Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] October of 1996, a body was found wrapped in a sleeping bag floating in Beaver Lake. The Benton County Sheriff's Office reported the body had probably been underwater for more than six months and was so badly decomposed, detectives initially couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman. While they were able to determine days later that it was in fact the body of a man, investigators could not as certain the man's identity.
[00:00:29] He became known as Lake man. Then, in 2022, a breakthrough in DNA technology finally revealed the man's identity, but the investigation into how and why the man was killed continued.
[00:00:42] Now a Wisconsin man has been arrested and is seemingly accused of involvement in the crime that has stumped investigators for decades.
[00:00:50] This is crime in the Ozarks.
[00:00:52] Lake Mann.
[00:00:58] This podcast is a product of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette Community Journalism Project.
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[00:01:36] Now let's get into the case.
[00:01:39] A body is found in Beaver Lake According to an October 18, 1996 news report, the Benton County Sheriff's Office Marina Division found a body floating in Beaver Lake near Montane early the previous morning. It was found in the main lake channel next to a bluff floating in about three feet of water, according to the then Sheriff's Office captain Sam Blankenship, the lake was in a natural process of turning over, which might have dislodged the body, Blankenship said. Lake turnover refers to when the layers of water in a deep lake mix. It occurs twice a year during the spring and fall. Within a day of their investigation, detectives were saying the body had probably been underwater for more than six months, but they were unable to tell if it was a man or a woman. Initially, detectives wondered if the body was One of the four people reported missing on the lake over the past 10 years related to drownings and accidents. However, just the next day, detectives ruled out that possibility. Instead, they said it was probably the body of a murder victim and it was most likely a man. Then Benton County Sheriff Andy Lee said, quote, we didn't really think this guy was out for a casual swimming.
[00:02:46] It looked like we had another homicide investigation in Benton County. Lee said it was obvious the killing was intentional and vicious.
[00:02:54] There were multiple possible causes of death and gunshot wounds. According to the sheriff, the body was wrapped in a sleeping bag which appeared to have been weighed down. The material making up the sleeping bag eventually decayed enough to separate from the weight and set the body adrift. A detective took the man's jawbone and some teeth to the University of Arkansas's anthropology department, hoping staff there could confirm the body's gender, provide an age estimate and determine the person's race. The Sheriff's office helicopter flew over the lake, searching for trails or paths in remote areas by which the body may have been taken to the lake. But the sheriff said weeds and vegetation had already overgrown any such paths. The area of the lake where the body was found has a drop off of a depth of about 60ft. So. So the Sheriff's office dive team members set to work the following weekend, searched the area near Montane Cove for any shreds of material matching the sleeping bag wrapped around the body or any other clues. During a day long dive. They recovered five bones, two of which were thought to be human, and also were sent to the university's anthropology department to determine if they matched the body. Eventually, the body was confirmed to be that of a man and the state medical examiner ruled the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the left side of his forehead. Other details revealed in the search into Lake man, as he would become to known included he was between 5 foot 9 and 5 foot 11.
[00:04:17] He was probably a weight lifter or did hard labor.
[00:04:21] He may have been a heavy smoker and heavy coffee drinker, or both. Judging by the condition of his teeth, a lower left tooth had been surgically removed and a tooth in the lower right contained a filling. His front teeth had heavy wear. Eventually, investigators were able to provide a face for the body by releasing a computer generated facial reconstruction of what the man may have looked like before his death. But his identity remained a mystery. That mystery continued for more than two decades, until October of 2022, when Lt. Hunt Petrae with the Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigation Unit announced Lake man had been identified as John Douglas Rollins Jr. Who Patray said had last been seen by a family member. And in 1995, the sheriff's office worked with Ortham Incorporated from Texas to develop a DNA profile of Rollins and located his father, who said his son had been missing. Since the mid-1990s, though he never filed a report with law enforcement. Despite having the identity nailed down, detectives still did not have a lot of leads in the case, Petraeus said in 2020. And so while the investigation was open, things once again went quiet. That was until of August of 2026 when a Wisconsin man was brought back to Arkansas in in relation to a 1991 hot check case. 56 year old Roger Ewart fought extradition to the state before being brought back to Benton County. Somewhere in the investigation, prosecutor said, ER implicated himself in a cold case that matched up with the timeline of Rollins killing part two who was John Rollins Jr.
[00:05:54] Details about John Douglas Rollins Jr. S early life are hard to come by.
[00:05:59] It's clear he was born on December 1st of 1964 to John Douglas Rowland Sr. And Catherine Miller, but little else has been revealed publicly about his younger days.
[00:06:10] Court records show addresses for John in Arkansas and Oklahoma, with at least one of those being his mother's home in Maude, Oklahoma.
[00:06:19] What does become clear when researching John is that he got tied up with drugs by the time he was in his 20s and it resulted in trouble with the law in both Oklahoma and Arkansas. In late 1987, he found himself in the Washington County Arkansas circuit court system accused of possession of both marijuana and methamphetamine.
[00:06:39] The marijuana charge included intent to deliver, with prosecutors suggesting not only was he using marijuana, but he was selling it.
[00:06:47] Both were felonies. However, In February of 1988 he pled guilty to a misdemeanor possession of marijuana charge and the felonies were dropped. He was fined a thousand dollars but avoided prison time.
[00:07:00] A little more than two years later, he was back in trouble with Arkansas authorities. Court documents filed in Washington county showed he was charged in the spring of 1990 with felony theft by receiving, accused of being found with a stolen camcorder that was the property of Springdale Public Schools. The following October, he pled guilty to that charge and received a sentence of two years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections as a three year suspended sentence. He wrote in Oklahoma court records that he worked for Pam Transportation in Taneytown for two weeks in 1990 before being sent to an Arkansas prison. In between his being charged and sentenced in the Arkansas cases, John was charged with unlawful cultivation of marijuana in Oklahoma. He wrote in court documents that he was growing the marijuana for his own use.
[00:07:46] He pled guilty to the charge in September of 1990 and was sentenced to four years in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and was fined $200. Court documents suggested he served his time in the Arkansas case first and must have been released by mid-1991 when, rather than return to Oklahoma to serve his sentence there, he stayed in the natural state and got in trouble yet again. This time John was charged with aggravated assault, theft of property and criminal mischief. The prosecuting attorney wrote in a report that John shoplifted a fishing reel from a Kmart in Fayville, then struggled with security both inside and outside the store, causing security officer to sever cuts and bruises. He was also accused of kicking a glass door, causing it to shatter. He ended up pleading guilty to aggravated assault and theft of property. I was sentenced to three years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections. Oklahoma became aware of that Arkansas case and requested that when John was released from the neighboring state prison that he be sent back to Oklahoma to serve his time there. Oklahoma court documents filed in 1992 and 1993 show that he was returned to that state and and made to spend time there in prison. It's unclear from the court records exactly when he was released from prison for the final time, but by 1995 he must have been out. Detectives investigating his killing have said he was last seen by a family member in 1995 before he went missing. The next year, his body would be found floating in beaver Lake.
[00:09:19] Part 3 who is Roger Ewerk?
[00:09:23] Roger Jean Ewer was born September 2nd of 1969, according to court documents. Where he was born and to whom, however, is not clear at this time. Court documents from his previous criminal cases in Arkansas show he has lived in Rogers, Bentonville and Bella Vista. Public records found through Ancestry.com show he has also had Arkansas addresses in Lowell and Pocahontas.
[00:09:48] Those same records show he has lived in Wisconsin cities of Medford, Lubin and Schofield. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Erwart was accused of various crimes in Arkansas. In 1990, he pled guilty to two hot check violations and felony theft by receiving in three separate cases, receiving a total of 14 years of probation. In 91, he was found to have violated his probation and was sentenced to 10 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections. That was the same year he pled guilty to two more hot check violations and a theft of property charge. When all said and done, he was given 15 years to serve in an Arkansas prison. He was out of prison by at least 1997 when prosecutors sought to incarcerate Ewer again for failure to pay his court costs and fines from his previous cases. In 98, he admitted to the violation and was sentenced to nine days in jail and ordered to pay his remaining fines in court costs. The cycle would continue into the 2000s. Ewer was accused again of failure to pay his fines and court costs. In court documents filed in 2006, he was booked into a Benton county jail and later released. But before the accusations against him could be adjudicated, you were ran a fool of the law in Wisconsin and became incarcerated in that state. You were pled guilty in Wisconsin in 2008 to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to 14 days in jail. Court records do not indicate that he was returned to Arkansas after serving that short stint behind bars. That case wasn't his first time being in trouble with Wisconsin authorities and it would not be his last. He pled no contest to 2006 charge of disorderly conduct involving domestic abuse and received monetary penalties. He also pled no contest to 2010 charge of substantial battery with intended bodily harm involving domestic abuse, disorderly conduct involving domestic abuse, battery involving domestic abuse, two counts of retail theft and one count of obstructing an officer. That case ended with him sentenced to three years and six months in Wisconsin state prison system with one and a half years actually confined and two serving and two served on extended supervision. He was also sentenced to two years of probation and restitutions of more than $7,000.
[00:12:00] He pled guilty to 2012 charge of battery once again involving domestic abuse and was placed on a two years of probation and ordered to undergo anger management. He pled no contest to a 2013 charge of theft of property and possession of illegally obtained property and received monetary penalties. Then In July of 2026, prosecutors sought to have Y brought back to Arkansas to face a failure to appear charge related to a 1991 hot check case.
[00:12:29] When he was returned, it appeared something he said peaked prosecutors attention and resulted in separate charges related to a decades old cold case.
[00:12:40] Part 4 An apparent breakthrough in the case Roger Ewer appeared in Benton County Circuit Court on August 17th of 2026 after his arrest on suspicion of abuse of corpse hindering apprehension or a prosecution and tampering with physical evidence. Speaking during the hearing, Benton County Sheriff Deputy Prosecutor Joshua Robinson said Ewer covered up a murder in 1996 and the body was not identified until 2022. There was only one instance where a body was found in 1996 in Benton county and was identified in 2022, the case of John Douglas Rollins Jr. Also known as Lake Man. Robinson said the murder may have occurred in Washington county, but Ewer was arrested for the offenses that happened in Benton County.
[00:13:25] The prosecutor did not provide any other details about the accusations against Ewer during the hearing, but said Ewer implicated himself in the cold case. Sarah Koch, Ewer's attorney, said she reviewed the probable cause affidavit with her client and she did not contest probable cause existing to hold her client on the felony charges. Benton County Circuit Judge Robin Green set ewers bond at $500,000.
[00:13:52] She also entered an order sealing the affidavit so journalists at the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette haven't been able to see it to know exactly what Ewer is accused of. The order seal states, quote, this remains an ongoing and active investigation.
[00:14:07] That evidence continues to be gathered and that public release of investigative details would likely impair the investigation. Robinson declined to comment on the case after the hearing. So now we wait to see where this case goes and if more arrests are forthcoming.
[00:14:24] After all, Ewart is facing charges of abuse of a corpse, hindering apprehension and tampering with evidence, not murder.
[00:14:33] So do prosecutors think he was involved in the actual killing, or do they only think he helped the killer after the fact? Do they think he'll point them to the killer? Ewer's arrangement is set for 8am Sept. 8 in Green's courtroom, and you can bet a reporter from the Democrat Gazette will be there. We'll keep following the case and keeping you up to date on crime in the Ozarks.
[00:15:17] This podcast is a product of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette Community Journalism Project.
[00:15:23] To Learn more, visit nwajournalism.org.
