Roger H. Warren
Homicide
Roger Herbert Warren
12 YOA
Found in Mississippi River
Davenport, IA
Scott County
Went Missing: Sunday, August 19, 1979
Body Found: Saturday, August 25, 1979
Case Summary compiled by Jody Ewing
Twelve-year-old Roger Warren — the son of Herbert and Joyce Warren of Davenport — disappeared on Sunday, August 19, 1979, near the Crescent Bridge in the city’s Division Street and West River Drive area. Six days later on Saturday afternoon, August 25, officials recovered his body from the Mississippi River about a mile downstream from the bridge where he’d last been seen playing with his younger brother.
Cause of death was listed as strangulation.
(...)
Officials were able to piece together Roger’s last moments based on information provided by Roger’s 7-year-old brother, Gary.
Gary Warren told police the two had been playing near the bridge late Sunday afternoon when a man in a blue shirt approached them and offered to buy Roger a 10-speed bicycle and take him to a baseball game.
Gary Warren described the man as wearing blue jeans, having black hair and missing several front teeth, and being in his mid- to late 20s. Gary told authorities that both his brother and the man told him to go home, and that he’d last seen his brother walking across the bridge with the man. It was only after they’d gone that Gary Warren went home.
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