Victim of Des Moines homicide identified after 33 years

Charly Haley | The Des Moines Register

A man found dead in 1984 on a trail in east Des Moines has been identified, the Polk County Medical Examiner's Office said Friday.

Advances in technology and continued investigation by local and national authorities led to the identification of John Clifton Downey, 39, the medical examiner's office announced in a news release on Friday.

Authorities have notified Downey's relatives, who do not live in Iowa, according to the news release. His death remains under investigation by Des Moines police. The case was labeled a homicide when Downey was found dead in 1984.

Downey's body was mostly decomposed when he was found on Feb. 28, 1984, beneath some brush along a trail near East 24th Street and Scott Avenue in Des Moines, authorities said.

An autopsy revealed injuries to his body. Despite distinctive clothing, surgical intervention and unusual tattoos on the man's body, the Polk County Medical Examiner's Office could not identify Downey in 1984.

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The case was entered into the national unidentified persons database, NamUS, in 2008, and local authorities continued updating that information over the years, including Des Moines police providing a thumbprint from the victim's body, the medical examiner's office said.

In 2009, the Polk County Medical Examiner's Office renewed its efforts to identify Downey's body by compiling as many old records as it could, but investigation into multiple leads resulted in no answers, authorities said.

In 2014, the FBI national database for fingerprints underwent an extensive upgrade, improving the system's capabilities. In February this year, NamUS provided more than 1,500 fingerprint cards to the FBI to be examined by this upgraded system, according to the news release.

The Polk County Medical Examiner's Office received a call on June 1 from an FBI lab in Virginia, saying that the unidentified homicide victim's thumbprint had matched Downey, according to the news release.

The homicide remains under investigation by Des Moines police.

A Des Moines Register news article from March 1, 1984, shows the body was found "in a shallow grave," covered with branches, twigs and vines, but with a skull protruding from the dirt. At that time, Dr. Thomas Bennett, state medical examiner, told The Register that the man had died of a "blunt traumatic chest injury." It was believed the man had been killed six to ten months prior to his body being found.

Des Moines police publicly released sketches of unusual tattoos that covered much of the then-unidentified homicide victim's body, according to a March 2, 1984, Register article. Police had hoped someone who recognized the tattoos would come forward to identify the victim.

After Downey's name was publicly announced Friday, Des Moines police spokesman Sgt. Paul Parizek said, "This is a great, fresh lead. ... (Police investigators) can now start looking to those people who were close to him for new information. The hope would be that we could start down a path that would lead to a suspect.

"This case highlights the advancements in investigative technologies, the initiative of the Polk County Medical Examiner's Office and the benefits of the cooperative efforts of local, county and federal agencies," he said.

Register reporter MacKenzie Elmer contributed to this report.