted of the crime and sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment. However, Connolly and Donovan noted he had a deformed hand and could not have performed the crime alone. Donovan also noted that, according to a local judge, Baeza all-too-readily confessed to the crime.

Donovan, that local judge and lawyer conducted their own investigation, without success. The murder could have been part of a systematic harassment of religious leaders by the military leadership, who were supported by the American Central Intelligence Agency. The Church -- which Connolly said advocated "conscientization," encouraging downtrodden peoples to realize their self-worth -- was seen, by some of those in power, as a threat, and an institution which could incite insurrection among the general population.

"However, I must say that Ray never talked about organizing" the native people, Donovan wrote. "In fact, Ray was opposed to priests getting involved politically in Bolivia."

Another theory was that Acha's employer, who monopolized the transportation of potatoes, the main agricultural cash crop, out of Morochata, was afraid Herman would encourage the "campesino" farmers to find their own transportation and break the monopoly. Acha never completed his prison sentence; he was believed to have been released early with government help, and reportedly escaped to other South American countries. No other witnesses were found. "We were never contacted by the USA officials. As far as I know they never investigated Ray's death," Donovan wrote.

Connolly accompanied Herman's body back to Iowa, and delivered the homily at his funeral and burial at St. John's Church and cemetery in Independence. All his personal belongings fit, perhaps appropriately, in one of his cigar boxes.

The casket was not opened, which, John Herman suggests, may have denied the family an additional degree of closure regarding their loss. "Even 25 years later, if I start talking about it a lot, I break down," said Herman, who braved his way through a series of recent Sunday homilies about his brother at Blessed Sacrament during a commemoration of his brother's martyrdom.

Herman said his brother would probably question all the attention being devoted him today -- but there was no question about the fulfillment he drew from his work. Ray Herman himself perhaps best expressed that, in an interview for Gerald M. Costello's book, "Mission to Latin America."

"I have wanted to give everything to our Lord, and only since I have come to Morochata do I feel that I am really happy, and to some degree at least, successful in giving all to Christ," Herman told Costello.