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The original was posted on /r/unresolvedmysteries by /u/caitiep92 on 2023-12-30 20:56:57+00:00.
Jaclyn Dowaliby was born on May 17, 1981, the daughter of Cynthia Dowaliby and her first husband. Jaclyn would eventually be adopted by Cynthia's second husband David, and the couple would have a son named Davey (who was four at the time of the events). The family would live in Midlothian, Illinois with David's mother--David's mother lived in the home's basement.
On the evening on September 9-10, 1988, it was normal. The family watched tv together, with Jaclyn heading to bed early. On the morning on September, David and little Davey got up early. While Davey was watching TV, David noticed that the front door was wide open. David would later say that he was sure that he'd locked the door the night before. According to an interview on Unsolved Mysteries, David initially thought his mother left the door open after coming home from a night out. David closed the door and thought nothing of it.
Cynthia woke up a little while after this, but did not wake up Jaclyn right away. When she did go into Jaclyn's room, the girl was gone...along with her comforter. At first Cynthia wasn't too worried, believing that she was hiding or playing outside. Eventually, David, Cynthia and Davey looked throughout the house, but Jaclyn wasn't there. The family would go outside the search the neighborhood, checking with neighbors and some of Jaclyn's friends...they knew nothing. Cynthia knew something strange happened, and realized that Jaclyn wouldn't have taken her comforter outside. According to her interview with Unsolved Mysteries, Jaclyn didn't "play with," her bedding. At this point Cynthia called the police.
When the police arrived, the police searched the house. In the basement where David's mother lived, a broken window was discovered, although it's unclear if the police discovered the broken window or the Dowaliby family did. It was initially believed that an intruder broke into the home and kidnapped Jaclyn, maybe for ransom. But no ransom call ever came in. However, upon closer inspection the police "believed that the basement window was broken from the inside to make it look like an intruder was responsible. Dust on the windowsill had not been disturbed." At this point, along with the lack of a ransom call, lead police to believe that David and Cynthia knew more than they were telling.
Four days after Jaclyn vanished, her body was found in a wooded area behind an apartment complex in Blue Island, Illinois, just ten minutes from the Dowaliby home. Because it had been warm in the days before her discovery, Jaclyn's exact date of death was unclear, but there was rope around her neck, so the cause of death was strangulation. David and Cynthia were questioned extensively about Jaclyn and what may have happened to her, and David took a polygraph test.
At this point, "the police were on a mission to arrest the murderer and David was their primary suspect." Several police agencies were involved, including the FBI, and they were building a case against Jaclyn's parents. The main belief in the parent's guilt was due to the "broken from the inside," window and no evidence of an intruder. In November 1988, David and Cynthia were arrested for Jaclyn's murder (and Cynthia was pregnant). In April of 1990, the couple went to trial with the prosecution presenting circumstantial evidence.
A piece of this circumstantial evidence from a person named Everett Mann. Mann picked David out of a lineup, stating that at about 2am on the night Jaclyn was taken, he saw a man with a "prominent nose," dump Jaclyn's body. David Dowaliby has a prominent nose, and Everett Mann picked out a car similar to one of Dowaliby family cars. However, there were many issues with Everett Mann's testimony. Mann saw this person dumping Jaclyn's body from 75 feet away and in the dark of night. Mann would also claim that he couldn't tell if the person was a man or a woman, black, white or Hispanic, and would also claim the car he saw was several differing colors.
In addition, the photos shown to Mann of David were frontal photographs, not side views. Most importantly, David’s photo was larger than the other four men in the lineup that Mann was shown. David's defense argued that due to all of this, the case against David was preposterous. There were other eyewitnesses claiming to see Cynthia's car near the site where Jaclyn's body was found, but the defense pointed out that the car was actually outside the family home the entire time. When a forensic examiner went on the witness stand and stated that he couldn't tell if the basement was broken from the inside or the outside, which threw a wrench in the prosecution case. But when the final report on the window came out, it stated that the glass was "punctured," from the outside to minimize the noise and then fully removed later.
But none of these things seemed to matter, David Dowaliby was convicted of killing Jaclyn and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. However, the case against Cynthia was dismissed for lack of evidence. David maintained his innocence and Cynthia fought to have him released and exonerated. The case caught the attention of Chicago journalist David Protess, who began his own investigation into Jaclyn's case. Protess published lengthy articles about the case in the Chicago Tribune. When Protess was contacted by one of the jurors on the Dowaliby case, the juror stated they felt pressured into voting guilty by other jury members.
In October 1991, David was released from prison when the Illinois Court of Appeals decided that there was no real evidence against him. David was released without the possibility of a retrial. Since the window evidence was somewhat unclear, from the terrible eyewitness testimony from Everett Mann, and a lack of motive from David made it clear that someone else killed Jaclyn.
There were other suspects in Jaclyn's murder. One was her biological uncle, Timothy Guess. Guess was the brother of Jaclyn's biological father (the man Cynthia was married to before David), and he was mentally ill. Jaclyn's biological dad was in prison at the time, so he didn't it, but Timothy was working at a restaurant ten minutes from the Dowaliby family lived. Two waitresses at the restaurant claimed that Timothy Guess left work briefly at around 9:30pm. Timothy would later tell Protess that he periodically suffer from blackouts and also claimed that he walked past "Davey's room," (Jaclyn's younger brother) on the night of the crime. Guess quickly took that back, claiming that since he was schizophrenic, a "spirit," told him these things. But at the time, his coworkers lied to police ang gave Guess an alibi because they believed David Dowaliby was guilty. Another suspect was a local sex offender, but evidence at the scene cleared this man.
Jaclyn Dowaliby's case remains unsolved. Her parents moved away from the area and changed their last names and don't talk to the press anymore. It seems like the Midlothian police don't get anymore tips in the case and rushed to judgement back in 1988.
Unsolved Mysteries episode: