Gone in the Night is a 1996 American television film about the Jaclyn Dowaliby murder case, with Shannen Doherty and Kevin Dillon as Cynthia and David Dowaliby.
The Dowaliby Case
On September 10, 1988, 7 year-old Jaclyn Dowaliby was kidnapped from her home in the middle of the night. Two years later in 1990, Cynthia and Jaclyn's adoptive father David Dowaliby went on trial for the murder of their daughter. Cynthia was acquitted by the judge on grounds of insufficient evidence, but David was tried and convicted of his daughter's death and sentenced to a total of 45 years in prison. His conviction came partly because the jury was shown photographs of a closet door, with fist holes in it. It was later proven that this damage happened before David even moved into the house.
In 1991, David's conviction was overturned when the Illinois Appellate Court reversed the conviction outright, holding that the evidence against him had been no more probative than that against his wife. The murder of Jaclyn remains unsolved.