Murder Victim Exhumed From Her Grave In Wilmington: Coroner

WILMINGTON — The Will County Coroner's Office of Laurie Summers issued a press release announcing that the human remains of a 1968 cold case homicide victim were exhumed this past Friday in hopes of determining her identity. The victim's remains had been buried at the Oakwood Protestant Cemetery, 301 West Street, in the city of Wilmington.

On Sept. 30, 1968, a Will County Highway Department worker while on assignment on Interstate 55 near Blodgett Road in unincorporated Will County found the remains of a female body covered by brush from a nearby tree.

According to Summers, there was no identification, clothing or jewelry found near the remains.

The unidentified female was measured at 5-foot-5 and weighed 135 pounds, with straight collar-length hair, with color ranging from red to medium brown, with some graying roots. The hair was possibly dyed, Summers said. The woman had brown eyes and had a left ear that was darker than the rest of the body. Both ear lobes were pierced. An autopsy indicated she had been strangled and sustained blunt force trauma to the head.

Summers indicated that the case went cold, and the unidentified woman was buried in an unmarked grave in a local cemetery in Will County.

In 2009, the remains were exhumed to obtain a DNA sample and sent to the University of North Texas and later to the Smithsonian Institute Paleontology section, and it was determined that the female may have been Native American.

Further studies in 2017 by Dr. Cris Hughes of the University of Illinois Forensic Anthropology Department indicated that she had Asian ancestry as well as Native American.

In Tuesday's announcement, Summers indicated that submission of a portion of the victim’s skeletal remains were sent to Othram Inc., a forensic genetic genealogy company in The Woodlands, Texas to obtain DNA analysis and a possible genealogy match.

The funding has been funded by NAMUS, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, Through the Department of Justice. Othram has been successfully used in identifying four Will County Coroner Cold Cases since 2022.

Lastly, Summers thanked Matt Baskerville of the Baskerville Funeral Home in Wilmington, Illinois, and the staff of Oakwood Cemetery in Wilmington, and the University of Illinois Forensic Anthropology Department for their assistance in the exhumation of the remains.