Michigan Man, 82, Arrested In Wife's 1988 Murder, Disappearance In Illinois

FLINT, MI — More than a year after Illinois detectives traveled to Flint, Michigan, to interview resident Gilbert Bernal about the 1988 disappearance of his wife, he's been arrested — for the second time — in her murder. The Will County Sheriff's Office booked Bernal Friday on two counts of murder in connection with the death of his wife, Joan Bernal, who has never been found.

The 82-year-old Michigan man was booked into the Will County Jail at 10:55 a.m. Friday.

For the time being, his Will County murder charges are sealed. Bernal is scheduled to make his first appearance at the Will County Courthouse on Monday morning, in Courtroom 405 of Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak; at that point, the criminal charges will likely be unsealed.

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, and her body has never been found. 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.

The case was featured in the fall on a true-crime cable television show documentary called "Cold Justice."

Will County Sheriff's Lt. Nat Freeman and Sgt. Mike Earnest said that they, along with several fellow detectives, were followed for several days in October 2024 by a Los Angeles-based film crew that was producing a segment about the case for the Oxygen network show "Cold Justice." The one-hour show on the Joliet crime ultimately aired last fall.

Joan Bernal was a driver for the Joliet Mass Transit District. She was born in Oak Park and grew up in Hickory Hills, graduating from Stagg High School in 1972.

During the December 2024 interview, Earnest and Freeman disclosed to Joliet Patch that their prime suspect surrounding the murder of Joan Bernal remained her husband, Gilbert "Gil," Bernal. At the time of her disappearance, the family lived on Zarley Road in unincorporated Will County.

At the time of this week's arrest, Gil Bernal was living in Flint, Michigan.

In October 2024, during the filming for the Cold Justice show, Earnest told Patch that he traveled to Michigan to interview Gil Bernal.

"I talked with him about two hours," Earnest said.

Earnest said Gil Bernal has denied being responsible for his wife's disappearance and slaying. He has continued to insist that his wife went on an out-of-state bus trip and never returned.

According to a detailed summary by The Doe Network, Joan Bernal was supposed to join her husband on a trip to Edinburg, Texas. Police investigators said they believed that Gilbert Bernal killed his wife on Dec. 9, 1988, after quarreling about taking her children on the planned trip to Texas.

Bernal said he gave his wife $1,500 before she boarded a Joliet-bound bus in McAllister, Oklahoma, authorities have said in the past. But investigators found she never made the trip.

In 1993, Gil Bernal was charged with Joan's murder, even though her body was not found.

Then, after taking over as the new Will County State's Attorney, James Glasgow had the murder charges against Gilbert Bernal dropped in 1994 based on a criminal defense lawyer's contention that he produced four different people who have claimed to have seen Joan Bernal still alive, the Chicago Tribune reported in May 1994.

"It didn't ever go to trial," Freeman pointed out. "Officially, there were a few witnesses who supposedly knew Gil and said they saw Joan alive."