DNA identifies Ohio man found dead in Iowa hay barn after 40 years

DNA testing identified the man Vernon Allen found wedged between hay bales in his Winneshiek County barn on March 23, 1986, as Clifton Womack. Vernon Allen first noticed a pink blanket, then a shoe, and then the body, which was trapped between two bales that weighed about 1,500 pounds each and had not been moved since the previous summer. The man was found wearing dark, layered clothing, including brown suede shoes, blue corduroy pants, a V-neck shirt, a heavy flannel jacket and a blue windbreaker.

At the time, investigators had no DNA sample to work with. The skull was sent to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for a clay facial reconstruction, and the remains were later buried at Freeport Cemetery near Decorah as an unidentified male. The case stayed cold for decades, even as deputies kept comparing old leads, records and missing-person files.

Deputy Cole Tweten, who joined the Winneshiek County Sheriff’s Office in 2022, pushed for the grave to be opened. In April 2026, he secured the funding, permits and legal authorization needed to exhume the remains, with the Elizabeth Collins Foundation covering the exhumation and DNA testing. The body was taken to the Iowa DCI Crime Lab, where examiners collected material for testing.

On June 11, medical examiners used NamUs to compare dental X-rays with missing-person records and found a match to Clifton Womack, who had vanished from Eastlake, Ohio, in 1985. DNA analysis and forensic genealogy supported the match, and a sibling DNA sample submitted to NamUs helped confirm it. Womack was 28 when he disappeared, after telling his parents he was going out to look for a job. Family members said he lived with schizophrenia and relied on medication.

Investigators had one old clue from the start. At 12:45 a.m. on April 9, 1985, a neighbor told deputies a hitchhiker from Ohio had asked for directions to Highway 44 South and said he was trying to get to California. Deputies responded but never found anyone. Womack’s family later believed he may have been hitchhiking back toward California, where they had lived previously.

The sheriff’s office notified Womack’s siblings on June 18, 2026. Sheriff Dan Marx said the case remains undetermined, with no evidence of criminal activity and no established cause or manner of death.