Terrifying & True | David Hadaway: The Unsolved 1986 Columbus Murder Near Ohio State

Nineteen-year-old David Hadaway was found murdered near the Ohio State University campus in 1986, leaving Columbus investigators without a publicly identified suspect or motive.

Known to friends as “Diamond Dave,” Hadaway was a Mifflin High School student with no known connection to serious crime. His body was discovered on July 21 near the university area after he had attended a weekend gathering on North High Street. The condition of the scene suggested a violent attack, but investigators could not establish where the killing occurred or why Hadaway had been targeted.

Terrifying & True follows the known timeline, the people who last saw him, and the physical evidence reported in the original investigation. A blanket associated with the case offered a possible lead, while the party and the movements surrounding Hadaway’s final hours generated questions that never produced an arrest.

The case was revisited years later as advances in forensic testing gave cold-case investigators new tools, yet it remains publicly unsolved. The episode avoids treating rumor as evidence and focuses on the central gaps: no confirmed crime scene, no established motive, and no person charged with David Hadaway’s murder. For anyone who remembers him—or might know what happened after that gathering—the passage of time has not closed the need for an answer.

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