BENTONVILLE, AR — A Wisconsin man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges accusing him of helping cover up a 1996 murder in Arkansas, nearly 30 years after a fisherman pulled a body from Beaver Lake that would go unidentified for more than two decades.
Roger Ewer, 57, faces three felony charges in Benton County Circuit Court: hindering apprehension or prosecution, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with physical evidence. Prosecutors allege Ewer helped conceal and dispose of the body of John Douglas Rollins Jr. immediately following Rollins’ murder — an act that left the victim known only as “Lake Man” for 26 years. Ewer has not been charged with the murder itself, and no one has been charged with that crime as of Sept. 9, 2026. Ewer’s arraignment before Judge Robin Green set the stage for a case that began with a grim discovery on the water and wound through two states, a DNA database, and a decades-old paper trail.
A fisherman discovered Rollins’ remains on Oct. 16, 1996, inside a sleeping bag floating in Beaver Lake in Benton County. Investigators at the time estimated the bag had been submerged for somewhere between three months and one year, and they believed it may once have been weighted down. Rollins, who was born Dec. 1, 1964, was 31 years old when he was killed. He had been living in Springdale, Arkansas, and was last seen alive by a family member in 1995 — though no missing persons report was ever filed with law enforcement. With no identity and no known next of kin, detectives assigned the case the nickname “Lake Man” and worked it alongside two other unidentified homicide victims from the same region: a man referred to as “John Doe” and a woman called “Bone Woman.” For more than two decades, Rollins’ family had no formal confirmation of what had happened to him.
The break in the case came through DNA technology. The Benton County Sheriff’s Office announced in October 2022 that forensic genealogy company Othram Inc. had developed a DNA profile from Rollins’ remains and traced it to a relative living in Springdale. Lt. Hunter Petray of the Benton County Sheriff’s Office said at a 2022 press conference that investigators interviewed the relative, who confirmed his son had been missing since the mid-1990s. That DNA match allowed investigators to formally identify the remains as those of John Douglas Rollins Jr. — originally from Missouri, with court records showing addresses in Arkansas and Oklahoma. The same 2022 announcement identified the two other previously unnamed victims: Fred James “Jamie” Grow, who had been called John Doe, and Donna Sue Nelton, known as Bone Woman. Rollins was the last of the three to be publicly named.
Court documents reveal how Ewer came to face charges in Arkansas. Benton County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Joshua Robinson said at a hearing last month that Ewer implicated himself in the cold case during the investigation. Robinson added that the murder may have occurred in Washington County, but Ewer was charged for offenses that took place in Benton County. A probable cause affidavit was filed under seal before Ewer’s court appearance. The presiding judge ordered the records to remain restricted, writing that evidence was still being gathered and that releasing investigative details would likely compromise the ongoing investigation. As a result, the specific details connecting Ewer to Rollins remain unknown to the public. Ewer was initially booked into the Benton County Jail on July 10, approximately two months before the new charges were formally filed. Court records reviewed by local media indicate he had been extradited from Wisconsin in connection with a decades-old Arkansas hot-check case — a separate matter entirely — raising questions about whether investigators were aware of his alleged role in Rollins’ death when he was first returned to the state.
Ewer’s legal history in both Arkansas and Wisconsin spans more than three decades. In Arkansas, he pleaded guilty in 1990 to two hot-check violations and felony theft by receiving, receiving a combined 14 years of probation across three separate cases. The following year, a court found he had violated that probation and sentenced him to 10 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections. He also pleaded guilty to two more hot-check violations and a theft of property charge in 1991, ultimately resulting in a 15-year prison sentence. He was released by at least 1997, when prosecutors again sought to incarcerate him for failure to pay court costs and fines. In Wisconsin, his record includes a 2006 disorderly conduct charge involving domestic abuse, a 2010 substantial battery conviction also involving domestic abuse — for which he served roughly 18 months in the Wisconsin State Prison system — and a 2012 battery conviction involving domestic abuse. He also accumulated theft and obstructing-an-officer convictions in Wisconsin. Ewer missed a 2008 Arkansas court appearance while incarcerated in Wisconsin, and Arkansas authorities did not open an extradition case in Taylor County, Wisconsin, until May 2026.
Rollins himself had a documented history in the Arkansas and Oklahoma court systems before his death. In 1988, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge in Washington County, Arkansas, after felony charges were reduced. In 1990, he was charged with felony theft by receiving after allegedly being found with a stolen camcorder belonging to Springdale Public Schools; he later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections. During the same period, he faced an unlawful marijuana cultivation charge in Oklahoma, to which he pleaded guilty in September 1990 and received a four-year sentence in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. After his release from Arkansas, Rollins faced aggravated assault and theft charges in Fayetteville connected to a shoplifting incident at a K-Mart in which a security officer was injured. He pleaded guilty and received a three-year Arkansas prison sentence. Oklahoma records show he was returned to that state after his Arkansas release to serve the remainder of his Oklahoma sentence. He was last seen by family in 1995, roughly two years before his body surfaced in Beaver Lake.
If convicted on the most serious charge — hindering apprehension or prosecution — Ewer faces between five and 20 years in prison under Arkansas law. The abuse of a corpse charge carries a sentence of three to 10 years, and the evidence tampering charge is punishable by up to six years. Ewer is being held in the Benton County Jail on a combined bond of $550,000 covering both the new charges and his older, reopened Arkansas case. His next scheduled court appearance is Oct. 19 in Benton County Circuit Court. The Benton County Sheriff’s Office and the prosecutor’s office have both declined to comment on the details of the ongoing investigation. No murder charge has been filed against anyone in connection with Rollins’ death, and investigators have not publicly named any other suspects.
As of September 2026, the investigation into who killed John Douglas Rollins Jr. remains open. Ewer’s Oct. 19 hearing will be the next public milestone in a case that took 26 years to attach a name to the victim — and may still be years from a final resolution on the question of who carried out the murder itself.
