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Cold Case: Cedar Rapids man killed in 1983 while his toddler twins were alone upstairs
‘I wish I could remember that day,’ his daughter, now 42, says
Mar. 17, 2024 5:00 am, Updated: Mar. 18, 2024 7:47 am
This is the third installment in an occasional series about cold case investigations in Cedar Rapids and Linn County.
It must have been an alarming sight when Harlon and Betty Chaffee opened the door to their son’s home and found his 18-month-old twins alone in the house. Dry cereal was dumped on the floor. Rumpled sleeping bags were lying between the living room and kitchen.
Harlon Chaffee immediately started walking through the home in southeast Cedar Rapids, looking for his 33-year-old son, Dennis Wayne Chaffee. He found him in the basement, lying at the bottom of the stairs. He had been shot three times, once in the arm and twice in the head.
Dennis Chaffee’s twins, Maria and Adam Chaffee, were unharmed. Their grandparents quickly scooped them up and went to a neighbor’s house to call police.
It was a Monday evening, July 18, 1983. No one was ever charged in the slaying, though the case remains open and was re-examined by the Cedar Rapids police Cold Case Unit a few years ago.
No memories of dad
Maria Chaffee of North Liberty, and her twin brother, Adam Chaffee, of Hiawatha, now 42, have no real memories of their father or the day when he was killed.
They only know what their mother, Mary Hernandez Snell, and other relatives have told them about their dad.
“Everybody says he was a sweet, calm, nice guy who was a hard worker,” Maria Chaffee told The Gazette during an interview. “Some say he was a loner but I don’t know if that was true because others said he always had friends around, hanging out on the front porch.”
Adam Chaffee, who has four children and two stepchildren, said he thinks about how his life might have been different if his dad had been around.
“Everybody says I’m a lot like him,” he said. “He liked to learn about things. I’m like him in that way. I’m older now than he lived to be and have a 2-year-old daughter, just a little older than we were back then. I can’t imagine.”
The twins’ parents were in a relationship but never married, and they broke up sometime after the twins were born. Maria and Adam were spending the weekend with their dad when he was killed.
“I wish I could remember that day,” Maria, now a parent of three, said. “I’ve always thought it would have be easier with him. We struggled. We lived with others. It was hard for our mom.”
Maria and Adam said their mom, who remarried after 1989, made sure the children had a relationship with their paternal grandparents and other relatives.
Adam said their mother didn’t have much of a relationship with their dad’s parents. “I don’t think they got along,” Adam said.
Their dad’s unsolved murder still is difficult for Adam and Maria, who also lost their mother in 2009 when she died after complications from a liver transplant.
What happened in 1983
Cedar Rapids police Investigator Matt Denlinger said the twins’ mother, Mary Hernandez, dropped them off at Chaffee’s home, 914 28th St. SE, between 5 and 6 p.m. Saturday, July 16, where they were to spend the weekend.
On July 18, a Monday, Hernandez called Harlon and Betty Chaffee between 7 and 8 p.m., saying she couldn’t pick up the twins because she had car trouble, Denlinger said.
She told the Chaffees she couldn’t reach Dennis on the phone. She was worried and asked his parents to check on him.
Denlinger said officers found no one else in the house, which had no signs of forced entry. The doors were unlocked. The screen of the main door was locked, but it didn’t close all the way and wasn’t latched.
“It’s an old house, so it might have always been that way,” said Denlinger, who has reviewed the Chaffee case file.
Chaffee was found at the bottom of the basement stairs, lying on his right side, with his head up against several sheets of peg board that were propped against the wall.
An autopsy indicated Chaffee was killed between midnight July 16 and 11 a.m. July 17. He wasn’t found until nearly 35 hours later on the evening of July 18.
Denlinger said Chaffee was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, which possibly indicates he never went to bed the night of July 16. There was a “significant amount of blood under him,” and blood evidence that looked “like it’s a result of impact after falling.”
No shell casings were found at the scene, which suggests the casings were picked up by the killer or Chaffee was shot with a revolver, Denlinger said. The murder weapon was never found.
Dresser and desk drawers were opened in the house, with papers “strewn about” on the floor in the master bedroom, Denlinger said. Investigators thought someone may have rummaged through drawers looking for something specific.
Where was Mary Hernandez?
Officers — including Harvey Denlinger, Matt Denlinger’s father, who was a detective at the time — tried to find Hernandez after Chaffee’s body was discovered.
She showed up at Chaffee’s house about 11 p.m. July 18, Denlinger said. She told officers she wanted to pick up the twins and “claimed to be unaware of why officers were at Chaffee’s house.”
Hernandez was interviewed and provided a statement that was used in establishing a timeline.
Hernandez said she’d been with her boyfriend, Robert Wenger, and his cousin, Allen Black, at a farm owned by friends in rural Walford. Two other friends, Jerry and Sherri Covington, also were at the farm that day, Denlinger said.
Sheri Covington confirmed that Hernandez had dropped off the twins at Chaffee’s house the evening of July 16, but she gave a “slightly more detailed story,” Denlinger said.
Covington and Hernandez drove back to Cedar Rapids around 5 p.m. July 16. Hernandez dropped off Covington at her apartment to make sandwiches to take back to the men, who were working on an old car at the farm.
Covington said Hernandez went to drop off the kids at Chaffee’s and returned about an hour later with her other daughter, Annie Hernandez. Hernandez told her she had gotten a $40 check from Chaffee after they had a “big argument.”
Police went looking for Wenger, Hernandez’s boyfriend, on July 19. He showed up at the police department about 4 p.m. and confirmed most of Hernandez’s account.
Who was Dennis Chaffee?
Denlinger said the investigators interviewed numerous friends of Chaffee to determine if there was anything about him or his background that might lead to a suspect or a possible motive.
His friends spoke highly of him, saying he was known for being generous and lending them money. Nobody could imagine anyone harming him.
Chaffee was in the U.S. Army from 1969 through 1975 during the Vietnam War, according to his military records. He received medals for National Defense Service, Vietnam Service and the Vietnam Campaign. The records also state he was trained as a rifle sharpshooter.
At the time of his death, he was working at the Wilson & Co. meatpacking plant, one of the largest employers in Cedar Rapids.
He collected antiques as a hobby and had a lot of older furniture, possibly collector items, in his home.
Evidence/theories
On the surface, the slaying looked like a crime of burglary or theft, but it’s important in cases like this one to also look at motives, Denlinger noted.
Chaffee lived alone and, because he collected antiques that were kept in the home, it was difficult to determine if things were missing. The house was “cluttered” with items. He’d had multiple people in his home who may have known their value.
Denlinger said the placement of the sleeping bags and the cereal in the Chaffee home are puzzling.
“Who would burglarize someone’s home, kill them, and then put bedding and food out for the victim’s children?” Denlinger said.
He said maybe the suspect had some connection to the children and wanted to make sure they were OK. Or possibly the twins were sleeping there when the suspect arrived. But it’s an “odd spot to have kids sleeping,” Denlinger said.
Denlinger said the twins were found in dirty diapers, but only two diapers were found in the trash. If Chaffee has been alive Sunday, July 17, there would likely have been more dirty diapers in the trash.
Chaffee’s checkbook ledger was found in his home, but no checks were found. Chaffee wrote his last check to Hernandez for $40 on July 16, when she dropped off the twins. No other checks were ever written on the account.
Another issue with the case, Denlinger said, is that investigators interviewed people close to Chaffee before they knew the time of his death.
“This affects the timeline-related questions that are so important when interviewing persons in a case like this,” Denlinger said. “Specifically, it would be important to note where everyone was late July 16 into early July 17, 1983.”
Denlinger said investigators today can make use of people’s cellphones to access GPS data and see where they were — or at least where their phone was — and the times they were making calls.
One of the more interesting things detectives did in that era, he said, was check for gunshot residue.
They tested Harlon Chaffee, the father; Hernandez, the twins’ mother; and Wenger, the mother’s boyfriend, among others. Although Hernandez’s and Wenger’s hands showed a high level of barium and antimony — found in gunshot residue — the tests were found to be unreliable.
Denlinger consulted with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation when he saw that information in the case file, and agents confirmed gunshot residue kits stopped being used in the mid-1990s due to a number of false positive test results.
Chemicals found in gunshot residue also can be found on vehicle brake pads and in fireworks, Denlinger said, noting Wenger and others told police they were working on a car that weekend.
Police at the time had suspects but no solid evidence to make an arrest, Denlinger said.
New look
In 2021, Maria Chaffee and her stepsister contacted Denlinger, wanting to talk about the case. After the meeting, Denlinger started reviewing the file to determine if anything could be done.
Denlinger and another cold case investigator interviewed a former girlfriend of Chaffee’s, one he would give money to now and then, which was a “common theme” among his friends.
She was interviewed in 1983 and wasn’t considered a serious suspect. In April 2021, after a lengthy interview with her, investigators came to the same conclusion. “Although she can’t be completely ruled out, nothing points to her as having motive to kill Dennis,” Denlinger said.
The cold case team attempted to start over by interviewing the key people in this case. But many of them had died, including Hernandez in 2009.
In July 2021, they attempted to find Wenger, but he was sick and declined to be interviewed. He died in 2022.
They also tracked down Allen Black, Wenger’s cousin, but when they went to see him, his wife told them he had died two days before.
Denlinger said he will continue to look into the case and hopefully provide some answers and information for Maria and Adam Chaffee.
Adam Chaffee said he understands the difficulties of finding new information, but he hopes the killer’s identity is someday revealed.
“Sometimes, I want to give up,” Maria Chaffee said. “It’s exhausting.”
Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com
Information?
If you have information about the fatal shooting of Dennis Chaffee in 1983 — or any other unsolved murder — call Investigator Matt Denlinger at the Cedar Rapids Police Department, (319) 286-5442.
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