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Floyd Clifford Coates received the 35-year sentence in connection with the death of Sunny Sramek
NEED TO KNOW
- Floyd Clifford Coates, Jr., and Dennis Lawson received a combined 45 years in prison for their roles in the 2019 death of Sunny Sramek
- Sramek disappeared after telling friends and family she was going on a “day trip” with Coates
- Both Coates and Lawson were convicted on obstruction of justice charges
A man and his former brother-in-law have been given lengthy prison sentences in connection with the death of an 18-year-old woman who vanished in 2019.
Floyd Clifford Coates, Jr., and Dennis Lawson were both convicted on obstruction of justice charges in November 2025, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa said in a news release at the time. Now, both of them have learned their fate.
Federal prosecutors said Coates, 48, “was a member of a drug-trafficking organization that funneled pounds of methamphetamine from Colorado to multiple locations, including Iowa.”
In 2019, Coates was set to make a supply run to Kansas City. He traveled with 18-year-old Sunny Sramek to Nebraska, where he was supposed to meet another woman to help him with the run.
“Sramek told friends and family that she was going to be on a day trip to Omaha with Coates and made no mention of going to Kansas City,” prosecutors said, per the release.
After arriving in Nebraska, Coates went into a home without Sramek and met the other woman, who later said she saw Sramek motionless in the car, according to prosecutors. Coates told that woman he had given Sramek methamphetamine and that she must have overdosed.
“The pair drove the apparently dead Sramek to Lawson’s home,” the release states. “The driver testified that after they arrived at Lawson’s residence, Lawson and Coates disappeared for a time. When they returned, Sramek’s body was gone.”
Lawson was Coates’ brother-in-law and lived in Iowa at the time near the Missouri River.
Coates threatened the woman he was with, telling her not to tell anyone.
After he was detained, prosecutors allege that Coates told cellmates he killed Sramek after raping her, later throwing her body into the Missouri River.
“No body, no case,” he said, per prosecutors, and “you can’t get charged with murder if there is no body, can you?”
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Coates was ultimately sentenced to 35 years in prison after he was convicted of drug trafficking, unlawful possession of firearms and obstruction of justice, according to prosecutors.
Lawson, 60, received a 10-year sentence after he was convicted on one count of obstruction of justice for threatening a witness.
“Seven years and three months after Sunny Sramek left home, a thuggish coward and a cowardly thug are going to prison for their roles in her death,” U.S. Attorney Leif Olson said in a statement. “Although today’s sentencings will not bring Sunny back, we hope they will bring some measure of comfort and closure to everyone who knew and loved Sunny.”
Read the original article on People
