Dowaliby Case

[Tashtego]

I remember this case from years ago, and it's always stuck in my memory for some reason. I think the family name was 'Duwallaby' - although I may have the spelling wrong. In the case, the daughter was murdered (or kidnapped?) and the father was blamed, but the evidence showed the window being broken from the outside rather than the inside. Anyone else remember this case and if there were any updates?

[justins5256]

The parent's names were David and Cynthia Dowaliby. Their 7 year old daughter, Jaclyn, was abducted from their home in the middle of the night on September 10, 1988 and found strangled to death a few days later. The Dowalibys were implicated in the crime, and David was convicted but the conviction was eventually overturned.

I thought there was some speculation that the uncle (David's brother) was involved, but I can't recall if anything ever came of that (edit: it appears he had an alibi, though it was questionable).

Here is a wikipedia article on the case. You can probably find more by Google now that you have the correct spelling of their names. The article mentions that the case is still unsolved, btw:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Dowaliby

[Kane]

I thought there was some speculation that the uncle (David's brother) was involved, but I can't recall if anything ever came of that (edit: it appears he had an alibi, though it was questionable).

Actually, it wasn't David's brother. It was the brother of Cynthia's ex-husband.

[justins5256]

Originally Posted by Kane

Actually, it wasn't David's brother. It was the brother of Cynthia's ex-husband.

Ahh, yes. Thanks for the correction.

[Arnold_OldSchool]

On Sept. 14, 1988 Jaclyn Dowaliby vanished in the night from her bedroom. Suspicion would fall on her mother Cynthia and David Dowaliby. Jaclyn's body was found five days later in a wooded area near an apartment complex. Her father was convicted of her murder but the sentence was later overturned and he was released. Later an uncle would come forward to say that he knew the full lay out of the house and described it as it would have looked the night Jaclyn vanished. The uncle was mentally ill and he had never been in the house before. He was never charged. To date, Jaclyn's murder remains unsolved.

[TracyLynnS]

Here's something I remember about this case that always makes me fighting mad, every time I think about it.

The jury had pictures in their possession, that were part of the evidence, showing the state of the home after Jaclyn's abduction.

Some of the closet doors in the bedrooms had holes in them. The prosecution had never used those pictures as evidence that David Dowaliby had a temper and had punched the walls and doors in his home to vent his frustrations.

Yet the jury completely jumped to conclusions and assumed that he punched those holes, when in fact, they were there from way before he and his young family had ever moved into the house!

The jury used that to convince themselves that he was violent and they convicted him based on the photos that showed nothing more than that the Dowalibys lived in an old home that needed to be refurbished! That blows my mind.

[kadrmas15]

Well, this case, I dont know, I do not think the Duwallaby's themselves were involved in the presumed murder of their daughter. Clearly the person that did this was a person that knew the family, but the specific person that did it is unknown. It seems the police and prosecutors got it in their heads it was the Duwallay's that killed their daughter and once that thought got in their head it never left. In fact it still has not left. So a child killer has walked free for twenty years as a result.

Heck, the evidence was thin enough against David, there was nothing there but innuendo and speculation. Against Cynthia there was not even that. There was just nothing there. In fact the trial judge ordered a judgement of acquittal for Cynthia before the case even went to the jury. He should have done the same for David. As a matter of fact the jury later said that if they had been able to they would have convicted Cynthia too despite literally no evidence against her.

This is not unusual though for juries to speculate about stuff that was not presented to them and come up with verdicts based off of stuff that was not presented in court. These juries are regular people, not scientists, not psychologists and when you have regular people trying to be something they are not it will always lead to a wrongful conviction. Because of these jurors trying to be something they were not, an innocent man went to prison and could have spent the rest of his life there, or most of the rest of his life there if a court had not stepped in and done the right thing.

[VikingsGal]

Some of the closet doors in the bedrooms had holes in them. The prosecution had never used those pictures as evidence that David Dowaliby had a temper and had punched the walls and doors in his home to vent his frustrations.

Between that little fact and the man who said he could tell the size of Davi'd's nose from the distance of a footfall field AT NIGHT I was shocked he was ever arrested let alone put in jail.

I never thought the either parent had anything to do with Jaclyn's disappearance.

[Mastermind]

I am on the fence with this case.

To me the problem with the intruder theory is the window and ledge.

I don't see how a person unfamilliar with the house would know to be careful to avoid knocking of that ledge(or was it a work bench/desk?) and leaving it undisturbed.

Only a person familliar with the house would know that, or someone broke the window

Their was no evidence that Jaclyn was killed or hurt inside the house. I think if the parents killed her, there would be some evidence of that. Instead it looks pretty much like she was kidnapped take outside by the assailant and brought to another location to do his deed.

I can;t see the mother killing or hurting the child OUTSIDE of the home in broad daylight.

[TracyLynnS]

Oh yeah, David's nose. For goodness sake. That guy's nose wasn't anything enormous or particularly distinctive. To see his nose in the dark, from the distance of a football field, he would have to have been sporting Rudolf's Red Reindeer nose in full bright and sparkling regalia.

[TracyLynnS]

Mastermind,

There was an uncle who was suspected to be Jaclyn's murderer. He may have very well known the layout of the house.

For one, I believe it was a typical 1950 tract house, where all of them in the neighborhood were almost identical.

But here's the telling point: That home was David Duwaliby's childhood home. He grew up there. He and his wife bought it from his mother. The uncle could have been in that has sometime back from when David was a kid.

And on a side note, if I remember correctly, I think David explained the holes in the closet doors as being from him and his brothers playing rowdy in their rooms when they were kids, and no one ever replaced the damaged doors.

[crochetbuff]

Originally Posted by TracyLynnS

Mastermind,

There was an uncle who was suspected to be Jaclyn's murderer. He may have very well known the layout of the house.

For one, I believe it was a typical 1950 tract house, where all of them in the neighborhood were almost identical.

But here's the telling point: That home was David Duwaliby's childhood home. He grew up there. He and his wife bought it from his mother. The uncle could have been in that has sometime back from when David was a kid.

And on a side note, if I remember correctly, I think David explained the holes in the closet doors as being from him and his brothers playing rowdy in their rooms when they were kids, and no one ever replaced the damaged doors.

Read this book: Gone in the Night: The Dowaliby Family's Encounter With Murder and the Law. David Protess and Rob Warden (1993)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Dowaliby"

I read it this summer it was very good and very complete. There was an Uncle with mental illness. There was also at least one other girl from the area taken from her bedroom at night and molested, but not murdered. There is anotehr suspect connect with that. I think it was him. Sorry, I don't have the book now so I don't remember his name. I know I posted this on another thread here.

Very good read, unbelievable what went on in this case.

[crochetbuff]

Here's my post from summer 2008 after reading Dowaliby book:

Quote:
Originally Posted by crochetbuff
Found something on another board where a poster who identifies herself as Jaclyn's cousin posted. Down near bottom of the page.

http://websleuths.com/forums/showthr...?t=9245&page=2

She states that she thinks the Uncle is a very probable suspect.
The Uncle is since deceased.

No one has ever been convicted except for David Dowaliby, the conviction was later overturned.


Hi everyone,

So I decided to check the book about the Dowaliby case out from the library Gone in the Night By David Protess & Rob Warden. Read it in the last 3 days. Very good book. Very interesting. Kinda confusing with a lot of people, evidence & conversations discussed in it. Hard to read sometimes because it's so darn frustrating to read about all of the *#%k-ups along the way by the police, the family, media, lawyers. Quite a scary story of one family being railroaded by the cops, politicians & media, prosecutors.

For me, two prime suspects emerge:

Perry Hernandez who almost exactly one year after Jaclyn's death broke into a home in the area through an open window, took the little girl out of her bed from the same room where her brother was sleeping, past the dog and all, and sexually assaulted her. She was let go and made her way home. He went to prison for that. There's an article online that Hernandez was going to submit blood samples in 1989, it's through one of those services that you have to sign-up for, so I can't read the article. I don't know if Hernandez ever submitted those samples. If he had, he could have been ruled in or out as a suspect, as there was blood under Jaclyn's fingernails. It was type O, David Dowaliby's was Type A. I have no idea if anyone has since done any DNA testing on the blood found under Jaclyn's fingernails.

There was another case while David Dowaliby was in prison where the same thing happened, she was the daughter of a woman who ran a fitness place where Cynthia used to go with Jaclyn the summer before Jaclyn disappeared. I'm not sure, but I think Perry Hernandez might have been in prison by the time this event happened. There were also a couple of other incidents earlier in the area that were VERY similar to both of these cases. Police never seemed to work very hard to connect them. They didn't seem to really care a whole lot that there was someone out there taking children from their beds. They dismissed any connection due to the fact that Jaclyn was murdered and the others were not. That seemed to be their ENTIRE reasoning.

Timothy Guess brother of Jaclyn's biological father James Guess. He was psychotic and took medication for it. Story seems to be that by the time Unsolved Mysteries did a segment on this case in November, 1992, several of the people who had given an alibi for Timothy called in and changed their stories. He was said to have been at a restaurant where he worked the entire night, but many later said he wasn't there the entire time and that they had been asked by the restaurants owner to cover for Timothy. He told police all sorts of fanciful "psychotic" stories. He spoke of a "spirit" that told him things and did things. He spoke AS "the spirit" when his eyes turned from green to blue. Some details he knew seemed to be things that only the killer could have known (things about her house, but also things a family member could know, although he didn't have much contact with Jaclyn), but no "smoking gun". He did drive a friend home often who lived in the same apartment complex where Jaclyn's body was found by the garbage dumpsters. Info. from another board, he is now deceased.

Someone should be reopening this case and testing for DNA. The Dowalibys changed their last name to protect their children.

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

Originally Posted by crochetbuff

Timothy Guess brother of Jaclyn's biological father James Guess. He was psychotic and took medication for it. Story seems to be that by the time Unsolved Mysteries did a segment on this case in November, 1992, several of the people who had given an alibi for Timothy called in and changed their stories.

So should have had no connection to David Dowaliby or his house. How was he so familiar with it then? Looks like THE perfect suspect!

[lilmissd]

There are a few things that really bother me about this case. First off, whoever kidnapped Jaclyn must have known the family well and the layout of their house. Because how would they know which room was hers and which window in the house to break? Someone couldn't just know that by dumb luck. Secondly, when the killer broke the window why didn't everyone wake up? Especially Jaclyn's brother who shared a room with her; you mean to tell me that no one could hear the sound of glass breaking?! I am a sound sleeper and I would have heard it! And how could the killer have gotten in and out of that basement window without leaving any foot or finger prints on anything. There is just something here that's not right, I hope that one day that this case will be resolved.