DNA identifies skull, bones found in Batavia wall in 1978 as Indiana teen

Modern technology and advanced DNA analysis have solved the mystery of Jane Doe, whose skull was found Nov. 12, 1978, in a wall at 239 E. Wilson St. in Batavia.

The woman was Esther Ann Granger Peck, who died May 29, 1866, at age 17 years, seven months and three days. She was buried in Sturdevant Cemetery in Merrillville, Indiana, according to genealogy research.

Her skull and a few bones were revealed only through the happenstance of a remodeling project, according to police reports.

But how did she end up entombed behind a wall in Batavia 112 years after her death?

Kane County Coroner Rob Russell said her grave likely was robbed to provide medical students with a cadaver to study.

“My educated guess is that they took the whole body and either farmed out pieces and parts or they had the whole body,” Russell said. “Then whatever institution had it ... probably figured that it was illegally gained.”

‘No criminal intent’

The saga of the skull in the wall began in 1978, when the family who found the bones called Batavia police. Officers and a State Crime Lab technician searched the house’s walls, attic and basement to see if there was anything else, Russell said.

There wasn’t.

Everything related to the skull and a few other bone fragments behind the wall were placed in a container and brought into evidence at the police department. The evidence included a black bonnet, five miscellaneous shoes and a mechanic’s rag, as detailed in a police report.

The next day, police sent the bones to Clyde Snow at the Aeronautical Center of the Federal Aviation Administration in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, seeking analysis. Snow, who died in 2014, was a pioneer in forensic anthropology and former head of the department of Forensic Anthropology at Civil Aeromedical Institute, among other agencies.

In a Jan. 13, 1979, letter to Batavia Police Chief Robert Popeck, Snow wrote there were no signs of “trauma or disease that would have caused death.”

“I have had several cases in which human remains have been deposited under odd circumstances with no criminal intent,” Snow wrote. “Typically, these involve a physician, medical student or other persons with some interest in human anatomy and access to skeletal materials.”

Russell said Batavia police did all they could at the time, even asking if Northern Illinois University’s Department of Anthropology could find out if the skull belonged to a missing person.

All faculty could do was confirm the skull was old, probably female and about 20 years old, he said.

“They knew that if it was old, they’d have absolutely no shot of finding out who it was – I mean, almost no shot, unless there was some kind of famous case from back then, but there wasn’t,” Russell said. “There wasn’t any missing people from that time.”

The case went cold and the remains were stored in evidence until somehow the skull went from the Batavia police to the Depot Museum.

On March 10, 2021, Batavia Park District Director Allison Niemela and Museum Director Katherine Garrett were going through some old boxes and found one that contained a mostly complete human skull missing the lower jaw bone.

Jane Doe went from cold to hot.

Likely died in childbirth

Batavia police remanded the skull to the Kane County Coroner’s Office to continue the investigation.

On April 1, 2022, Jane Doe became a case in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, known as NamUs.

“Condition of remains: Currently available for further testing is a single, incomplete cranium with no duplicated elements, right temporal not present and damage to the right zygomatic,” according to her NamUs case information.

Russell used crowdfunding to raise $7,500 to pay Othram Laboratories Inc., a private DNA lab in Texas, to do the testing.

By Jan. 15, 2024, Othram began the process of matching the profile within the existing database and a month later, it had a match: The skull belonged to Esther Granger from Merrillville, Indiana.

Deputy Coroner and Cold Case Investigator Gabriela Allison, who was assigned lead investigator in the case, said Esther’s death likely was because of childbirth.

While Esther Peck may have died in childbirth May 29, 1866, her daughter, born May 30, 1866, also named Esther, survived.

“She was married,” Allison said. “We can only assume that she died during childbirth or complications soon after because we have a delayed birth certificate of her grandson. What I found out was that Indiana, they did not issue birth or death certificates. The law didn’t change until 1907. So anything before that, basically, it doesn’t exist. It was optional.”

Esther – the daughter – married John Henry Matheson and had a son named Ernest on April 6, 1894, as indicated in what Allison described as a delayed birth certificate.

The Indiana connection

Allison said they don’t even know for sure that Esther Peck was born in Indiana. They only know for sure that she was buried there.

With assistance through Find A Grave, Allison said, they learned that Esther Ann Granger Peck, 17, who died May 29, 1866, was buried in Sturdevant Cemetery, also known as W. T. Dennis Cemetery, in Ross Township in Merrillville.

Records from a meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution state the cemetery was too overgrown in August 1992 for the Genealogical Society to read the headstones.

Once her identity was confirmed through Othram’s DNA work, Allison said they put her name in the Find A Grave database.

They then followed the branches of the family tree. Ernest Matheson had a daughter, Ruth, born in 1928. Ruth had a son named Wayne Svilar on June 6, 1955.

While Othram had extracted the skull’s DNA, they still needed to confirm the match with a test of a biological relative.

Allison was in charge of finding a next of kin. She said they were scattered all over the country.

She found Svilar and he provided his DNA to allow confirmation that he is the second great-grandson of Esther Ann Granger Peck.

“We tracked him down,” Allison said. “Ruth is the mom of our next of kin.”

Svilar has a photo of Esther’s daughter as an elderly lady and Svilar is a retired cold case investigator from Camas, Washington, Allison said.

The next step for Russell’s office was to have professional photos taken of the skull by Thomas Doggett.

Doggett used the photos to have 3D Resin Solutions in South Elgin create a replica of the skull and to assist forensic artist Natalie Murry in creating a drawing of what Esther looked like.

Esther Ann Granger Peck was laid to rest Aug. 22, 2024, in a columbarium at West Batavia Cemetery, Russell said.

The city of Batavia donated the cremation and burial expenses.

Coming full circle, Svilar attended the internment ceremony.