Criminology - Jaclyn Dowaliby

Episode Date: May 7, 2023

On September 10th, 1988, Cynthia and David Dowaliby woke up to find their daughter Jaclyn missing from the house. The local police, as well as the FBI, started an investigation. They originally thought that the Dowalibys might receive a ransom demand from a kidnapper. But, suspicion soon turned to David and Cynthia. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the case of Jaclyn Dowaliby. Sadly, 7-year-old Jaclyn's body was found just days later. The Dowaliby family was in a nightmarish situation, and things continued to spiral downward. Just months after Jaclyn was murdered, David and Cynthia were arrested and charged with her murder. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, it's Wayfair here, where delivery and setup are as easy as a few taps on your phone. You're relaxing in an old hammock, scrolling Wayfair's app, when you spot it, a brand new patio set. Next thing you know, Wayfair delivers it right to your patio and sets it up. Oh, you need a new grill, too? All right, Wayfair's got you covered. With Wayfair's room of choice delivery and fast experts set up on qualifying orders, life gets a little easier. Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app. My wife fell asleep in the bathtub and I think she's dead. In August 2008, Sarah Widmer, a healthy 24-year-old woman, is found dead in her bathtub,

just four months after marrying her husband Ryan, the only person at home with Sarah that night. Suspicion quickly fell on Ryan, leading to his arrest and conviction for Sarah's murder. But could this have been a tragic accident? Ryan has adamantly maintained his innocence for the last 15 years. Now, two-season criminologist examine this very controversial conviction for the murder of his wife, Sarah. This case is the one

with the most unanswered questions. Now we're looking for a murder attorney. Like, who do you even ask? You know, when you go in there and get that terror, people are going to automatically think you're guilty just because of where you're sitting. Is Ryan a murderer,

or did something else happen in that bathroom? Listen to Direct Appeal, Season 2, the Ryan Widmer case, wherever you get your podcasts. is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 256 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.

And this is Mike Morford. Morph, man, what's going on with you, buddy? A whole lot of sports. Doing a lot of baseball and soccer with my kids. Some's doing good in baseball. My daughter just made the traveling soccer team, which is a big thrill for her. so mostly busy doing that kind of stuff. Proud dad here.

What's new with you? Same, but in a little different scenario, right? My youngest is getting ready to graduate from high school. She's big into dance, has been for many years. But this is it, man. This is the last summer of dance. And my wife and I are really sad about it. Every time, you know, we go to a competition,

it's that much closer to being the last one. So, you know, I know, your kids are younger, what I would say is just soak it in. I know sometimes it feels like such a hassle to have to travel and, you know, take the kids to practice and all of that. But man, you, you miss it for sure. And I already experienced that with my oldest. And now I'm doing it with my youngest. And it's, uh, it's going to be really tough. Yeah. You're going to be empty nestor pretty soon. How's that feeling? Yeah. Yeah, real close to it. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had,

Crystal, Gina Paseca, Petit Hobbit, Terry Wickersheim, and Daniel Titegen. So a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, that is a lot of great support. Thank you so much for doing that. And anyone that would like to support criminology can do so by going to petrium.com slash criminology. All right, buddy, we're ready to wade right in. You know, there have been a lot of cases in which it appears as if someone entered a home

and abducted and or murdered a child. A few big or well-publicized cases that come to mind are Polly Klaus, who was abducted from her home in the middle of a slumber party at Knife Point in Petaluma, California in 1993, before being murdered. There was Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted from her home in Utah in 2002, and was later found with her abductors. And of course, John Bonae Ramsey, who was thought to have been abducted from her. home in December 1996, but was later found dead in her basement.

The common thing in each of these cases was that there was a lot of disbelief from the public and suspicion fell on the families in all three of these cases. People just didn't believe that someone could come into a family's home and abduct or harm a child while their family members were nearby. But as we know, that does happen. and it happens somewhat frequently. In fact, you could go back to the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, which may have been the first high-profile case of its kind.

But the case we're talking about in this episode is one that unfolded in 1988 in the state of Illinois. Yet another case of a child seemingly plucked from the safety of her own bed. And as in all of the other cases, I just mentioned, suspicion fell on the family. But unlike any of the other cases we talked about, this little girl's family found themselves charged for the crime. We're talking about the abduction and murder of seven-year-old Jacqueline de Wallaby in Midlothian, Illinois. Midlothian classifies itself as a village and not a city. It's located about 30 minutes southwest of Chicago. In 1988, Midlothian was made up of mostly middle-class residents and had a population of about 14,000 people.

Midlothian was a rather safe area at the time, not one with a lot of crimes, especially violent crimes. It was in Midlothian where the Diwaliabi family resided in a single-family home, located at 3636 West 148th place. The DeWalaby family consisted of David DeWalaby, his wife Cynthia, Jacqueline, who was Cynthia's daughter from a previous marriage, David and Cynthia's son Davy, and David's mom, Anne DeWalaby, who actually owned the home. She lived in the basement, which had basically been turned into an apartment. The Diwalibe family wasn't new to Midlothian.

David had grown up there graduating from high school there in the 1970s. David met Cynthia, who had a young daughter, Jacqueline. And in 1983, David and Cynthia were married. Just six months later, David adopted Jacqueline. And in June 1984, Jacqueline's little brother, Davy was born. Life for the DeWalibis in Midlothian was quiet and uneventful. But that all changed. on one September morning in 1988.

At 7.30 a.m. on September 10th, 1988, the alarm clock went off in Cynthia and David Diwalibe's bedroom. When they remembered it was Saturday, Cynthia silenced the alarm. And her and David laid back down trying to go back to sleep.

At around 8 a.m. 4-year-old Davy came into the room and woke David back up. As David went about his morning routine, he noticed that the front door of the house was open. He figured his mom, Anna, who lived in the basement unit and actually owned the home, had accidentally left it open. He wasn't too concerned that the kids had opened the door because both kids were too short to reach the deadbolt. He closed it and sat down with Davey to watch Pee Wee's playhouse together.

About an hour later, Cynthia woke up. David greeted her with a cup of coffee. David told Cynthia he wanted to go play golf and needed someone to be up with the kids. Cynthia asked what they had been doing, and David told him that he and Davy were watching cartoons. Cynthia asked what their daughter, seven-year-old Jacqueline, was doing, and David told her that she was still asleep. At 9.46 a.m., Cynthia called her sister-in-law to tell her that she wouldn't be at ceramics class. She then went to wake up Jacqueline, but was surprised that the seven-year-old wasn't in her room. Cynthia walked around calling out to Jacqueline but got no answer.

David helped her look, and then remembering the open front door, he figured maybe she had gone out to side to play. But she wasn't in the yard. Panicked, David and Cynthia hopped into their truck and drove her on the neighborhood to search for Jacqueline. They stopped by Jacqueline's friend Rosa's house to see if she knew where she was, but Rosa hadn't seen her. So more, you know, over the years, you and I have talked about a lot of different scenarios, some of which involved parents and their kids in a store where, you know, a parent turns around, they can't find their child, but eventually they find them in the next aisle or two aisles over, that's a real panicky feeling that a lot of parents have gone through. But here we're talking about, you know,

the safety of your own home and waking up to find out that your child isn't sleeping like you thought they were. They're nowhere to be found. Yeah. And then you've got that panic where you rush out and hopefully they're out in the front yard or just someplace close. And when they're not, That has to be a really sinking feeling. And in this case, they decided to drive around the neighborhood, but still weren't able to find her. So they must have really been panicked. Around the time that Cynthia and David returned from their search for Jacqueline, Anna, who had stayed the night someplace else, also arrived home.

The three met in the driveway. Anna had been gone since 10.30 the night before when she went to Papasino's restaurant, in Oak Forest, just southwest of Midlothian, it's. It's not clear where Anna stayed that night, but it was not in the family home. David and Cynthia brought Anna up to speed with what was going on in the three spread out. Checking nearby yards, Cynthia started walking around the outside of their house. That's when she noticed that one of the basement windows had been broken. According to the Chicago Tribune, she called out to David, oh my God, David, oh my God.

realizing that the situation had just turned very serious. At 10.26 a.m., they called the Midlothian Illinois Police Department to report Jacqueline missing and told police about the broken window. Midlothian police quickly responded to the scene and before long, agents from the FBI responded as well due to the belief that Jacqueline had been abducted. I think a lot of times we hear in cases where the police drive, their feet and they don't get started right away. But it seems that they took this case very seriously right from the beginning and they came right out. The FBI got involved early on.

Maybe that's due to Jacqueline's age because she was only seven years old. So it wasn't treated where, you know, it's an adult where they tell you, oh, you have to wait 72 hours. They can disappear if they want to. They knew this was a little bit more serious because of her age. A wiretap was quickly set up on the Diwali phone in case a kidnapper called with a ransom demand. Searching the home, officers observed glass outside the home near the broken basement window. It seemed to them like the glass was broken from the inside and had fallen outwards, as pieces of glass were lying on the outside of the window frame. The wire screen had been ripped but hadn't been removed from the frame.

Dust on the window sill appeared to have been untouched, and there were cobwebs in the corner of the window. Nothing had been knocked over in the basement. FBI agent Stephen Kisherski noted that at least two basement windows were unlocked. He was able to open one of the windows from the outside with no problems. And since we're talking about the basement, it's important to mention that this basement apartment where Anna lived didn't have its own entrance or exit. The only way to get in or out of the basement would have been to take the stairs up or down through the main part of the house or to go

through one of the basement windows. As police examined Jacqueline's room, they found there were smear marks on her door, but no prints were able to be lifted. As far as, as anyone can tell. From publicly available information, the other doors, including a sliding glass door, were never tested for prints. Inside Jacqueline's bedroom, dresser drawers were found open. Clothes were strewn on the floor and hanging out of the drawers. The light was on inside the closet, and Jacqueline's bed had no sheet on it. There was a suitcase on the bed lying open, surrounded by clothes. Cynthia told police that Jacqueline frequently played with the suitcase, so it wasn't unusual

to be where it was found. Cynthia assured police that despite the messy appearance of the room, it hadn't been ransacked. Only the sheet from Jacqueline's bed and Jacqueline herself had been taken. Police wanted to establish a timeline leading up to Jacqueline's disappearance, starting the day before, which according to the Diwali's was a normal day. None of the family were on edge or felt like they had been watched or that Jacqueline may be in danger. In the morning, Cynthia did laundry and spoke to her mom on the phone. Her supervisor called and asked her to come in and cover an early ship,

so Cynthia hung up her sheets to dry and headed to work for just a few hours, working from noon to four. On her way home, she stopped and bought Jacqueline a dress from a thrift store. For dinner, she took Jacqueline and Davy to KFC. When they got back home, the street was crowded with cars, because a neighbor was having a Tupperware party. Cynthia parked in front of the house, but had to park in a position to where she was just blocking the edge of the driveway.

David was out bowling, so Cynthia and the kids had dinner alone together. Cynthia's sister-in-law, Michelle Goldrick, came by for a visit with Cynthia and Anna. So I'm not sure that you ever threw a Tupperware party morph, but, I mean, do you remember back in the day, because we're talking about the 1980s here, those types of parties, where someone was selling something, they were kind of ubiquitous. Yeah,

my wife and I got married in 1997, and we, and I remember her throwing a big one, so I know they were going on still at least into the early 2000s probably. Yeah, and there was a lot of different things to sell. Tupperware,

I always thought was one of the best. Like it was made well, it worked, it lasted. My assumption is you don't see that type of, of stuff much anymore just because of Amazon, Walmart. It's just so easy to buy stuff online now.

And a lot of times those parties were very popular and a lot of people would come over. And it sounds like that was the case here. We're so much so that Cynthia had to park almost blocking her driveway entrance. At around 10 p.m., David got back from bowling. He recalled for police that he closed the front door and latched the top bowl. He went to bed soon after arriving home. He came in, said hi to Cynthia, who was still up watching the David Letterman show at around 10.30 p.m. Anna headed out for the night, as we mentioned earlier, and she did not return home until the next morning.

A neighbor of the Dwalabies named Holly Deck, who lived next door, told police that her four dogs began barking and growling from 11 p.m. to midnight. And they were restless, going to the front and side doors. to bark. This is a behavior. They usually showed when they heard or smelled a stranger, not any of the doolubes, who the dogs were friendly with. According to the Chicago Tribune, Holly said, Dolly was frantic, snarling, barking in the direction of the doolabee home. Holly looked outside to see what her dogs were barking about, but there was nothing outside when she turned on the porch light. At around 2 a.m., she got up for a drink of water and looked outside again, and again, she saw nothing unusual. She did see Cynthia's Malibu was still parked where

she left it, blocking the driveway. Another neighbor, Brian Anderson, noted that the Malibu was parked in the same place around 8 a.m. on the morning of September 10th, that it was parked the night before. While police considered the possibility that a stranger had abducted Jacqueline, they also wondered if someone close to her could have taken her. Jimmy Guess, Jacqueline's biological father, was considered. At the time Jacqueline vanished, he lived in Florida as far as anyone knew, and had once broken into Cynthia's mother's home to try and take Jacqueline. In fact, when Cynthia found the broken window, she remembered when Jimmy tried to take Jacqueline telling the Chicago Tribune, as soon as I saw that broken window, I remember Jimmy climbing through the window of my mother's

house, and I was paralyzed. As it turned out, though, it couldn't have been Jimmy who broke in and took Jacqueline out of the home that night, because he was in prison at the time. and had been for about four months. In May 1988, he had been convicted on charges of sexual battery by threat of a deadly weapon. Being locked up and behind bars provided him with an airtight alibi. And we talk about alibis a lot. And, you know, to me, a lot of alibis are flimsy. You know, they hinge on the word of another person,

often a person very close to the individual who needs the alibi. and so you can question alibi a lot. It's really tough to question this one. You know, Jimmy being locked up behind bars, I don't know how you can get a much better alibi than that. I don't know what he was thinking when he was thought of as a suspect in this case, but it's probably one time where he was happy to be behind bars. Yeah, I can't think of many instances where somebody would be happy to be behind bars.

But, you know, there's always going to be, or I should say a lot of times, there's going to be this kind of look at the family. In situations like this, it's tough because, you know, the family is already hurting and then to have to answer questions. And then if it comes out that police are looking at them, you know, very hard, that would be just even tougher. The DeWalibi family was beside themselves. waiting word of Jacqueline's fate. They waited for any answers to come. Meanwhile, David Diwalii focused on trying to make the house more secure. He installed dead bolts on every door leading into the home. If the knowledge of their home being safer made the DeWalibis feel any better, the feeling was short-lived. On September 14th, just days after she vanished, the body of seven-year-old

Jacqueline DeWallope was found about three miles away from her home in Blue Island, Illinois. Islander apartments, resident Michael Chapman, noticed a very strong and bad smell in the rear parking lot around 5.45 p.m. Chapman looked in the brush and weeds behind the apartments and saw something wrapped up or covered, walking into the thicket and moving some of the weeds, some of which were six feet tall. He could then tell that he was seeing the body of a child.

And he called police. And the thing that jumps out at me here, and it also crops up in many cases is someone either seeing something or smelling something and making decision to go check it out, try to see what it is, and it ultimately ending up being a dead body. So there's two things for me. One is the decision to check something out that, and I don't know if that's just, you know, based on curiosity or, or, or whatever it is. And then the second thing is, what is it due to the person who actually finds a dead body? And in this case, the dead body of a very young girl. A decomposing body leaves a

smell that I think any investigator, any police officer, any medical examiner will tell you is unmistakable. So when you smell that smell, in this case, he's walking over to that to see what it is. In the back of his mind, I'm sure he knew what it was, but then to, as you pointed out, the actual sight to find this little girl's body there, that had to be something that was etched into his mind. Investigators carefully examine the crime scene. The Jacqueline's body was wrapped in a quilt, her torso and head were exposed to the elements, allowing for heavy decomposition and insect activity. There was a thin rope, a quarter inch in diameter, tightly wrapped around her neck, looped twice. The rope, which was 25 feet nine inches in length, was not tied,

and the frayed ends extended down between Jacqueline's legs. A pair of clean white underwear were at the scene, just one foot from Jacqueline's feet. It didn't appear that she had been beaten or gagged. Her knees and the bottoms of her feet were clean. Investigators went door to door, asking nearby residents if they had any information that may help them, one resident Everett Mann, who lived in the island or a part. apartments recalled getting home on September 10th, around 2 a.m. All of the parking spaces near his unit were full, so he had to drive farther and ended up in the rear parking lot.

He turned around and parked in the second spot, which was just behind his own unit. As he got out of his car, he was not alone in the parking lot, even though it was 2 a.m., a set of headlights popped on near the middle driveway, and Everett looked over and saw there was a car near where Jacqueline was. would later be found with its trunk toward the field. And the car, possibly a late 1970s model Chevy Malibu, headed south, out the middle driveway of the complex. Man could only see one person inside, a man in the driver's seat, because the car was about

75 yards away. When he was looking at the man, it was dark and not all the lights in the parking lot worked. He could only really make out a large nose, but he couldn't discern anything else from his features. He basically saw a side profile of the man in silhouette. It was a tantalizing clue for investigators, especially because the D'Walbys owned a Chevy Malibu. Less than one hour after Jacqueline's body was found, Cynthia, who was home alone, was informed under the discovery. Two detectives had to come break the news to her in person. She collapsed on the floor and sobbed. The officers tried to console

the heartbroken mother while still trying to gather information. Half an hour later, David arrived home and learned the news. He started crying and sat down. He then asked detectives, was it in a field? David hadn't been told this bit of information, so the detectives were obviously on high alert after he asked that question. An autopsy was done on September 15, 1988, the day after Jacqueline was found, Dr. Robert Stein, the Cook County Medical Examiner,

believed that decomposition was consistent with death, having a curse. heard about five and a half days prior. So sometime between the night of September 9th and the morning of the 10th. So this meant that by the time the Dwalobies woke up and found that she was missing, Jacqueline had likely already been killed. Dr. Stein could not tell whether Jacqueline's body had been in the location it was found for the entire five and a half days due to the advanced state of decomposition. The medical examiner was unable to tell whether Jacklin's.

Jacqueline had been sexually assaulted or not, her nightgown could not be tested for evidence. Because of its condition, having been outside in the elements, the nightgown was wet, had decomposition fluids and dirt on it, and it was covered with maggots. Pubic hairs found on her underwear, and on the blanket she was wrapped in could not have belonged to her because she didn't have any yet. Two of the five hairs were covered from the rope around her neck did not match Jacqueline's hair, nor did it match any member of the Diwalibe family. It was the beginning of a very rough week for the Dolobies, and it got even rougher.

On November 22nd, both Cynthia and David DeWalaby were arrested for the murder of their daughter, Jacqueline, after a grand jury returned indictments on both. Cynthia, who was pregnant at the time of her arrest, recalled the surreal feeling of being picked up and taken to the police station. She told the Chicago Tribune, I thought to myself, this is like a TV movie. The officer who brought me in gave me a piece of paper to read stating my rights. Then he yelled, book her. During an interrogation, Cynthia couldn't believe what was happening. The officer threw a barrage of terrible possibilities at her, trying to break her down, saying things like, you're never going to see your son again. You're never going to see your husband again. You better confess. Nobody has money for you,

No one in your family has money. You'll never be able to raise money for an attorney, and no attorney is ever going to believe you. Cynthia said, I just sat there thinking, this is unreal. I just shook my head because it was all so unreal. It wasn't just words the officer hurled at her. Cynthia said, before I could look away, two pictures slid in front of me. One was of Jacqueline's leg. The other was of her mouth.

She turned her back to the officers and to the pictures. The nightmare continued for the Dwalabies. Anna had to sell the home to raise funds to hire an attorney for David and Cynthia and to bail them out. Then they lost custody of their son Davy, who eventually entered foster care. Anna told the Chicago Tribune, Cindy called me to see if Davy was all right. But I had to tell her, I didn't know where he was. They never told me they were taking him. Davy was given a physical exam at Mount Sinai Hospital to look for any signs of possible abuse by Cynthia.

and David. He was held there for five days, with zero contact with either of his parents, until the agency, Hepzabah, was able to take him in. They took him to the jail to visit his parents and finished the Christmas shopping that Cynthia couldn't, getting him every item on his Christmas list. On January 20th, 1989, Davy was allowed to go live with Rose Medima, David's twin sister. So more if we called this a nightmare, and it really is. First, your daughter goes missing. And then you get the horrible news less than a week later that she's found dead. She's been killed. And then police turn their sights on you. And fairly quickly, a grand jury returns an indictment and you're arrested. And your son gets put into the foster care system. I mean,

I'm feeling helpless, just talking about it. And I can only imagine the helpless feeling that David and Cynthia must have been going through at the time. Yeah, and on top of all that, you've got Anna that has to sell this house just to pay for their bail and attorneys and everything else. So everything just seemed to implode all at one time. And it's something we probably don't talk about enough. We talk about a lot of people who, you know,

know, are arrested, convicted, you know, they committed crimes and then they're sentenced. What about all the people who are tried found not guilty? It comes out later that, you know, they didn't do it. But your life is forever changed. Financially, emotionally. I just can't imagine being charged with a crime you didn't commit, especially one against your own child. Cynthia posted bail on December 15th, and David was able to make bail the next day after their bond amount was reduced.

They still didn't have custody of Davy, though they were able to have a supervised visit with him for Christmas. At Hep'saba, Davy opened his Christmas presents, and David helped him build a G.I. Joe airplane. Afterward, Cynthia made breakfast, and Davy helped, as much as a child that young Ken, before they ate a Christmas breakfast together as a family. But they were just going through the motions for Davy's sake. their Christmas was just not the same without Jacqueline. On the way home, they stopped at Jacqueline's unmarked grave, where someone had left the wreath with a red ribbon on a tripod. A quarter was taped to the bow.

The family didn't know who could have left the wreath. In a 1990 Chicago Tribune article, they said, We still wonder what it meant. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the... for the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible.

A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. On April 5, 1990, a joint trial for 26-year-old Cynthia and 31-year-old David began. Psychic Linda Petrine testified that she had been the one to tell David DeWalaby that Jacqueline would be found strangled in a field with high weeds. It was because of this psychic's vision that she had relayed to David only two days before Jacqueline's body was found, why he asked police if Jacqueline had been found in a field and not because he had guilty knowledge of his involvement in Jacqueline's death.

At trial, according to Illinois State Police Forensic, microanalyst Ralph Meyer. The basement window had been broken from the outside and not from the inside his police thought early on. He determined this by looking at radial marks, concentric breaks, and stress marks in the glass. Someone had tried to break the window quietly, simply breaking it and picking individual pieces of glass out of the frame and pulling them out instead of pushing them in. The thought of the basement window being broken from the inside out was one of the strongest clues. Prosecutioning, Claim that Jacqueline's hair was found in the trunk of the family car, but the hairs were only

visually similar. And I'm thinking more if the words they probably used were microscopically similar. We've heard that in many cases going back to the, you know, 70s, 80s. This was obviously before DNA. So the hairs were not even confirmed to have been from Jacqueline. That term microscopically similar. As we have found out in older cases was a very misleading term to juries, I believe. You know, it's come out that in some cases,

the two hairs they were comparing, one wasn't even human. But yet some analysts got on the stand and said they were microscopically similar. Hair consistent with both Cynthia and Davids was also found in the trunk. So it seems as if these hairs, even if they belonged to all of the DeWalbys got there by some means other than a body being placed in the trunk.

Everett Mann's tip to police was brought into question. He was the Islander apartment resident who saw a car parked in the overnight hours with its trunk facing the area where Jacqueline's body was later found. Investigators had shown Everett Mann a photo lineup. He picked David DeWallaby out of the lineup as the man he saw in what he thought was a late 1970s Malibu. Pulling out of the apartment complex that night. But the photo police showed man was later found

to be 30% larger than the other photos in the lineup. Man never said the Diwali's Malibu was the same Malibu he saw that night. Just that out of all the cars, the de Walibis owned, including

their van and truck, their Malibu looked most similar. It was also light blue and man thought the car he saw that night was a dark color, but he felt that maybe the car only looked dark because it was dark outside. In the end, he couldn't be sure that the car he saw was the doolabies. Next up, the physical evidence found on Jacqueline was scrutinized. Though there was blood present on swabs of her vaginal and rectal cavities, there was no detectable semen. Her underwear were intact and right-side-out. There was no blood or semen stains on them.

The medical examiner was unable to tell whether Jacqueline had been sexually assaulted or not. To prosecutors, this meant that she absolutely had not, and that the underwear was a red herring, placed there to throw off the trail and make it look like a sexually motivated crime instead of an accident that happened at home before the Diwalibees tried to cover it up. Though David had type A blood, type O blood was found underneath Jacqueline's fingernails, but this did nothing to relieve the suspicion of the couple, as Cynthia had typo blood, and so did Jacqueline.

Without any evidence to support it, prosecutors theorized that the couple had tried to discipline Jacqueline by tying her to her bed, and that she had accidentally been strangled during the ordeal, despite the fact that there were no ligature marks on her wrists or ankles. The sheet ripped from the bed was used to further this theory. It was claimed that Cynthia had washed the sheet after the murder, but neighbors confirmed, seeing lawn.

including sheets on the clothes line the day before. Though they never explained whose blood it was, prosecutors also told the jury about a blood-stained pillow found in Jacqueline's room. The blood was typo. It wasn't David's, that's for sure, but the jury was never told this. Neighbor Jeffrey Colsick claimed that he had seen Little Davy playing with a rope just days before his sister's murder, and that resembled the very rope that was found at the crime scene. According to Colzick, he never saw David's playing.

Davey play with that rope again after the murder. Testimony from young Davy himself would practically condemn his parents, though no one can fault him because he was so young. Prosecutors claim that Davy told them he saw Cynthia hit Jacqueline in the shoulders with a broom, belt or rope, on multiple occasions, and that she spanked Jacqueline more than she spanked him. So I think more if we've got to analyze some of this evidence and some of this testimony, there's really not much in the way of evidence.

But I think prosecutors, as they sometimes do, are trying to make the jury believe that all of this stuff points to David and Cynthia. But you have the hairs that were said to have been similar. You have Everett man picking David Dwalby out of a lineup. But imagine if you're shown six, 10 pictures, and one of them is 30% larger than the others. That, to me, does not seem like good police work, good police technique. It seems like you're trying to lead the witness to a very specific photograph.

Yeah, and I think it was a good thing that all these things were touched on at trial and the stuff came out. And they had the experts, for example, with the window analysis saying that it was, although it appeared that it was broken inside out, he confirmed that it was broken outside in. So that was a really big blow to the police theory that the DeWalbys had staged this. And really, if you look at their theory, especially the one that that centers around disciplining of Jacqueline gone wrong and she ended up being killed and then David and Cynthia tried to cover it up. there just didn't seem to be the evidence there to support it. I mean, how can you tell a jury that you believe she was tied to the bed when later there were no ligature marks on her wrists or ankles?

I don't know. It just, I get the vibe here. Maybe it's more than a vibe that this prosecution was such a stretch with the evidence that they had that it just never should have gone forward. What are your thoughts on that? To me, it goes back to the whole thing we started off the episode with that a lot of people, and probably including the police and prosecutors, just didn't believe that it was possible that someone could come in and do this.

It had to be the family. They had to be perpetrating a fake crime here because we just weren't used to seeing that the way we do today in the news so often how people come into a house and abduct a child. And I think some of that was at play here. But then you also have, I mean, it legitimately looked like the glass was broken from the outside out. And you have a car scene where her body was dumped that looks like the Diwali. So I don't know whether the police had a mission where they just hyper-focused on this family. But some of the things they were seeing, certainly you could understand why they would suspect the family.

No, suspect I get. I guess where I'm headed is by the time. you're trying to prosecute a case. Are you at that point trying to make the evidence that exists fit the puzzle when the pieces won't fit? But you're trying anyway. I mean, that's kind of the sense that I got with this trial. And it was a long trial.

Ending on May 1st, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Richard Neville, then entered a directed verdict regarding Cynthia's charges not getting. guilty. A directed verdict is entered by a judge when they find that there is not enough evidence legally to believe that a reasonable jury should be able to find the person guilty. Cynthia was free to go home. But this was not the case for David. Due to eyewitness Everett Mann's identification, the jury deliberated for 14 hours. And despite all of the evidence and testimony, not seeming to connect to David on May 3rd, they returned a verdict, finding him guilty. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murder of Jacqueline and an additional

five years to be served after the 40 for attempting to conceal the murder. One juror would later admit that her decision was influenced by photos of the inside of the home, showing holes in some of the closet doors. To her, it had only proven that David had a bad temper. It would later be revealed that these marks were there before Cynthia and Jacqueline ever moved in. They had been there due to roughhousing when David himself was a child. On October 30th, 1991, David's conviction was reversed unanimously by the Illinois Appellate Court and didn't allow the possibility of another trial in the future.

They found that Judge Neville had made an error by not also entering a directed verdict for David. But David DeWallaby wasn't in the clear just yet, because Cook County State's attorney, Jack O'Malley, planned to appeal this decision. He's still intended to convict David DeWallaby. On November 11th, 1991, the Supreme Court set a bond and David was able to walk out of prison, though not technically a free man, the threat of being re-arrested, loomed until February 5th, 1992, when the Supreme Court rejected attorney O'Malley's appeal, confirming that the smoking gun at trial had basically been a vague identification of a profile view of a nose and not. a positive identification of David DeWalbby himself.

One reporter named Paul Hogan, who had written dozens of articles about the DeWalibi case, later told the Chicago Tribune, I feel guilty about my early coverage. During the trial, he realized that he felt terribly misled by police in the information they revealed to the media and to the public. In his mind, police had painted a picture of a clear case of guilt, focusing in, on the DeWalbis. And I thought this was a very interesting statement by Paul Hogan. I mean, what do reporters have to go on?

The information that, you know, the police put out. So, you know, if they're painting the evidence as more damning than it really is, well, the coverage is going to be skewed that way, right? I mean, there's no other way around it. And then it later comes out at trial that, well, it's, It's not as damning as they made it out to be. And I think, you know, when you look at the jury, did they get it wrong? I'd have to say yes because, you know, a high court later said the same thing.

But it's not easy to sit on a jury, you know, to wade through a lot of the, I'll call it scientific type stuff, even though I'm not sure it was all that scientific, some of it in the 1980s. but when the prosecutors are telling you that it is, it seems that more often than not, juries buy into it. They tend to believe what that side is saying. It means. Yeah, there's no doubt they painted a very clear picture right from the beginning in the press

and with the jury of what happened. But at the end of the day, officials saw through that and determined and there just wasn't enough there to convict this couple. So David, like Cynthia, was now free, but the cloud of suspicion and innuendo hung over all the members of the Duolabe family. Judge David Serta wrote of the decision to free David, Opportunity alone is not sufficient to sustain a conviction,

unless the state can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that no one else had the opportunity to commit the crime. noting that Anna and Cynthia had just as much opportunity as David had. In short, it seemed that the judge was saying that anyone in the DeWalibi house could have murdered Jacqueline. Some people still thought that Jacqueline was murdered in her own home at the hands of people that were supposed to protect her. But most people who knew the DeWolabies never thought for a moment that they would have killed Jacqueline. While some people pointed fingers at the DeWalbis, other people rallied around them. And I want to talk for a minute about that cloud of suspicion.

You go on trial. And in David's case, he's convicted. It's later overturned. But I think to a lot of people, once you're convicted, that cloud hangs over you, regardless of what, you know, a higher court later comes back and says, I'm sure there were still a lot of people who would see him around town, saw him walking down the street and thought, to himself, he's a murderer, and they let him go.

Yeah, I think it's almost like the newspapers, they print an error on page one, and then the very pack of the newspaper, when they have to retract it, there's a small one-sentence retraction that nobody reads. So by then, even though they're retracting it, it's too late. That headlines already out there. You can't undo that, and I think the same thing applies here in this case, although this couple was found innocent ultimately, in some people's minds, there was still a lot of suspicion on them. Jacqueline's murder was now officially back to being unsolved again.

In July 1992, an episode of Unsolved Mysteries aired featuring Jacqueline's murder. It resulted in a tip. The tip said that a man named Timothy Guess, Jacqueline's biological uncle, should be looked at for her murder, but investigators had already looked into Timothy Guess. His girlfriend claimed she had been with him all night while he worked. worked in a restaurant in Harvey, Illinois, about five miles from the DeWalbby home. And other witnesses backed that claim up. That was the end of their investigation into him. In early 1993, however, it was reported that two of the witnesses who were involved in

Timothy Guess's alibi had recanted their stories. They originally had backed up his account of being at the restaurant and Harvey working all night, the night that Jacqueline was murdered, telling the FBI that they saw him there, but now they wanted to tell the truth. They told the authorities that they thought the Diwali's had been guilty and didn't want to give up anything that might help them get away with murder, so they lied. An additional four witnesses, customers at the restaurant that night confirmed that they had not seen Timothy guess there, despite his claim that he was working from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

and more of I think this plays right into what we were talking about earlier. The police came out and said that they were guilty. They said the evidence would back it up. Reporters latched on to it. They wrote stories about it. So you have all of these people reading these news stories. And what it does is it kind of cements in their mind that the doolobies are guilty before they even go to trial.

And in this case, it resulted in people, you know, not wanting them to get, you know, off the charges. So they lied about a person's alibi. Yeah, that's a frightening thought that you can be on trial for your life and your freedom. And people are so swayed by the story that's been laid out that they're lying about potential suspects in the case. reportedly Timothy was able to give an accurate description of the interior of the Duolby home, despite never having been inside, and he claimed what he called the Spirit had given him this information. He was even able to describe which lights had been on inside the home, the closet light in Jacqueline's bedroom. More troubling details about Timothy emerged. He was known to frequent

the islander apartments in Blue Island, where Jacqueline's body was found, often driving a coworker home and dropping her off there. He was also said, to know that only one of Jacqueline's hands were clenched into a fist when she was found. So I think on the surface, it seems like Timothy could be a strong suspect, but he also has a history of mental illness, making a lot of what he says unreliable in a NWI news article. One of his co-workers, Sheila, recalled Timothy talking about the spirit. She said that Timothy was a little wacko, but that she didn't think much of it, adding, we're like best friends. He's friendly, nice, always smiling. He's in here all the time. He buses tables when the waitresses get busy.

He plays the game machines and drinks iced tea. If he's not here, he's a Denny's. Timothy can't hurt nobody, Sheila said. She recalled that even when she was in a vulnerable situation with him, he never hurt her. We went out drinking together a lot. He never took advantage of me even when I was so drunk out of my mind. She added, he can't abuse no woman or little girl. Andy Criticos, the son of the owner of the restaurant Timothy claimed to be at all night, summed it up saying, it's easy to take advantage of someone who's mentally ill. So I mean, I think you have to look at Timothy based on the fact that obviously he has ties to the family. And if some of what has been reported is correct,

it casts him in a pretty bad light. But then you have this history of mental illness. And, you know, him talking about the spirit. And you just wonder how reliable the information that he's given over the years is because it may not be at all. And many people that knew him said, that he wasn't capable of it. Now, I don't make a lot of that because you hear that all the time about really bad killers. People are shocked because they were so nice and helpful. They were great

neighbors. But, I mean, we have to talk about him because of his obvious times. Yeah, and if he knew some of the things that he's alleged to have known, that's pretty powerful. But at the same time, we've also seen the police nudge, so to speak, witnesses in a certain direction by example showing them larger photos of the suspect they wanted them to pick out. So you can make the argument that possibly the police planted some of these tidbits of information that Timothy supposedly had in his mind. Maybe they led him to some extent. So interesting information, but no way to know if he actually knew this stuff. Another person of interest was mentioned early on by lawyers for the to wallabies, but authorities claim the cases weren't related. At their joint trial, a seven-year-old

girl from Blue Island, where Jacqueline's body was found, testified that on September 2, 1989, she had been kidnapped by a former neighbor. The neighbor, Perry Hernandez, had taken her from her bed, while everyone else in her home, her parents and her four siblings, were asleep. Hernandez carried her still in her nightgown to an area under a railroad bridge near a canal and sexually assaulted her there. This bridge was just one mile from the field where Jacqueline's body was found. At dawn, Hernandez led her walk home, and she told her parents what happened. Both her parents and the police were initially dismissive of her report, but believed her. After they found that a screen had been removed from the kitchen window, which was open,

there were tomatoes and random silverware items on the kitchen floor, and the electricity to the home had been cut from inside the basement. The electricity had been on the night before, and her mother had left tomatoes on the kitchen window sill and silverware next to the sink. It appeared that someone had knocked them all down when crawling through the window. A pair of the girl's underwear was found underneath the railroad bridge, and a pack of cigarettes had been left on top. of a laundry hamper on the basement stairs. Hernandez confessed to kidnapping and assaulting this girl, but denied any involvement in Jacqueline's murder. Due to the sloppy job he did in that case, investigators didn't believe he could have pulled off taking Jacqueline from the Diwali home while leaving such little evidence behind. Gerald Ballman, an inmate who had

been housed with Hernandez, believes that Hernandez was responsible for Jacqueline's death. When Balman once heard a member of the Latin Kings asked Hernandez if he did what he was accused of. Hernandez explained, I tried to break into a window, but was making too much noise, so I went around the house and went inside through an open door. According to the Chicago reader, Balman also overheard Hernandez's quip, I hope what I told the cops about me being with a girl that night sticks up. The jury for the DeWalby's trial didn't hear about the two incidents involving Hernandez.

The first happened just one day before Jacqueline was abducted. and killed. A woman living near the DeWalbys had chased an intruder away from her house. Her young daughter was safe, but she had been wrapped in a blanket. Hernandez pleaded guilty to the assault of the little girl from Blue Island and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. And it seems to me that, you know, Hernandez has to be looked at pretty strongly based on what he was convicted of doing, the proximity of where, you know, this assault occurred to where Jacqueline's body was ultimately found and the way that he took this girl out of the home while her family was sleeping. You know, all of it closely, uh, resembles what happened to

Jacqueline de Wallaby, but it, but it really only does that. I mean, as far as I know, there's no evidence tying him or linking him other than a similar crime around the same time frame and around the same area. It's damning, but obviously they don't have enough to try this guy or put him away. Yeah, it is compelling the fact that he did all this stuff that was so similar, and you would hope that there would be some kind of evidence to prove one way or another whether he could be the right person, but definitely interesting as far as a potential person of interest. You know, and we talk about some of these people as potential suspects, and rightfully so, based on, you know, the information that we've just given,

but I wouldn't want, you know, the same thing to happen to them, that happened to the De Wallopies. I don't want people to go on trial because it seems as though they might have done it. You know, I don't think that's how the system should work. Yeah, and even in this Hernandez guy's case, it's clear that he's a scumbag from what he did, but at the same time, if you're going to arrest someone and hold them accountable in Jacqueline's murder, you want the right person there, not just somebody else, some other scumbag. You want the right scumbag to be held accountable. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you.

Now, one argument against Hernandez or gas as being the killer is that the killer seemed to know what room Jacqueline was in. No one else in the home had been awakened by someone opening the door and looking around. So it's thought that the killer made a beeline to Jacqueline's room. Now, some would argue that the layouts of most homes are predictable with larger bedrooms, usually being where the parents sleep and smaller ones being where the kids are. So it's not an absolute certainty that the killer knew where to find Jacqueline. In the end, though, the question remains, who took Jacqueline de Wallaby from her home and killed her? And is there any possibility that we will learn the truth one day?

In 1996, a made-for-television movie called Gone in the Night was released, starring Shannon Doherty as Cynthia Diwali, and Kevin Dillon as David Diwali. The movie focuses on the ordeal that the DeWalabi family endured, in both losing Jacqueline, in such a horrible way, and then later on being accused of her murder and facing imprisonment. As of 2016, Cynthia and David DeWalby were living about 40 miles from their former home, and after so much turmoil and pay. pain surrounding this case and all that they endure. They changed their last name to try and find some refuge from the accusations and innuendos that had been directed at them. But even their choice to find some peace in changing their last name came under fire. Some people thought, surely a couple who truly wanted to find who was responsible for the murder of their daughter would stay close to home and make sure to keep their names visible in case someone wanted to contact them with

information. But it seems clear that rather than get tips and leads coming their way, the Dwalobies only got harassment, which is why they took the drastic step of moving and changing their names. Perhaps one day if this case is solved, they will once and for all be vindicated and finally receive justice. You know, and I think this is something that you see in a lot of cases. You know, people make decisions and they make decisions based on what they believe is best for them at the time, but there's always going to be, you know, a segment of the population who analyzes that decision and makes something out of it, saying that, you know, it further cements their belief that, you know, these people are guilty or, or something like that. I mean, I'm just thinking about

these people receiving harassing phone calls, you know, at some point, maybe just say enough is enough. We got to get out of here. they didn't move that far away, 40 miles, but let's move to another town, change your name. Maybe people will stop harassing us. It's not as though if someone had a tip, they would have no place to go with it, right? They could still go to the authorities with it, even if they couldn't find Cynthia or date. Yeah, it's hard to blame them for wanting to have some anonymity, maybe not have the finger pointed at them people whispering every time they went into a market to do shopping or whatever.

So I can't fault them for that. But really, my takeaway is just, it's so scary to think that without any real physical evidence that tied them to the crime, that they were on the brink of being in prison for this murder. And at the end of the day, there was just nothing there to connect them to it other than being in the same house. with Jacqueline. And unfortunately, we're finding out all too often that, you know, this has happened a lot more than we thought throughout the years, you know, with the advancements in science, people

are being exonerated, a lot of people. And when you look back at their cases, you know, you see a lot of the same type of stuff, right? these hairs were microscopically similar. Well, when later tested using DNA, they weren't similar at all, not even close. So, you know, some of it's science. I think some of it is prosecutors pushing too hard on a case when it's not there. I do believe that happens sometimes. And maybe, you know, they have good intentions.

They believe they're guilty. But like I said earlier, they're trying to make the pieces of the puzzle fit when they won't. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. And you know the piece doesn't fit, but you smash it down. So it kind of looks like it does. Hopefully there's enough evidence that one day this puzzle can be solved. We don't know the extent of the evidence that they collected that they still have,

whether it's been preserved properly. But it seems that there's a good possibility that there may be. maybe some DNA from the killer here on some of the materials that were collected that can one day through genealogy like we've seen so many times point to the right person that did this and finally bring this family justice but no doubt this is a case that not just us but a lot of people would like to see saw probably nobody more than Cynthia and david doolaby or whatever their last name is now. But that's it for our episode on Jacqueline DeWallaby. If you love the show, and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating, you can leave a review,

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but Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike, and Morf. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.