Davis’ body was dumped Aug. 10, 1987, on a grassy slope next to the Hoke Road entrance ramp to Interstate 70 in Englewood. An autopsy listed she died of strangulation. There was no identification on the body. Police spent the intervening years chasing down tips until last October when Clack contacted Englewood police Sgt. Mike Lang. The body, she told Lang, was her sister, and Clack was able to describe the body’s distinctive tattoos.
A public service announcement for NamUs, a database of missing and unidentified persons, at the end of the television drama “The Forgotten” caught the eye of the family in Kansas City, and Clack went on line, discovering the Englewood Jane Doe.
In February, the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab formally established the body’s identification through DNA testing.
“All the evidence points to that she was not killed here,” Lang said Wednesday.
Davis was 21 at the time of her homicide. With a name, police were able to backtrack Davis’ last days. Lang flew to Florida to interview Davis’ best friend and roommate, who last saw Davis working a truck stop outside of Kansas City. The friend told Lang that she and Davis were working as prostitutes and using the money for drugs.
The identification of her sister and pending exhumation have brought some closure for Clack.
“Our mom died in 2005. She went to the grave not knowing what happen to her daughter,” she earlier said.
Davis’ final journey will be from a potter’s grave in Westmont Cemetery to a marked one next to her mother.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2290 or dpage@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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