Jeffrey Thomas Deaver
Jeffrey Thomas Deaver
25 YOA
Seneca Apartments
1132 E. Seneca Avenue
Des Moines, IA
Polk County
Case # 1983-37472
October 17, 1983
When 25-year-old orthopedic technician Jeffrey Thomas Deaver failed to show up to his job at Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines on Monday, October 18, 1983, his co-workers phoned the Seneca Apartments where Deaver lived and asked Manager Carolyn Patrick to check on him.
Patrick requested Russ Perkins, who was remodeling the apartment building, to accompany her to Deaver’s apartment.
Inside the locked apartment, they found Deaver’s body in a contorted position in a recliner pushed against the blood-splattered north wall. He had blood on his shirt.
Blood stains on the bathroom floor and a bloody washcloth in the bedroom indicated the killer cleaned up.
Courtesy photo Goggle Street ViewThere were no signs of a struggle. And although drawers were opened in the bedroom and his wallet was on the bed, friends who looked at the apartment afterwards said nothing appeared to be missing.
Polk County Medical Examiner Dr. R.C. Wooters said that Deaver was killed by multiple stab wounds to the chest — one of them directly to the heart — from a “large, sharp instrument.” He also had a defensive wound on his left arm.
No weapon was found in the apartment.
Wooters ruled Deaver was dead 24 to 48 hours before being found.
Co-workers, friends, and family members were baffled by the murder.
According to the Des Moines Register, Des Moines Police Detective Lt. Ed Harlan said:
“We’re not ruling out anything yet . . . . So far everybody we’ve talked to says he’s just a real nice guy and that he didn’t have any enemies that they knew of.”
Jeffrey Thomas Deaver was born in 1958 to Bernita and Harry Deaver. He graduated from Des Moines Technical High School in 1977.
For five years, he worked at Iowa Methodist Medical Center as a rehabilitation orderly in the Orthopedics Department.
About six months before he was murdered, he moved to the Seneca Apartments. Previously, he lived with his parents in Mitchellville, where his father was Police Chief.
He had two sisters, Cindy Deaver Huseby and Debbie Deaver.
Jeff Deaver was divorced and had no children.
Questions and information about the unsolved 1983 murder of Jeff Deaver should be directed to the Des Moines Police Department at 515-283-4864 or Iowa Cold Cases through our Contact form.
My impression is that he knew the person. This person that stabbed him knew him well. Either loved him very much or hated him that much to kill.
He may not even have known this person’s true feelings of him.
But I am sure the police must of checked all that out closely.