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The River Keeps Its Secrets: The Boy By The Bridge: The Unsolved Murder Of Roger Warren
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Mar 28 2026
Pages: 92
Weight: 0.52
Height: 0.19 Width: 8.50 Depth: 11.00
Language: English
A quiet summer afternoon. A stranger near the bridge. A child who never came home.
The story of Roger Warren is both heartbreaking and unresolved.
On August 19, 1979, Roger disappeared near the Crescent Bridge in Davenport, Iowa. Six days later, his body was discovered in the Mississippi River. The cause of death was determined to be strangulation.
Despite an investigation by the Davenport Police Department, the case remains unsolved.
This book attempts to reconstruct the events surrounding Roger's disappearance using newspaper archives, law enforcement statements, and publicly available reporting. It also explores the renewed attention the case received decades later through research conducted by students at St. Ambrose University.
Some details of scenes and conversations have been recreated to provide narrative continuity, but every effort has been made to remain faithful to the documented facts.
The hope of this book is simple: that telling Roger's story may help ensure he is never forgotten-and perhaps someday, the truth will finally be revealed.
On August 19, 1979, twelve-year-old Roger Warren disappeared while playing near the Crescent Bridge in Davenport, Iowa.
His younger brother watched as Roger walked away with a stranger-a man with missing teeth who promised a bicycle and a baseball game.
Six days later, Roger's body was found in the Mississippi River.
The cause of death: strangulation.
Police believed they knew who the killer was.
But they never had enough evidence to make an arrest.
For more than forty-five years, the case remained a haunting mystery-until a college research project reopened the story and uncovered new perspectives on Roger's final moments.
The Boy by the Bridge is a gripping true-crime investigation that explores:
- The disappearance of a child in a quiet Midwestern city
- The suspect police believed responsible but could never charge
- The decades-long cold case that faded from public memory
- And the haunting question that remains today
What really happened to Roger Warren?
And could the truth still be waiting to be discovered?
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