Dave Dowaliby was not overly concerned when he awoke on the morning of Saturday, September 10, 1988. He and his son Davey had risen around 7:45 a.m., while Dave’s wife Cindy and his adopted daughter, seven-year-old Jaclyn, liked to sleep later. The routine was typical in the Dowaliby home in Midlothian, Illinois, a suburb twenty miles southwest of Chicago. The morning men joked about the lazy ladies.

Neither Dave, nor anyone else, was laughing four days later when Jaclyn’s body was found in a vacant field near Blue Island, four miles northeast of Midlothian. She had probably been strangled to death.

Dave and Cindy Dowaliby’s nightmare was only beginning. They were soon charged with their daughter’s murder.

 

Jaclyn Dowaliby

Dave, a carpenter, and Cindy, a dietician, married in 1983, when Jaclyn, Cindy’s daughter from her first marriage, was two-years-old. The following year, their son Davey was born.

Dave had legally adopted Jaclyn; friends and neighbors say he loved her as if she were his own daughter.

The Dowaliby Family

The family lived in the house where Dave had grown up.  The home was owned by his mother, Anna, who also lived with them in a basement apartment.

The Dowaliby Home

The Dowaliby’s best guess as to who had snatched Jaclyn was Jim Guess, Cindy’s ex-husband and Jaclyn’s biological father, who had tried to take Jaclyn without Cindy’s permission several years earlier. He however, had an airtight alibi; he was imprisoned in Florida after being convicted of sexual assault.

Dave and Cindy then suggested Jim’s brother, Timothy Guess, but he too provided an alibi.

 

         

                                       Jim Guess                                     Timothy Guess 

Dave and Cindy say they put Jaclyn to bed at 9:00 p.m. on September 9. Dave and Davey went to bed at 10:30. Cindy says her daughter was sleeping soundly when she checked on her just after 11:00, and that she went to bed at 11:30.

When Dave awoke the following morning, he made breakfast and noticed the front door to the house was open. He believed his mother had forgotten to close it when she came home, not knowing she had spent the night at a friend’s house. Dave says he and Davey watched cartoons on television after breakfast. Cindy awoke at 9:00 a.m. She assumed Jaclyn was still sleeping and did not check on her for forty-five minutes. Upon not finding her in bed at 9:45 a.m., both Dave and Cindy say they were surprised, but not concerned, believing Jaclyn had awoken and gone outside to play with friends.

After calling friends and searching the neighborhood, however, the Dowaliby’s became worried as no one had seen or heard from Jaclyn that morning.

No Sign of Jacklyn

Worry escalated into fear when Cindy discovered a broken basement window. She and Dave believed an intruder had used it to gain access to the home and take Jaclyn.

An Apparent Kidnapping

After examining the scene, however, police were skeptical of the Dowaliby’s claims. The intruder would have had to climb through the broken window, leaving the towel rack below undisturbed, sneak up the stairs, walk down a creaky hardwood floor to Jaclyn’s room, and abscond with her while her parents were sleeping across the hall. An evidence technician even believed the Dowalibys had attempted to fake the crime scene by breaking the window.

Authorities’ suspicions were falling on Dave and Cindy Dowaliby.

The Hallway to Jaclyn’s Room

A forensic examination of the home found no foreign fingerprints. Everything was in place in the home and no items were determined to have been stolen.

With the exception of the broken window, everything in the home was intact. Nothing, with the exception of Jaclyn and the comforter from her bed, was missing from the home.

The Rest of the House is Intact

Investigators, however, made multiple mistakes in their examination of the Dowaliby home.They did not cordon off Jaclyn’s room, did not thoroughly search the entire house, and failed to preserve the crime scene by allowing Anna to sleep in her basement bed on September 10, the evening after Jaclyn’s abduction. A state evidence technician took photographs of the broken basement window but did not take close-ups. He dusted for fingerprints on the window and front door but neglected to dust the back doors. In addition, the police did not stop neighbors from cleaning the glass from the broken window.

These multiple gaffes by investigators meant that any potential evidence left by an abductor at the Dowaliby home was compromised.

The Basement Window

Dave Dowaliby passed a polygraph test on the afternoon of September 10, the day Jaclyn was reported missing; Cindy was deemed too distraught to be tested.

Two days later, the couple agreed to take additional polygraph tests conducted by the state of Illinois. Cindy’s results were deemed inconclusive due to her emotional state; the results of Dave’s second test, authorities say, showed signs of deception.

Multiple Polygraph Tests

That evening, Jacyln’s body was found in a field behind an apartment complex in Blue Island, four miles from her home. She was wrapped in her comforter and a twenty-six-foot rope was tied around her neck. Her soiled underwear lay two feet from her body.

Body Found

The summer of 1988 was one of the hottest on record; the excessively humid weather and an infestation of several thousand maggots had caused Jaclyn’s body to decompose quickly, making it impossible to conclusively determine how she had been killed or how long she had been in the field. Cook County Medical Examiner Dr. Robert Stein determined she likely was killed shortly after she was reported missing and that she had probably been strangled to death.

Head and pubic hairs were found in Jaclyn’s panties. The head hairs were consistent with hers; the pubic hairs were obviously not hers because she was prepubescent. They suggested she had been sexually molested, but, again, the torrid temperatures and high humidity made a determination impossible.

Likely Strangled to Death

The following day, September 13, police were granted a warrant to search the Dowaliby home.

Nine weeks later, on November 22, 1988, Dave and Cindy Dowaliby were arrested and charged with Jaclyn’s murder.

 

Dave and Cindy are Charged with Murder

The trial began in Chicago in April 1990.

Prosecutors attempted to portray Dave and Cindy Dowaliby as angry parents. Davey had told friends they yelled at Jaclyn and that was “spanked a lot.” It was also suggested that they were frustrated that that their seven-year-old daughter was still wetting her bed,  but a definite motive for Jaclyn’s murder was not established.

 

The state theorized she was misbehaving on the evening of September 9 and that her parents went too far in disciplining her, severely injuring or killing her. In a panic, they disposed of her body and tried to make it appear she had been kidnapped.

Angry at Jaclyn?

Prosecutors argued an intruder would have made noise while entering the home and would have left fingerprints or disturbed something once inside.

They contended the basement window had to have been broken from the inside of the home because it would have been impossible for an intruder to enter without disturbing the items beneath the window, which included a nightstand, a television tray, a towel rack, make-up, and nail polish.

Was the Window Broken from the Inside?

The defense countered with a videotape shot by the Dowalibys of a neighbor crawling through the basement window from outside the home.

The physically fit neighbor was able to make his way into the basement by sliding through the window on his belly, wedging his foot on the wall and easing his way into the home by hanging off the window ledge. He did not disturb the items on the nightstand.

Towel Rack Intact

The prosecution then produced a bloodstained pillow found in Jaclyn’s bedroom and several hairs similar to the child’s found in the trunk of her parents’ car. A neighbor also identified the rope used to strangle Jaclyn as one with which she was often seen playing. The defense, however, successfully refuted the physical evidence as the blood on the pillow could not be positively identified, and the hairs found in the trunk of the Dowalibys’ car could also not be confirmed as Jaclyn’s. Even if they were hers, it is not uncommon to have hair from another family member on a person’s clothing or other personal articles.

The prosecution’s case against Dave and Cindy Dowaliby rested almost exclusively on circumstantial evidence.

Physical Evidence Rebutted

The state’s star witness was Everett Mann, a transit worker and resident of the apartment complex next to the field where Jaclyn’s body was found. He testified that as he returned home at around 2:00 a.m. on September 10, he saw a man in a parked car near the area where Jacyln’s body was later found. Mann said the driver had a prominent nose and picked Dave from a police photo lineup.  The defense attempted to discredit the sighting by emphasizing Mann was in a darkened parking lot seventy-five yards away from the car.

Mann also testified the car was similar to the Dowalibys’. Two other witnesses testified to seeing Cindy’s car, a 1980 Chevy Malibu, in the area several hours before Jaclyn’s body was found.

A Witness Identifies David

Neither Dave nor Cindy Dowaliby testified on their own behalf at the trial. Before closing arguments, Judge Richard Neville ruled the evidence against Cindy was insufficient and granted her a directed verdict, meaning she was acquitted of the crime without her case going to the jury. Judge Neville ruled there was sufficient evidence for Dave’s case to go to trial.

After three days of deliberation, the jury found Dave Dowaliby guilty of Jaclyn’s murder. Several jury members said had they been given the opportunity, they would have found Cindy guilty as well.

                                    Cindy Exonerated                  Dave Convicted

In July, 1990, Dave Dowaliby was sentenced to forty-five years in the maximum-security prison in Joliet, Illinois.

His supporters immediately launched a grassroots movement professing his innocence.

Dave Dowaliby Behind Bars

After reviewing the case, Northwestern University Law Professor Rob Warden and Journalism Professor David Protess were convinced an injustice had been done.

Among their findings was that all of the photographs in the police lineup viewed by Everett Mann were frontal shots, but he had seen the man in the parking lot only from the side. More tellingly, Dave’s photo in the police lineup was 30% larger than the others. Because his photo was the most prominent, it was natural that it would stand out to a witness and be the one picked.

Standard police photograph procedure calls for all photos to be equal in size. The Northwestern academics believe the police, convinced of Dave’s guilt, were leading Everett Mann into identifying their man.

Warden and Protess also proved that Cindy’s car had been parked in front of the couple’s home at the time the two witnesses who testified at the trial claimed it was in the area where Jaclyn was found.

Dave’s Lineup Photo

In addition, Warden and Protess contended the police investigation of the Dowaliby home was conducted on the faulty assumption that the basement window had been broken from the inside. Forensic analysis later determined the window had most likely been broken from the outside.

The academics believe, however, the broken window may have been a red herring, as the back door to the home was unlocked the night Jaclyn was taken. They believe the killer entered through the back door and exited through the front door which David found ajar the following morning.

The Back Door Was Left Open

Protess and television reporter Paul Hogan collaborated on a series of reports critical of the police investigation into Jaclyn Dowaliby’s murder. The most significant criticism was the determination that the Illinois State Police evidence technician, whose primary responsibility was to collect all the physical evidence, should have immediately collected the broken window glass before the neighbors cleaned it up. He was able, three days later, to retrieve only a few shards from the trash.

The reports led to a backlash against the police.

Media Attention

Five months later, in October 1991, the Illinois Court of Appeals unanimously overturned David Dowaliby’s murder conviction, meaning he could not be retried for the crime.

David’s Conviction is Overturned . . .

On November 13, Dave Dowaliby was released from prison after serving eighteen months.  He was officially exonerated of all charges relating to Jaclyn’s murder.

With David cleared, the question of who murdered Jaclyn was again raised.

. . . And He is Exonerated

Convicted sex offender Perry Hernandez committed a similar abduction in Blue Island one year after Jaclyn’s murder. He abducted a seven-year-old girl from her bedroom and later sexually assaulted her. Hernandez released the girl approximately one mile from where Jaclyn’s body was found the previous year.

Illinois state police say Hernandez was investigated as a suspect in Jaclyn’s murder, but evidence found on her body did not match him and he was cleared of any involvement.

Perry Hernandez

Jaclyn’s biological uncle, Timothy Guess, who Dave and Cindy initially believed could have taken their daughter, has reemerged as a suspect in her murder.  Guess, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who lived only a few blocks from the Dowalibys, claimed he was working at a local restaurant/bar on the evening and early morning hours of September 9-10, 1988. His boss and five regular patrons, however, stated he was not working that evening, and the woman who provided his original alibi later recanted.

Protess says Guess told him that a “spirit” living inside him had told him details about Jaclyn’s murder. Guess also described to him the layout of the Dowaliby home, even though his sister and brother-on-law said he had never been inside. Guess also told Protess a light was on in Jaclyn’s closet, but not in her bedroom, on the evening she was abducted. This detail had not been released to the public.

Timothy Guess was never charged in the murder of his niece and died in 2002. No physical evidence links him to the crime.

Guess What? It Could Been Uncle Tim

Jaclyn’s grandmother, Anna Dowaliby, is also viewed with suspicion by some. She left the home around 10:30 on the evening of Jaclyn’s disappearance, at approximately the same time Dave went to bed. Anna said she was going to have a late evening meal at Papacino’s, a local restaurant.  A friend, Michael Healy, saw her after midnight “partying with some friends” at another restaurant/bar, the El Dorado.. He says he and Anna, both drunk, partied until approximately 4:30 a.m. on September 10. He drove Anna to his apartment where they slept for a few hours.  Healy then drove Anna back to the El Dorado Restaurant at approximately 9:15 a.m. the next morning where she retrieved her car and drove home.

Anna’s whereabouts between 10:30 p.m. on September 9 until shortly until after midnight on September 10 are unaccounted for, as no one at the sparsely populated Papacino’s Restaurant could recall seeing her.

Anna Dowaliby died in January, 2023, at age ninety-one.

Anna Dowaliby

David Protess and Rob Warden’s 1993 book Gone in the Night is an account of their investigation into the murder of Jaclyn Dowaliby.

The book was made into a 1996 television film. David and Cynthia Dowaliby are portrayed by Kevin Dillon and Shannon Doherty.

Book and Movie

Because of the publicity generated by their trial, David and Cynthia Dowaliby changed their names and moved out of Midlothian.

Even if new evidence were to surface linking them to Jaclyn’s murder, they could not be tried again because of the Double Jeopardy provision of the 5th Amendment of the Constitution.

 

New Home and New Names

The investigation into the murder of Jaclyn Dowaliby is officially still open, but many Chicago area journalists and reporters contend it is not being investigated. They believe the consensus of all investigating agencies, the Midlothian and Blue Island Police Departments, along with the Illinois State Police, is that David and/or Cynthia Dowaliby are responsible for Jaclyn’s murder.

If you have any information relating the murder of Jaclyn Dowaliby, please contact the Illinois State Police at (217) 786-7107.

Who Killed Jaclyn?

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8216981/jaclyn-marie-dowaliby

SOURCES:

• Chicago Sun-Times
• Chicago Tribune
• nwi. Com (Northwest Illinois)
• Unsolved Mysteries