October 16, 1987. Indiana, Pennsylvania. Jack Davis Jr., a 20-year-old sophomore at Indiana

University of Pennsylvania, spends the night partying and drinking with members of his fraternity,

but never returns to his apartment. Five days later, Jack's body is found at the bottom of an

exterior stairwell on campus, and the county corner concludes that he passed out there while

intoxicated and choked to death on his own vomit. However, there are a number of discrepancies,

which make Jack's family suspect his body was placed in that stairwell after he died,

and the investigation is eventually reopened. When Jack's body is exhumed,

a number of unexplained fractures are discovered on his skull, but the actual circumstances of how

Jack died remain unclear. After that, the trail went cold.

Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail Went Cold.

I'm your host, Robin Warder, and today we're going to be kicking off 2021 by exploring an odd

case involving a university student, the unexplained 1987 death of Jack Davis Jr. This case was

featured on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, and ever since the inception of this podcast,

I've received numerous requests to cover it. Jack Davis Jr. was a sophomore at Indiana University

of Pennsylvania, who went missing after spending the night partying and drinking. When Jack's body

was discovered at the bottom of a university stairwell five days later, his death was initially

ruled to be a tragic accident and that he choked to death on his own vomit. However, there were a

number of troubling questions, as it seemed unlikely Jack's body could have remained at the bottom

of the stairwell on a busy campus for that length of time without anyone noticing him. The case

eventually captured the attention of noted forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht, and after Jack's

body was exhumed, he came to the conclusion that Jack was likely alive for a couple days after

he originally went missing, and that his death was actually the result of a brain hemorrhage

...