Greenwood Police investigators used metal detectors to search the field where human remains were found 30 years ago. Daily Journal archive photo
A family has answers 30 years after a mysterious death in Greenwood.
Human remains that were found in 1993 near Interstate 65 on land that is now Otte Golf Course have been positively identified. The remains, now known to be Michael Benjamin Davis, born in Richland, South Carolina, were Johnson County’s only known unidentified set of remains, according to the coroner’s office.
Davis’ family will join local officials for a press conference Thursday at 10 a.m. They will then be able to finally claim his remains after all these years. Family members reported losing track of the individual in the late 1980s, according to the coroner’s office.
Johnson County Coroner Mike Pruitt worked in partnership with Greenwood Police, the University of Indianapolis and Othram Forensic DNA Testing Laboratory to identify the remains. The Multiple DNA kits used in the case were funded by Crime Junkie Podcast founder and CEO Ashley Flowers, according to the coroner’s office.
The case remained cold with no leads until Pruitt’s office decided to revisit it using updated DNA and genealogy procedures, he said in a media advisory on the upcoming press conference. After months of emails, phone calls, and assistance from other law enforcement agencies across the U.S. and Canada, the coroner’s office was able to locate potential family members, Pruitt said.
The field was narrowed with positive DNA results and genealogy tracking located immediate family members. After nearly six months, an identification has been confirmed and officials are ready to go public with the story. However, the case isn’t fully closed, Pruitt said.
The case has long been a suspected homicide, but the cause and manner of death remain undetermined unless more information is discovered following the press conference, he said.
About the case
Children who were playing in the cornfield first found bones in early 1993 but believed they were from an animal. However, when the children found more bones in April of that year, neighbors reported it to the police and an investigation was launched, according to Daily Journal archives.
Some of Davis’ remains were found in a shallow grave in the cornfield about 300 feet from I-65. More bones were found scattered around the field as investigators searched the area, archive reports say.
Police initially thought the remains might be from a forgotten cemetery. However, an examination by experts from the University of Indianapolis and Indiana University at the time showed the bones had been decomposing for about two years, based on weathering, archive reports say.
Greenwood Police publicized the discovery with Crimestoppers and put information on an FBI unsolved crime database. Though they received many tips and interviewed 15 to 20 possible suspects, the case has remained unsolved, according to an archive story reported one year after the remains were discovered.
Police said the biggest obstacles to solving the case had been the two-year gap between death and the recovery of the bones, and the fact that a person fitting the description that experts developed of the remains had not been reported missing.
The description developed was an 18- to 21-year-old white woman, who was just over 5 feet tall, archive reports say.
