Winneshiek County Deputy Honored After Helping Solve 40-Year-Old Cold Case

Know what's happening in your hometown. Help us keep you informed. DECORAH — Winneshiek County Deputy Cole Tweten was recently recognized with a 2026 Young Professional Award after his work helped identify a man who had been buried as "unknown" in a Winneshiek County cemetery for nearly 40 years. The Decorah Area Chamber of Commerce named Tweten one of five recipients of its Young Professional Award during its annual awards event Sept. 29, which recognized professionals, businesses and community organizations throughout the Decorah area. Tweten, who grew up in the Decorah area and joined the Winneshiek County Sheriff's Office in 2022, spent months reviewing decades of reports, databases and investigative records in a case that had remained unresolved since 1986. His work ultimately led to the identification of Clifton Todd Womack, a 28-year-old Ohio man who disappeared in 1985. For four decades, Womack's remains had been buried at Freeport Cemetery near Decorah beneath a temporary marker that carried no name. The case outlasted the technology available to identify the remains at the time and, eventually, the careers of deputies who carried unanswered questions about it into retirement. "I think what it came down to was the hesitancy to look into disinterring the body," Tweten said in a recent interview with DecorahNews.com reporter Alexander Rosenow. "I think in the past, it was looked at through the lens of, are there ways we can lock this in as our person without having to do that?" The remains were discovered March 23, 1986, in a hay barn in northeast Winneshiek County. A rural resident noticed an out-of-place pink blanket while moving hay. Beneath it was a shoe and then the body of an unidentified man wedged between large round hay bales. Investigators estimated the man had been dead for about a year, but two autopsies failed to establish a cause of death. Investigators eventually connected the discovery to an encounter reported nearly a year earlier. On April 9, 1985, a nearby resident reported that a hitchhiker had stopped at a farmhouse shortly after midnight. The man reportedly said he was from Ohio and was trying to get to California. Deputies responded but could not find him. He was described as having dark hair and carrying a light-colored blanket. When investigators found the unidentified body the following year, the blanket provided a possible connection. But the man's identity remained unknown. Investigators reviewed missing-person cases and ruled out roughly 30 people during the early years of the investigation, according to Tweten. The skull was eventually taken to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where a clay facial reconstruction was made. Photographs were distributed to law enforcement agencies, but no identification resulted. The remains were buried at Freeport Cemetery with a temporary marker identifying the man only as "unknown." At the time, DNA testing was not available, and no DNA sample was collected before burial. The case was revisited over the years, including in 2020, when investigators considered whether the unidentified man could be a missing person named Samuel Campbell. Investigators still lacked the evidence needed to make a definitive identification. Tweten began examining the case in February 2025. He said his initial interest was partly rooted in growing up around the case and being fascinated by forensic investigations. But after reviewing the file chronologically, he came to a different conclusion. "The only thing that was going to get us any resolution in the case was DNA," he said. Getting that DNA meant exhuming remains that had been buried for about 40 years. Tweten said the sheriff's office had to work through legal requirements, arrange for a funeral director, determine who would handle the remains and account for the cost of the operation. Scott Helms of Helms Funeral Home helped obtain the necessary permit. The department also needed money for the disinterment, transportation and medical examination. Tweten said the possibility of paying for additional commercial genetic testing had made the proposal considerably more expensive when it was considered in the past. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation helped connect the sheriff's office with Drew Collins, whose daughter, Elizabeth Collins, was abducted and killed with her cousin, Lyric Cook-Morrissey, in Evansdale in 2012. Collins established the Elizabeth Collins Foundation, which supports efforts involving missing-person and cold cases. The foundation agreed to fund the work. With the legal and financial obstacles addressed, investigators proceeded with the exhumation in April 2026. Tweten said the remains were recovered April 16. Their condition was better than investigators had expected. The body had been buried in a metal World War II-era casket with a rubber seal, which helped protect the remains from water and deterioration, Tweten said. Forensic anthropologist Heather Garvin examined the remains at the cemetery and compared them with findings from earlier examinations. The remains were then transported to the Iowa DCI Crime Laboratory for further examination and DNA retrieval. The DNA did not immediately produce a name. Instead, it pointed investigators toward a missing-person profile in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs. The profile belonged to Clifton Womack, who had disappeared from Eastlake, Ohio, in April 1985. Womack was 28 when he disappeared. His mother, Peggy Jo Womack, had provided his dental records after he was reported missing. His brother, Terry Womack, later submitted DNA that was available for comparison. On June 11, Garvin compared dental X-rays associated with Womack's missing-person profile with the remains. The dental evidence matched Womack. DNA analysis and forensic genealogy provided additional support through the biological relationship to his brother. The circumstances surrounding Womack's death, however, remain unknown. A 2026 examination again listed the manner of death as undetermined. There was no evidence of major trauma, such as gunshot or stab wounds, in the original examinations, and investigators have not established how Womack died. The sheriff's office said the case was closed after his identification because investigators found no evidence of criminal activity. For Womack's family, the identification ended a different kind of search: decades of not knowing what had happened to a brother who disappeared without explanation. Tweten contacted police in Eastlake after the identification and eventually located Womack's relatives. He spoke with Womack's older brother, Jay Womack, and later joined a video call with the family. The surviving siblings had spent decades without knowing whether Womack was alive or where he had gone. Their mother died without learning what happened to her son. "She had spent the last, you know, remaining days of her life, every single day looking for her son," Tweten said. "And they had shared that, you know, she had even had to go around to local medical examiners and view deceased people to see if any of them were her son." That part of the investigation changed how Tweten viewed the case. At first, he said, the work had been rooted in his fascination with an old mystery. Eventually, it became a responsibility to both the family and the deputies who had worked the case before him. "I don't want to use the word duty," Tweten said. "But I just, I'd say it kind of turned into a responsibility." That responsibility extended to those who had worked the case decades earlier. Former Winneshiek County Chief Deputy Floyd Ashbacher had been involved in the original investigation. His son, Mike Ashbacher, had accompanied him to Mayo Clinic with the unidentified man's skull in 1986. Four decades later, Mike Ashbacher was working with the county medical examiner's office and helped transport the remains after the exhumation. Tweten said Ashbacher returned to the sheriff's office during the renewed investigation and later met Womack's family. Robert Ward, the deputy who initially responded to the barn in 1986, also met the family. For the retired law enforcement officers, Tweten said, the case had remained an unresolved part of their careers. Floyd Ashbacher eventually became sheriff, retired and spent years knowing the unidentified man's case had never been resolved. "For him to be able to come back in and be a part of it," Tweten said, "I think was super rewarding for him." The Womack family eventually traveled to northeast Iowa. Tweten showed relatives where Womack's remains had been discovered and introduced them to people connected to the original investigation. For Tweten, the visit was the most meaningful part of the case. "It was probably one of the most rewarding days of my career for sure," he said. The identification also demonstrated how decades-old evidence can take on new significance when combined with newer technology. Dental records gathered in 1985 remained useful decades later. A DNA sample submitted by a family member years after Womack disappeared became another critical piece. NamUs and other databases allowed investigators to connect information that was not available in one place when the case began. The investigation also illustrated the practical challenges of solving old cases in a small sheriff's office. Tweten said patrol deputies in a rural department often handle far more than routine patrol duties. Because the office does not have the specialized divisions found in larger law enforcement agencies, deputies may handle investigations from the initial call through search warrants, evidence review and eventual prosecution or resolution. The Womack case was an unusually long example of that responsibility. Tweten said the total cost of the disinterment ultimately was less than $3,000, largely because investigators avoided several expenses they had anticipated. The remains did not require heavy equipment to remove a concrete burial vault, the DNA evidence led to a useful database connection, and the identification was made without the need for expensive private genetic testing. Womack's remains were cremated in Iowa, according to Tweten, and his family planned to return the ashes to Ohio. The case now has an answer to a question that had persisted since 1986: The unidentified man buried in Freeport was Clifton Todd Womack, a 28-year-old Ohio man who had disappeared the year before. It still does not have an answer to how he died. For Tweten, the distinction between those two questions matters. The identification was enough to give a family something it had been denied for more than four decades. "The real reward was giving the Womack family peace after decades of unanswered questions," Tweten said. For Tweten, that outcome — more than the technology or the award that followed — is what made the case worth pursuing. 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