IA IA - Dennis Clougherty, 23, Cedar Falls, 12 August 1974

[Betty P]

Thank you! I’ve never seen this one before..interesting.

Could you see the whole article? I subscribe to Newspapers.com for genealogy research, but am trying to find a way to post copies of old news articles here at WS for the old cases.

 

[SpeckledCactys]

Could you see the whole article? I subscribe to Newspapers.com for genealogy research, but am trying to find a way to post copies of old news articles here at WS for the old cases.

The bottom was cut off a bit, but otherwise it was fine.

 

[Betty P]

The bottom was cut off a bit, but otherwise it was fine.

Great! The view I had just showed the middle section of the article. I'm new at Instagram, so am bumbling around. I have to take off for a bit, but will try to find some more articles.

 

[SpeckledCactys]

Alrighty, I’m going to try and find DC’s cross on street view so we can pinpoint the exact location.

 

[theshadow45]

Is there anyway you could send me all the information you have gathered so I have a good starting point?

Welcome to Websleuths, Chaos4574 :wagon:!

 

[theshadow45]

Speaking of details...It seems awfully curious that the interior of the vehicle could be described considering you'd need to be pretty close to view the color so the vague descriptors of the men is odd. I wonder if the witness who saw them is still alive or if maybe there is more in the files that was withheld at the time.

(Original post by HamSandwich respectfully shortened by me.) That is odd, that the witness could describe the interior of the car but could not describe the men in the car. Either the encounter was quite brief and they couldn't have known the significance of what they were seeing at the time or they may have actually known more than they were letting on.

 

[SpeckledCactys]

I so wish I wasn’t shy as I would contact the Cedar Falls Police.

 

[teedie2]

A long time ago, but, sadly, another achiever bit the dust .. at the hands of a couple of people who probably never amounted to anything in their whole lives. Again, someone who had something to offer the world, and they were denied the opportunity. Guess that's been happening since the beginning of time, but I am a bit raw right now over the sad case of Blaze Bernstein.

No disrespect meant by the expression "bit the dust" .. I get so danged mad hearing about any talented, productive person being murdered for no good reason at all.

Thank you for bringing Dennis to WS.

 

[teedie2]

Plus, why doesn't LE release all the information about his case before everyone who might remember something that would help is dead?

 

[Tulessa]

Yes, stating the color of the car's interior is throwing me off. How could they possibly know that?

 

[Elainera]

It really baffles me as to the lack of any evidence? Like, you would think there would be something.

There should at the very least have been fingerprints collected from Dennis' belongings? I'm sure LE has repeatedly run them through their databases - and apparently never got a hit. If so, this would kind of refute the theory that these men were of the habitual criminal type. (OTOH they did have a small handgun with them.) But it could also be that fingerprints collected were too smudged. :thinking:

 

[Elainera]

(Original post by HamSandwich respectfully shortened by me.) That is odd, that the witness could describe the interior of the car but could not describe the men in the car. Either the encounter was quite brief and they couldn't have known the significance of what they were seeing at the time or they may have actually known more than they were letting on.

bbm - If that was the case, and they wanted to protect the two men, why would they then even give the car description to LE? They could just have said they saw nothing.

I think either the encounter was really very fleeting and maybe the men were both sitting in the front of the car and the interior was only spotted when Dennis opened the rear door, or LE is holding back details of the men, which would baffle me since so much time has passed. I think the latter, because if you can determine the gender and approximate age of a person you would likely also be able to tell their hair color or skin color.

 

[Elainera]

A few more question I have after reading the articles posted above:

Around 10:30 p.m., two men — both in their early 20s and driving a brownish/gold 1962-1964 Chevrolet with a beige interior — picked up Clougherty at the Kentucky Fried Chicken on Broadway Street.

What kind of car is this? Was it an affordable model for young men? What kind of demographic would drive such a car?


Clougherty was never seen alive again and died about 30 to 45 minutes later along Union Road.

How was it determined that he died so quickly after being picked up? Simply because of the proximity of where his body was found to the pick up location? I don't think an autopsy would be able to provide such an exact time frame? Or did someone hear the shots?


A passing motorist discovered the body early the following morning about 100 yards off U.S. Route 20 in Black Hawk County.
Twenty minutes later, some of Clougherty’s personal belongings were located approximately five miles south on Viking Road, including the college student’s backpack, motorcycle helmet and clothes bag.

Assuming they dumped his body first and later his belongings, can someone make a map showing both these locations plus where he was picked up? We know that this is the direction they traveled and if we assume they continued along this path, where would they likely have gone? Which larger city lies ahead? I would think they would have wanted to disappear and get rid of the car. If they drove all night (say from about midnight to dawn, approximately 5 hours?) and then dumped the car, how far would they have gotten?

Sadly after all this time it is highly unlikely anybody would remember anything about the men (unless something really stood out like a limp or something else along those lines), but maybe about the car? If they shot him inside of it there might have been blood stains that someone noticed and still remembers? Used car dealerships? Was a burnt out car found?

Someone must be remembering a family member or friend who had such a car - and then suddenly not anymore! Surely more than one person would notice the sudden absence of the car. This makes me think, maybe they did not live close to Cedar Falls so nobody ever made the connection?

 

[Ozoner]

Yes, stating the color of the car's interior is throwing me off. How could they possibly know that?

It was August. If someone saw the car parked or pulled up to the curb with the windows down, it would be fairly easy to tell the color of the interior provided thete was some light (from a streetlight, for instance).What I wonder about is the reported finding that Dennis died 30-45 minutes after being picked up. According to a previous post, he was found 12 kilometers (or about 7 miles) away from where he was picked up. It doesn't take 30-45 minutes to drive 7 miles. Did it take him half an hour to die after he'd been shot? Or did the men take him somewhere off the highway before killing him?

One killer who comes to mind is William Bonin, who killed young men in California with four different accomplices in 1979-1980. He admitted to sexually assaulting two fellow soldiers in Vietnam at gunpoint in the late 60's. What are the odds that he really went more than a decade before advancing to murder? I don't know anything about his whereabouts in '74.

Even if Bonin wasn't involved, the murderer could have been someone like him, which would mean the crime was sexually motivated. In 1974, would LE have thought to check a clothed male victim for signs of sexual assault? Even if he wasn't sexually assaulted, he may have been killed for refusing someone's pass. (Can it be confirmed that Dennis was a heterosexual? Making a pass at a homophobic male could easily lead to murder.)

The unfortunate possibility exists that Dennis was murdered for kicks--for a lark, like Loeb and Leopold's young victim.

 

[SpeckledCactys]

Assuming they dumped his body first and later his belongings, can someone make a map showing both these locations plus where he was picked up?

Here’s a simple map, the heart is the KFC on Broadway, the green flag is where DC’s body was found and the pin is where is belongings were found.

To me it seems like it was deliberately scoped out, I think these men were of-area.

 

[Ozoner]

Here’s a simple map, the heart is the KFC on Broadway, the green flag is where DC’s body was found and the pin is where is belongings were found.

To me it seems like it was deliberately scoped out, I think these men were of-area.

It could be. I don't know how developed the areas in question were back in 1974. If two people passing through town had killed Dennis, it seems like taking him to a more remote area outside of town would have been the easier move.

It's fair to assume they didn't know Dennis beforehand: they didn't conceal his body, and he was from out of town.

 

[theshadow45]

bbm - If that was the case, and they wanted to protect the two men, why would they then even give the car description to LE? They could just have said they saw nothing.

I think either the encounter was really very fleeting and maybe the men were both sitting in the front of the car and the interior was only spotted when Dennis opened the rear door, or LE is holding back details of the men, which would baffle me since so much time has passed. I think the latter, because if you can determine the gender and approximate age of a person you would likely also be able to tell their hair color or skin color.

I wasn't so much thinking that the witness lied to protect the two men, more along the lines of this person may have made up the story about the car; possibly to deflect suspicion from themselves if they were involved. That may explain why no leads about the men in the car ever panned out. I wonder if this person was the only one who claimed to have seen the car. If others did too that may make it less likely to be just a story. Another thing I'm wondering about is the ballistic analysis of the bullets that killed Dennis; We know he was shot multiple times, but were the bullets all the same caliber/fired from the same gun? If not it's more likely there was more than one shooter, but if they were it would sound like one perpetrator.

 

[CKN]

Robert was not a motive as his wallet had 80.00 in it and his backpack was also left untouched. Thrill kill.

 

[spoonball32]

I live in this area and drive by the location where DC was found as well as where the belongings were found on my way home from work. This is my attempt at a map. ( Not sure how it's going to show as I am new to this)

The red circle is the location where the KFC was at 200 Broadway in Waterloo.
The blue circle indicates where DC was found.
The black circle where the belongings were found.

At the bottom of the map you see US Highway 20. It was relocated there in the mid to late 80's. At the time of the murder in 1974, US 20 ran from the KFC to the body location along what is now known as IA Hwy 57. It was the main east-west route through the upper half of the state. Anyone travelling through the state would have used that route. DC traveled from Dubuque to Independence to Waterloo along US 20.

At the location the body was found none of the housing you see was there at the time of the murder. The only thing that was there was the farm acreage on the SE corner of Union and IA57(Old 20) and the house on the NW corner of same.

Pretty much all of the housing you see on the route between the body and the belongings was not there at the time of the crime. It was all farmland with maybe 2-3 acreages along the way. As far as I know, none of the houses along Viking were there either.

Pure speculation follows:
It is possible that the killer(s) were travelling west through the state and offered up a ride at the KFC. Whether or not DC was shot in the car or at the location of the body is unknown. It's possible that the killers just pulled off US20 onto Union Road to either commit the murder or get rid of the body. It would have been the first road they came to after leaving the Cedar Falls city limits. They could have then continued travelling south on Union to put some distance between them and the scene. Could have been going through belongings looking for something of value then discarded on Viking Road when finished.

Again, pure speculation.

Blue X- Location of body. None of the houses to the east were there in 1974. It was farmland.

Approximate location belongings were found along Viking Road. As far as I know, none of the houses on the north side of Viking Road were there in 1974.

 

[Elainera]

I wasn't so much thinking that the witness lied to protect the two men, more along the lines of this person may have made up the story about the car; possibly to deflect suspicion from themselves if they were involved. That may explain why no leads about the men in the car ever panned out. I wonder if this person was the only one who claimed to have seen the car. If others did too that may make it less likely to be just a story. Another thing I'm wondering about is the ballistic analysis of the bullets that killed Dennis; We know he was shot multiple times, but were the bullets all the same caliber/fired from the same gun? If not it's more likely there was more than one shooter, but if they were it would sound like one perpetrator.

bbm Good point and certainly a possibility if they were the only ones who claimed to have seen this car.