More than four months after police discovered his body in a northern California lake, Eastern Iowa native Paul Womachka's murder is still a mystery.
Authorities say someone killed the 39-year-old who lived most of his life in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. But the suspect is walking free, and his tight-lipped friends and family have stonewalled detectives, according to the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Paul Joseph Womachka — his family called him Joe — went missing on June 27, a night he was driving his taxi.
His last customer was Morgan M. Jack, a 30-year-old he picked up at the Robinson Rancheria, a Pomo Indian Tribe community near Clear Lake, about 130 miles north of San Francisco. Jack wanted to be driven about 10 miles to the Big Valley Rancheria, another Pomo community on the lake's west side.
Womachka drove him there and was not seen again.
Divers found Womachka's submerged minivan, with his body inside, in the lake off the rancheria two days later. After the autopsy, the sheriff's office announced the death was a murder investigation.
Jack was arrested for a parole violation and identified as a person of special interest in the crime.
Since then, the 130 or so people who live at the Big Valley Rancheria — where Jack lives part-time — have closed ranks. Though rumors have swirled through the several small resort towns around the lake, nothing has been resolved and no one has been arrested for the murder.
Jack was released from jail in September.
Indian rancherias are peculiar to California. They differ from Indian reservations and settlements in that they are subject to the laws of both the county and the state of California. The Lake County Sheriff's Office has jurisdiction over the county's rancherias, just as if they are regular towns, Detective Nicole Costanza said.
But that hasn't helped the investigation move any faster.
"Most of the people (who) live on the rancheria are family, so they're going to cover for themselves," Costanza said. "They're covering for each other, and that's really all we're getting."
Valentino Jack, the tribal chairman, did not return The Gazette's phone calls asking for comment.
Sheriff's Lt. Cecil Brown said he may release new information on the case as soon as this week.
Though the official manner of death is homicide — death at the hands of another person — authorities will not say how Womachka was killed, saying that information is being withheld because of the investigation.
Womachka grew up, worked, married and raised a family in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.
He graduated from Kennedy High School in 1985 and attended Kirkwood Community College and the University of Iowa. He met Erica Rhomberg at her 20th birthday party in Iowa City. They were married in 1988.
Ten years later, they were divorced but remained friends. She moved to the Clear Lake area in California in January 2004. A few months later, Womachka followed with their sons Quinn, Eden and Pere — now 17, 14 and 12, respectively.
"We never fell out of love with each other," Erica Womachka said. "We just realized that living together was a difficult process. He was an incredible man."
The divorced couple opened a taxi business together. She worked days, and he worked nights. Womachka also ran a windshield repair business.
Womachka's interests, by all accounts, were wide-ranging — writing, nature, music, philosophy, the arts and sports. In his spare time, he worked on independent films and helped coach soccer at Upper Lake High School. In the spring, just months before he died, he helped launch a soccer program at Upper Lake Junior High School.
"The guy had a heart of gold," said Randy Gibson, who worked with Womachka at McLeodUSA in Cedar Rapids for three years. "It takes a strong man to just uproot your kids and yourself and move from Iowa to California. Unfortunately, this is the result you get out of it."
The three boys are now living with their mother in Lucerne, a town on the east side of Clear Lake.
"Clearly, of course, we're frustrated," Erica Womachka said. "We do believe that the officers are doing everything that they can. ... I'm still hopeful that it'll all come out."
She said she had to pull the three boys out of school because of the community tension resulting from the unsolved case, which has also raised local hackles.
"A lot of people are upset about it," said Roy Parmentier, the mayor of Lakeport, the town that sits between the two rancherias. "It's discouraging, that they can get away with any ... thing they want to do out there."
Womachka's father, Paul Womachka in Cedar Rapids, and his brother, Brian Womachka in West Liberty, declined interviews, saying they don't want to interfere with the investigation.
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