Will County Coroner’s Office seeking community’s help with a cold case

The Will County Coroner’s office is working on a cold case from the 1990s and needs your help.

The cold case stems from skeletal fragments of a woman found in May 1997 from a “rubbish pile” of the former Rust Craft Greeting Card Company building in Joliet, according to a news release from the coroner’s office.

The coroner’s office has partnered with Othram, a private laboratory that uses advanced forensic DNA testing, with the goal of finally identifying the woman or a close relative.

Gene Sullivan and Joe Piper, retired police officers and cold case detectives for the coroner’s office, are hoping someone from the community has information and will say, ‘Hey, my family member went missing around that time,’ Sullivan said.

“I believe in justice,” Sullivan said.

Solving cold cases is not about revenge, Sullivan said. It’s about not allowing someone who murdered to be out “running around.”

“That’s why we have laws,” Sullivan said.

Othram can analyze “human DNA from trace amounts of degraded or contaminated material,” according to its website, an example of how technology has evolved, Sullivan said.

“It was about 2016 when we attempted this through another company, this same process, and it was unable to enhance our DNA to the point is was usable for FamilyTree,” Sullivan said, referring to FamilyTree DNA. “The technology since 2016 has increased fantastically.”

Still, it takes time to pursue to a cold case, Sullivan said. Detectives must search police reports, check and double-check leads, get information into national databases, pursue facial recognition technology (if possible) and obtain dental records.

An analysis of the bones might even determine where the victim’s “drinking water came from” and connect the victim to a certain geographical area, Sullivan said.

Sullivan said tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of cold cases exist across the U.S. DNA testing might help solve many of them, regardless of how old those cases may be.

“Maybe they’re of no consequence to some people, but they are to the families,” Sullivan. “It’s about the families being able to have some closure, if you will, even though it’s a different closure. Our experience in these cases is that 90% of the time, they are very glad to know they can move on now.”

Piper agreed.

“These are someone’s brothers, someone’s mom,” Piper said. “And the family always wonders what happened to their aunt or uncle.”

Laurie H. Summers, Will County coroner, said the coroner’s office recently solved three cold cases. One was Brenda Sue Black from Ohio, who went missing in 1980 and whose bones were found in New Lenox the following the year.

A second was the identification of bones on Brandon Road and a third was a case from 2018, Summers said.

“We want the public to know that if they have a missing person in their families, they need to follow through in getting their DNA into different systems,” Sullivan said.

Piper said even if your DNA doesn’t help solve your loved one’s case, it might help a case in another county or state.

Summers said families with a missing person need to contact the police and have their DNA swabbed.

“There’s no guarantee,” Summers said. “But because of technology, the success rate will probably continue to increase.”

If you may have information that could aid the investigation, call the Will County Coroner’s Office at 815-727-8455 and reference case number UN 97-01, Will County Sheriff’s Office agency number 97-112-104 or NamUs ID #UP5206.

Will County Coroner’s office has contributed funding to support advanced DNA testing. Additional funds are being raised through a DNASolves crowdfund.

To donate, visit dnasolves.com/articles/will_county_jane_doe_1997/.

What’s known so far, according to the Will County Coroner’s office:

· The former Rust Craft Greeting Card Company building in Joliet was demolished in 1992, following a two-day fire.

· The three-story building, which formerly housed the renowned Gerlach-Barclow Calendar Company, took up a full square block on Joliet’s East side and had a full basement.

· Remnants were excavated and moved to location in Rockdale in 1995.

· The bones were discovered in 1997 among the “brick, stone and other building material.”

· Pathologists determined the remains came from the original location and had since been disturbed twice.

· Pathologists determined the victim was female, between ages 15 and 24 and 5 and 10 feet tall.

· Pathologists also believed she died in 1986, before the building’s fire and demolition.

· Weight, hair color, eye color, cause of death are unknown.

· The Smithsonian Conservation Institute conducted Stable Isotope Analysis on the remains and determined the victim came from the Northern Rockies region of the United States or Canada, anywhere from the Dakotas to Washington State.

· The case was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System in 2009.