She Wants Her Jailed Dad To Reveal Where He Put Joan Bernal's Body: Joliet's 'Cold Justice' Murder Heats Up

JOLIET, IL — On Monday morning, 82-year-old former Joliet resident Gilbert Bernal will be escorted into the Will County Courtroom of Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak to face murder charges in the December 1988 disappearance of his wife, Joan Bernal, whose body has never been located.

Four months after the popular Oxygen network television show, "Cold Justice," aired its one-hour documentary on the Joliet Township mystery, the Will County Sheriff's Office went back to Flint, Michigan, to capture Gilbert Bernal.

He was booked into the Will County Jail on Friday morning on murder charges.

One of the Joliet couple's children, Sarita Woerheide, was not quite 3 years old when her mother vanished without a trace. At the time of Joan Bernal's disappearance and murder, the Bernal family lived at 113 East Zarley Boulevard, the Preston Heights area of Joliet's east side.

READ UPDATE: Joliet 'Cold Justice' Murder Defendant Gilbert Bernal, 82, Learns This Judge Will Handle His Court Case

Woerheide was interviewed for the "Cold Justice" show, and she plans to be at the Will County Courthouse Monday morning to watch the proceedings as her father enters the courtroom, wearing handcuffs, leg shackles and his new Will County Jail inmate attire.

"I was raised by my dad," she told Joliet Patch during Sunday's phone interview.

When asked what she hopes will happen with the court case in 2026, Woerheide responded, "I hope we go to trial. I would hope that a year from now, he's found guilty and he's living in jail."

She's also hoping that her father makes the decision to confess and reveal precisely where he put Joan Bernal's body back in December 1988 when she disappeared.

Hopefully, "he finally tells exactly what he did with her. I know my dad very well. At this very moment, he's still very convinced he cannot be convicted of a crime because there's no body," his daughter told Joliet Patch's editor during Sunday's interview. "He 100 percent believes he will not be convicted of anything because there's no body."

During the "Cold Justice" segment in September, the world-wide true-crime audience learned that Gilbert Bernal claimed he gave his wife $1,500 cash and dropped her off in Oklahoma so that she could take a bus back to Joliet from McCallister, Oklahoma — but she never came back to Joliet.

On Sunday, Joliet Patch asked Woerheide where she thinks her mother's body was hidden.

"I'm definitely thinking south Texas or Mexico," she answered. "That's what I'm thinking."

At the time of Joan Bernal's disappearance, the Joliet mother worked as a bus driver for Pace while her husband worked as a service manager at the Joliet bus barn off South Chicago Street.

Woerheide said her father has been candid over the years in acknowledging how he repeatedly hit Joan Bernal during their marriage, but he's always maintained "I did not kill her."

"He's very quick to say, yeah, I beat the hell out of her," Woerheide pointed out.

Gilbert Bernal was arrested once before, back in 1993, for the murder; then his charges were dismissed before his case ever went to trial, back in 1994.

"At the end of the day, everything is in the Will County State's Attorney's Office's hands," Woerheide pointed out. "I want to believe they are going to see this through to the end."

In 1994, when the murder charges were dropped, DNA and forensics were not at the forefront of solving murder cases. "But circumstantial cases can still be solid cases especially in a case like this when the circumstantial evidence is so overwhelming," Woerheide pointed out.

Overall, she's happy with the Will County Sheriff's Office and the current detective unit's drive to hold her father accountable for her mother's murder and the disposal of her body.

In December 2024, Joliet Patch produced an in-depth story, revealing that it had been 36 years since Joliet resident Joan Bernal was apparently slain inside her home in the Preston Heights area of Joliet's far east side. Despite the passage of time, the Will County Sheriff's Office said the disappearance of Joan Bernal remains one of the highest priorities for their agency's cold case unit.

"They have said, we're sorry this has dragged on so long," Woerheide told Patch. "They have worked diligent to right their wrongs."

She said the family was pleased with how the "Cold Justice" TV documentary came together when the show finally aired in September. The production was in the making for more than a year.

"This is a 37-year-old case, there's a lot to it and they only have about 40 to 45 minutes (after commercials) to tell a story," Woerheide explained. "The time they had, they got the point across, and they filled their purpose."

The Will County State's Attorney's Office will have to file a petition for detention, arguing why Gilbert Bernal should be detained in the Will County Jail under the Illinois SAFE-T-Act.

Woerheide said she hopes the judge assigned to the case chooses to keep her father in the jail rather than let him return back to his home in Flint, Michigan.

"I'm just cautiously hopeful. I know he's in jail, I don't know what happens from here," she explained.

Related Joliet Patch coverage of Joan Bernal's Murder:

Joliet Cold Case Solved: Michigan Man, 82, Arrested In Wife's 1988 Murder, Disappearance

Unsolved Joliet Murder: Missing Woman's Body Has Never Been Found