Is Wendy Gessing Dead Or Alive? Crest Hill, Joliet Mystery 3 Years Old

CREST HILL — Although the Crest Hill Police Department has overseen multiple extensive searches looking for Wendy Gessing's remains along Route 6 near Rockdale during the past year, her case remains an unsolved mystery, after three entire years.

Wednesday marked the third anniversary since the 50-year-old Gessing vanished, never to be seen or heard from by anyone.

On June 12, 2021, the Crest Hill woman worked at her longtime place of employment, the Pizzas By Marchelloni carryout and delivery restaurant on North Raynor Avenue in Crest Hill. Her boyfriend and the owner of the Pizzas By Marchelloni, Scott Harris, had worked earlier that day.

During this week's phone interview, Harris told Joliet Patch that his longtime girlfriend's disappearance continues to personally affect him and lots of people, including her family.

Harris said he struggles with whether to grieve, knowing that nobody has seen or heard from Wendy for three years, or whether he should maintain hope she's alive, somewhere out there.

"Nobody ever saw her after that Saturday night," Harris told Joliet Patch. "It's not easier than it was three years ago to wrap my head around."

"I still have some of her clothes," Harris said this week. "I think the biggest thing is, we just want to know. It's just hard. When you don't know if someone passed, and not knowing, it's not easy still and there's still no closure for (her son) Josh and her family. And again, it's been three years."

Harris and Gessing lived together for several years, blocks away from their Pizzas By Marchelloni where they both worked. Harris said he remains unsure if he should donate the rest of her clothes.

"Do you do it? But how do you know?" he asked. "You don't know."

Harris said he has not spoken with Crest Hill police since last November, when they organized their latest search along Route 6 in Rockdale.

That search, like the previous ones, was unsuccessful.

"I think they were working it hard in the beginning, yeah," Harris said.

When asked if he's hopeful Crest Hill police remain in vigilant pursuit of other leads and search locations, Harris replied, "I hope so for everyone's sake, but it's been three years. I just don't know. Nothing has been shared with me. I don't know if they're still working on it."

To this day, Crest Hill police, working with the Will County Sheriff's Office CSI unit, have continued to impound the Honda CRV that belonged to Harris and Gessing.

"I guess there's a reason they're keeping it," Harris said this week.

The gray Honda CRV was discovered on Joliet's near west side, in the 400 block of Buell Avenue, across the street from the house of former Joliet newspaper editor Molly Zelko, who vanished from her driveway late at night in September 1957, Joliet's most enduring mystery.

This week, Harris told Joliet Patch he still does not know whether police believe Wendy drove herself to Joliet's Buell Avenue neighborhood and encountered danger there, or whether something happened to her elsewhere and their Honda CRV was driven by someone else and abandoned.

Widening the geography of the missing person mystery, Gessing's cell phone was recovered in Romeoville, somewhere along Taylor Road.

During the early weeks of the missing person's case, Crest Hill police worked with Joliet police to investigate a possible sighting of Gessing at the Motel 6 on Joliet's McDonough Street.

However, Harris told Patch this week that he did not believe that lead was ever corroborated; he said the woman on the Motel 6 surveillance camera looked to be a lot younger than Gessing.

On Wednesday morning, Joliet Patch interviewed Crest Hill Police Ed Clark.

The chief acknowledged he did not have any noteworthy updates to share surrounding his department's efforts to find Gessing at the three-year mark.

Clark said he did not want to speculate whether Gessing is alive or dead, and he did not want to say whether he considers her disappearance a probable homicide or something else.

"That remains to be decided," Clark answered Wednesday. "And we don't want to jump to conclusions."

Like all her bank accounts and financial records, Gessing's Facebook page has remained dormant since her disappearance in 2021.

Her Facebook page introduction read: "Happy Sober Engaged Mama."

For the past three years, Clark has kept the case assigned to Investigator Conor Sweeney.

"We've done several searches," Clark pointed out. "The case remains open and active. I don't have anything specific to add at this time. Obviously, anonymous tips are encouraged, and they can be made to Will County CrimeStoppers. We are still investigating this and it's still an open investigation. Nobody in the world wants to solve this case more than our investigators."

Clark also urged people with leads and helpful information to contact Investigator Sweeney at the Crest Hill Police Department phone number of 815-741-5115.

Clark said he would not comment on whether specific people have ruled out as suspects in connection with her disappearance. "The family's been cooperative in the investigation," he replied.

When asked if that cooperation included Harris as well as Gessing's son, Josh, who is in his 20s, Clark answered yes.

Harris previously told Joliet Patch that after he finished his Saturday afternoon manager's shift at his pizza parlor, on June 12, 2021, he later went to socialize at the Lockport Moose Club. He said that he texted Wendy late that Saturday night after she did not come home from work, and his phone call went to her voice mail.

She never picked up the phone. She never sent him a text reply regarding her whereabouts.

In retrospect, Harris said this week, he wished that one of his fellow workers had called and alerted him that Gessing did not return to work to close down their restaurant that Saturday night.

According to Harris, one of his nieces was inside the pizza parlor and remembered seeing Gessing at the Pizzas By Marchelloni around 6 p.m.

Back in 2021, Harris told Patch that Gessing notified John, one of her fellow Pizzas By Marchelloni employees, that she was going out to give someone a ride.

Gessing also worked at several area food pantries, and often donated clothes and other items to help the less fortunate. Harris said Gessing was supposedly giving a ride to someone who perhaps lived at a halfway house.

"John said she was planning to be back in a few minutes," Harris told Patch in 2021.

It was a small pizza staff that night, besides Gessing, who was a night manager. There was a young man in college working there along with John, who was in his 60s. John died several months later because of a medical issue, according to Harris.

"They were just friends," Harris said of Gessing and John. "Sometimes she would give John a ride home. They ruled him out from what was told to me."

During this week's interview, Harris said he did not believe any of his pizza employees had anything to do with her disappearance.

Still, Harris said he wished someone would have notified him sooner, that way, the missing person police investigation could have started sooner.

"Nobody from the store called me," he told Patch.