Hundreds interviewed by police, still no suspect 17 years after violent murder of Columbia homeless man

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Even with hundreds of witness statements, Columbia Police criminal investigator Lt. Matt Gremore says 17 years later that no clear suspect has been identified in the death of 49-year-old Mark Dailey.

"To this day, we have no idea who the suspect is or even what the motive was for the killing," Gremore said.

A hiker found Dailey's skeletal remains on Jan. 7, 2009, at a homeless encampment behind the Conley Road Walmart. From there police launched an investigation. Today, the area is much more developed, but Gremore says it's still common to see homeless camps present.

"You're exposed to all the elements," Reva Whisenhunt, the Peer Specialist for the Salvation Army Harbour House. "Trying to survive and being stuck in survival mode, they get into some crime, or they get mixed in with the wrong person, or they trust the wrong person, and then it ends up harming them."

Gremore was a noncommissioned officer at CPD when he took over the investigation of Dailey's death in 2020.

"The remains were found in an abandoned shed, obviously out in the woods," Gremore said.

Boone County court records show Dailey's address listed as "the streets of Columbia" in relation to two trespassing charges from 2007.

According to previous reporting, police in 2009 said no foul play was suspected at the start of the investigation. However, nearly three months later, on April 20, 2009, Dailey was identified and his death was ruled a homicide.

"I think it was always deemed suspicious," Gremore said. "I mean any time that you go to the death investigation, no matter what the circumstances, you have to think in your head 'this could be a homicide.'"

Mark Beary, who now works at MU's Research Reactor, helped to identify Dailey's remains in 2009 along with his cause and manner of death. At the time, he was a consulting forensic anthropologist with the Boone and Callaway County Medical Examiner's office.

"This individual had suffered blunt force trauma to the cranial area and the facial area of the cranium and additionally, sharp force trauma to the cervical vertebrae," Beary said.

Gremore said the DNA findings were significant for the time.

"That was like the forefront of the start of getting to see DNA work, especially at the Columbia Police Department," Gremore said. "I'd like to see it continue to where the DNA is who the suspect is, too."

Beary said re-examining the remains could be worth the extra time and manpower for law enforcement, given years of technological advancements.

"There's always an opportunity to revisit cold cases like this and see if there are any new findings that can be found," Beary said.

Gremore wouldn't say what clothes or personal items police collected from the scene. Beary said Dailey's trauma to his neck was consistent with a knife that officers recovered from the scene during their initial investigation. Gremore said police have never been able to confirm if that knife was used to harm or kill Dailey.

"There was a weapon to the neck, but unknown what," Gremore said. "You can look at the autopsy, and you can tell something very violent happened."

Gremore said a number of challenges have come with Dailey's case, like the time needed to identify his remains.

"The faster we work whenever someone's deceased, the better chances are for us to find out what happened," Gremore said. "When you have months go by before you're able to get that information, it's just going to hurt you."

According to Gremore, hundreds of people have been interviewed in the investigation over the last 17 years, but there are still more questions than answers. He said Dailey's unstable housing status also created some hurdles.

"Knowing who friends are, last time someone had conversations with them, that makes it a little bit more difficult," Gremore said. "But that doesn't change the fact of how hard we should work into that. There's still a human life, it's the opportunity to find those answers that make that more difficult."

Gremore and Beary both said that due to Dailey's level of decomposition, it's also hard to pinpoint when he died, creating a vague timeline to work with.

"This was January. Depending on how hot it was, how much weather there had been as far as precipitation, things like that change the rate of decomp," Gremore said. "You could guess well over a month or three weeks at minimum."

Beary said his examination found that Dailey's remains had been at the homeless encampment where he was found since at least fall 2008, but possibly up to one year in advance.

Harbour House Lead Case Manager Tambra Hickem said that after Dailey's murder, more effort was put into place to better support and keep track of the unhoused.

"A team of mental health people who go out into the community and they actually go out and check on the homelessness unsheltered," Hickem said. "Because before something would happen, you wouldn't know about it forever."

Police ask anyone who may know what happened to Mark Dailey or who may have killed him to contact them.