Remains of unidentified female from 1968 Will County cold case homicide exhumed, Coroner’s Office announces

WILL COUNTY, Ill. — The remains of an unidentified female from a 1968 cold case homicide were exhumed last week for further testing in hopes of making an identification, the Will County Coroner’s Office has announced.

On Friday, Sept. 13, the Will County Coroner’s Office Cold Case Unit, along with the Will County Sheriff’s Police, exhumed the remains of a female whose body was located on Sept. 30, 1968, by a highway department worker while on assignment on I-55 near Blodgett Road in unincorporated Will County.

According to the Coroner’s Office, the female was covered by brush from a nearby tree when she was located. There was no identification, clothing or jewelry found on or near the remains. An autopsy indicated she had been strangled and sustained blunt force trauma to the head.

The Coroner’s Office says the female was measured at 5-foot-5, 135 pounds, with straight, collar-length hair ranging from red to medium-brown, with some graying roots, and possibly dyed. She had brown eyes, a left ear darker than the rest of her body, and both ear lobes had been pierced.

The sketch of the unidentified female that appears with this story was done by a forensic artist in 1968.

The Coroner’s Office says fingerprints taken at the autopsy failed to lead to identification. A blood sample did indicate she had Type O and indications of possible prior toxoplasmosis. But DNA testing was not available in 1968, so the case went cold, and the female was buried in an unmarked grave in a Will County cemetery.

The Coroner’s Office says her remains were exhumed in 2009 for a DNA sample, and further testing indicated Native American and Asian ancestry.

In 2020, newly-elected Will County Coroner Laurie H. Summers approved additional funding for cold case investigations. In this case, the Coroner’s Office says, a submission of a portion of the unidentified victim’s skeletal remains was sent to Othram, Inc., a Forensic Genetic Genealogy company in The Woodlands, Texas, to obtain DNA analysis and a possible genealogy match.

According to the Coroner’s Office, Othram, Inc. has been successfully used in identifying four Will County Coroner cold cases since 2022.

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