GRUNDY COUNTY, Ill. — Illinois officials are asking the Tri-State's help in identifying the victim of a cold case murder from the 70s. They believe Jane Doe was born in Cincinnati.
On October 2, 1976, a farmer in rural Illinois found a young woman dead in a ditch. She was naked except for a sweater tied around her head with a plastic bag and electrical tape over it. She had been shot in the back of her head.
Her death is the only cold case in Grundy County, Illinois.
"I've been disappointed many times, but this is the farthest we've ever come," said Brandon Johnson, deputy chief coroner in Grundy County.
Johnson has been leading the investigation for about five years.
"We've learned way more than what they knew back in 1976," he said.
After previous unsuccessful attempts to identify the woman, authorities buried her in an unmarked grave. Then, in 2018, they exhumed her body to continue the investigation, taking advantage of new forensic science.
Now, the coroner's office is working with the DNA Doe Project. This nonprofit uses genetic genealogy to try to identify John and Jane Does. It's similar to a DNA test like 23andMe or Ancestry.com.
A team has been able to identify a possible family tree for Jane Doe.
"Her closest DNA matches have common ancestors from the region of Selma, Alabama," said Cairenn Binder, director of education for the DNA Doe Project.
Investigators think some descendants of these ancestors moved to Cincinnati and Jane Doe might have ties to the West End.
"The team is still trying to figure out exactly which descendant from those common ancestors in Selma moved to the midwest and were the parents and grandparents of Jane Doe," Binder said.
So far the team has pieced together that Jane Doe was likely born between 1948 and 1960. One of her grandparents was likely named Calhoun and another was likely named Harris. They said she might have siblings who don't know she exists.
Binder said the DNA Doe Project is highlighting this case for February because they want to put a spotlight on some of the things that make it more challenging to identify someone who is African American through genetic genealogy.
"People from minority populations don't tend to take DNA tests at the same rate as individuals who are western European," she said.
Additionally, it's difficult to obtain geneological records from the time during and around slavery and changing surnames are an added challenge.
Investigators are hoping the details they've been able to find will be enough to identify Jane Doe.
"We're hoping that anyone out there may remember an old classmate, an old friend, a relative, cousin that one day just went missing," Johnson said.
Binder is hopeful because she's seen it happen before with other victims from a murder that occurred in the same time period.
"Back in the 70s and 80s there wasn't a really centralized system for reporting people missing like what we have now," she said, "so a lot of these people were reported missing by their families, friends and loved ones when they went missing a long time ago and those missing persons reports just never made it into the computer systems that we have today."
If you recognize Jane Doe or have any information about the case, you are asked to contact Johnson or the Grundy County Coroner's Office at 815-941-3359 or bjohnson@grundycountyil.gov.
If you don't recognize her, there are still things you can do to help solve the case and other similar cases. Donations to the DNA Doe Project helped make the discoveries the team has found in this case possible.
The DNA Doe Project is also asking people who have done a DNA test like 23andMe to sign up for DNA matching. They said even if you don't think you have a family member who is missing, signing up for the database they use could help solve a case.
