Speaker 1: This podcast is based on information sourced primarily from police
Speaker 1: and media reports, but certain names and other identifying details
Speaker 1: may have been changed or altered for privacy and security reasons.
Speaker 1: While the events in cases discussed are based on real investigations,
Speaker 1: some aspects may be simplified for time and for narrative purposes.
Speaker 1: Voice actors have been used to read from statements or documents.
Speaker 1: All information presented is intended solely to inform and raise awareness.
Speaker 1: Hosts may discuss theories regarding the cases examined in this podcast,
Speaker 1: but such discussions are not intended to and should not
Speaker 1: be considered by the listener to be legal conclusions. All
Speaker 1: persons discussed are considered innocent until proven guilty in a
Speaker 1: court of law. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: This is Chief Anna Lally. Welcome to Somebody Knows Something,
Speaker 2: a podcast from the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Unit.
Speaker 2: In this podcast, we will shed new light on cold
Speaker 2: cases in the city of Elgin by sharing untold details
Speaker 2: and by encouraging anyone with information to come forward. You
Speaker 2: will come along with real cold case detectives as they
Speaker 2: investigate active cold cases in real time and seek justice
Speaker 2: for the victims and closure for their families. We believe
Speaker 2: that the Elgin Police Department and our community can work
Speaker 2: together to bring closure to cold cases because we know
Speaker 2: that in these cases, somebody knows something.
Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to Somebody Knows something. The Elgin Police
Speaker 3: Department Cold Case Podcast My name is Detective Andrew Howton.
Speaker 4: Non Detective Chris Hall. One of the past several episodes,
Speaker 4: we have traveled to Elgin, Juliette, Aurora, and Chicago as
Speaker 4: we seek more information in Wayteria's case. Now we want
Speaker 4: to look at the forensic options that we have moving forward.
Speaker 4: For this episode, we turn our attention to a group
Speaker 4: called the National Missing and Unidentified Person System, or as
Speaker 4: we call NamUs, which is currently the only national repository
Speaker 4: for missing, unidentified and unclanned persons in the country. We
Speaker 4: are hoping that this system might just be exactly what
Speaker 4: we need to bring Whyteria Jones on. NamUs has an
Speaker 4: online database that has a public facing portion and a
Speaker 4: law enforcement only portion. The public can use the site
Speaker 4: to search for information. That public facing portion provides limited
Speaker 4: information viewable to the public. Law enforcement section that we
Speaker 4: can access has much more additional information that isn't public
Speaker 4: and It allows police to track cases, update cases, and
Speaker 4: conduct searches. Using nam US, police can also use case
Speaker 4: specific information to search for other missing persons cases and
Speaker 4: unidentified remains cases to coordinate with other law enforcement agencies
Speaker 4: around the country. From the very beginning of this case,
Speaker 4: one of our major goals has been to upload DNA
Speaker 4: for wayteria and search databases to determine if she has
Speaker 4: already been found but not identified, and even if she
Speaker 4: has not been located. We want to have DNA available
Speaker 4: for future detectives in the event that one day she
Speaker 4: has finally found.
Speaker 3: Name is the story begins. Back in two thousand and three,
Speaker 3: the National Institute of Justice began funding major efforts to
Speaker 3: maximize the use of DNA technology within the criminal justice system,
Speaker 3: specifically in cases of missing and unidentified persons. In two
Speaker 3: thousand and five, the Deputy Attorney General of the United States,
Speaker 3: Robert McCallum, Junior, created the National Missing Person's Task Force
Speaker 3: in an effort to improve law enforcement's ability to access
Speaker 3: information and solve missing and unidentified person's cases. From that
Speaker 3: task Force, NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System
Speaker 3: was born.
Speaker 4: NamUs launched two different systems, the Namous Unidentified Persons or
Speaker 4: UP database in two thousand and seven and the Names
Speaker 4: Missing Persons or MP database in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 4: Then in two thousand and nine they combine both systems
Speaker 4: for automatic case comparisons between the Missing Person's database and
Speaker 4: the Unidentified Person's database.
Speaker 3: Since two thousand and nine, the database has grown exponentially.
Speaker 3: NamUs has also expanded to include analytical and case support,
Speaker 3: fingerprint comparison, and in twenty twenty two they established the
Speaker 3: FBI Forensic Genealogy Searching Partnership. So NamUs can and does
Speaker 3: assist law enforcement in a number of different ways. While
Speaker 3: we will not be using forensic genetic genealogy or FGG
Speaker 3: in the usual sense, in this particular case, we will
Speaker 3: be using familial DNA in a slightly different way.
Speaker 4: Forensic genetic genealogy traditionally involves a case in which there
Speaker 4: is an unknown offender or victim. Police can use the
Speaker 4: DNA from the unknown person and upload it to the
Speaker 4: various genealogy databases where they can search for distant relatives. Then,
Speaker 4: once they identified distant relatives, genealogy experts backtrack to try
Speaker 4: to identify the source of the DNA through extensive family trees.
Speaker 4: A lot of listeners to our podcast have probably heard
Speaker 4: about the Golden State Killer case in California and about
Speaker 4: how police in that case used forensic genealogy in twenty
Speaker 4: eighteen to identify Joseph James DiAngelo as the serial rapist
Speaker 4: and murderer who terrorized the state of California in the
Speaker 4: nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties. But what many people don't
Speaker 4: know is that the Golden State Killer case is not
Speaker 4: actually the first case where police used that technology.
Speaker 3: Four years before the Golden State Killer was identified, police
Speaker 3: in Phoenix, Arizona, were working on a cold case that
Speaker 3: was over twenty years old and it involved a serial
Speaker 3: killer the media had dubbed the Canal Killer. On November eighth,
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety two, twenty two year old Angelo Brasso was
Speaker 3: attacked and murdered as she wrote her bicycle along the
Speaker 3: Arizona Canal in Phoenix, Arizona. Then just under a year later,
Speaker 3: in September of nineteen ninety three, seventeen year old Melanie
Speaker 3: Burness was also murdered in the same area. Both young
Speaker 3: women were sid actually assaulted, and DNA later connected them
Speaker 3: both to the same suspect, but police had no idea
Speaker 3: who that suspect was for over twenty years.
Speaker 4: By twenty fourteen, police and both girls' families had still
Speaker 4: not given up so when Colleen Fitzpatrick, a forensic scientist
Speaker 4: and genealogist, suggested that they attempt to identify the offender
Speaker 4: using genetic genealogy, the Phoenix Police Department agreed. By January
Speaker 4: of twenty fifteen, they had identified an offender, Brian Patrick Miller,
Speaker 4: and ultimately confirmed that he was the man who killed
Speaker 4: both Angela and Melanie. Brian is currently on death row
Speaker 4: in Arizona for his crimes, but we should add that
Speaker 4: Miller is also widely suspected of abducting and murdering thirteen
Speaker 4: year old Brandy Myers. Myers had disappeared just outside Miller's
Speaker 4: apartment in Phoenix on May twenty sixth, nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 4: If you have any information about Brian Patrick Miller or
Speaker 4: Brandy Myers case, please contact the Phoenix Police Department at
Speaker 4: Coldcasehomicide dot PPD at Phoenix dot gov.
Speaker 3: Even before the Golden State killer case, police also use
Speaker 3: investigative genetic genealogy in a different way. They used it
Speaker 3: to identify previously unidentified victims. In the critically acclaimed podcast Bearbrook,
Speaker 3: which was released in twenty eighteen, host to Jason Moon,
Speaker 3: walks listeners through the investigation of four people were murdered
Speaker 3: and found in barrels in Bearbrooks State Park in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: The first barrel, containing a woman and young girl, was
Speaker 3: found in nineteen eighty five, then in two thousand a
Speaker 3: second barrel with two more young children was also found
Speaker 3: in the same state park. Throughout the season, Moon describes
Speaker 3: that the four victims' identities were unknown until twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: when investigators identified three of them using FGG technology. Because
Speaker 3: the case had ties to California, an investigator there began
Speaker 3: working with New Hampshire on the case. He quickly determined
Speaker 3: that the same technology could be used to identify unknown
Speaker 3: suspects as well. So while the Golden State Killer case
Speaker 3: gets a lot of media credit for being the first
Speaker 3: time police used genetic genealogy the Solfa case, it likely
Speaker 3: would not have happened without the New Hampshire case, which
Speaker 3: was coordinated between law enforcement on both coasts, and it
Speaker 3: also would not have happened without the Phoenix case, which
Speaker 3: was tied up in appeals for a number of years.
Speaker 3: It really is a testament to interagency cooperation and police
Speaker 3: around the country embracing new technology and cold cases.
Speaker 4: Yes, it certainly is. And because of this technology and
Speaker 4: because of the cooperation between the public, civilians and law enforcement,
Speaker 4: people like Brian Patrick Miller and Joseph DiAngelo are sitting
Speaker 4: in prison for their crimes. And because of this technology,
Speaker 4: people like Mary Lice, Elizabeth Honeychurch and her children, Marie
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Vaughan, Sarah Lynn McWaters and Raya Resmussen have been
Speaker 4: identified as the victims found in Bearbrooks State Park. Countless
Speaker 4: other offenders and victims have also been identified as the
Speaker 4: police continue to use this cutting edge technology to solve
Speaker 4: cases that are decades old.
Speaker 3: For our case, we are using familial DNA, but in
Speaker 3: a different way. In New Hampshire police had four sets
Speaker 3: of unidentified human remains and they had no idea who
Speaker 3: they were, so they collected DNA standards from those unknown victims,
Speaker 3: uploaded them to databases and reverse engineered a family tree
Speaker 3: to help identify them. In our situation, we know that
Speaker 3: why Teria is missing and that there are multiple sets
Speaker 3: of unidentified human remains that could be her, but we
Speaker 3: don't have any DNA, so we need to build out
Speaker 3: a family tree on our own to identify potential candidates
Speaker 3: for familial DNA, collect that DNA and then starts for
Speaker 3: potential unknown human remains, and we could link back to
Speaker 3: her using that DNA standard. The problem is there's a
Speaker 3: huge number of unidentified remains around the country.
Speaker 4: Namos's website lists that there are over twenty five thousand
Speaker 4: open missing persons cases, over fifteen thousand unidentified remains in
Speaker 4: over twenty one thousand unclaimed remains in the United States.
Speaker 4: Since its inception, NamUs has helped resolve over seventy five
Speaker 4: thousand cases in total, but thousands still remain unsolved.
Speaker 3: The number of cases that NamUs has helped resolved is
Speaker 3: certainly impressive, but agencies and other groups should continue to
Speaker 3: think about NamUs as an option for cases. Because the
Speaker 3: National Crime Information Center notes between twenty seven and twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: an average of six hundred and sixty four thousand, seven
Speaker 3: hundred seventy six people are reported missing in the United
Speaker 3: States each year, and the US Department of Justice also
Speaker 3: noted that there are over four thy four hundred unidentified
Speaker 3: bodies that are recovered annually. Then you have the twenty
Speaker 3: eighteen Census of Medical Examiners in Corners report, which documents
Speaker 3: that there are over eleven thousand sets of unidentified remains
Speaker 3: simply sitting at corners offices and medical examer's offices around
Speaker 3: the country. When you add all those numbers together, you
Speaker 3: have a really staggering number of both missing people and
Speaker 3: unidentified sets of human remains around the United States.
Speaker 4: Those numbers are truly staggering. When you look at NamUs
Speaker 4: more closely, they currently have over four hundred missing persons cases,
Speaker 4: over four hundred unidentified persons, and over ninety unclaimed remains
Speaker 4: here in Illinois alone. So we have to at least
Speaker 4: consider that Wyteria could be one of those unidentified people
Speaker 4: here in Illinois. But because of the huge time gap
Speaker 4: that we have in her case, we also have to
Speaker 4: consider that she could potentially be one of the thousands
Speaker 4: of identified remains in nearby states or even across the country.
Speaker 3: The problem is we don't have DNA in the system yet,
Speaker 3: so we can only look at possible biological sex and
Speaker 3: race and age and physical descriptions When we filter for
Speaker 3: potential comparisons for Wayteria right now, and a system is
Speaker 3: only as good as the information that's put into it.
Speaker 3: Some sets of human remains in the system might not
Speaker 3: be marked as female or as black slash African American. Instead,
Speaker 3: many of them are listed as uncertain or not provided
Speaker 3: or other. While we can at least get a general
Speaker 3: idea of potential candidates for comparison, it is entirely possible
Speaker 3: that a set of human remains that's marked uncertain for
Speaker 3: race or unsure for biological sex could be Whyteria. That's
Speaker 3: why we need DNA to start a more comprehensive search
Speaker 3: in this case. Well, here in Elgin, we've spent the
Speaker 3: last year assuring that all of our missing person cases,
Speaker 3: including our cold cases, are listed in NamUs because it's
Speaker 3: the best way for us to track them and determine
Speaker 3: if they are unidentified remains that have been recovered that
Speaker 3: might match one of our cases. When we started our investigation,
Speaker 3: we had five cold cases active in NamUs. Obviously Whyteria
Speaker 3: is listed in there, but we also briefly talked about
Speaker 3: Franco Loyo Manor esqe A Lante Martinez, Chad Smith, and
Speaker 3: Darren Wood in our bonus episode back in March. We
Speaker 3: are happy to report that just days after our bonus
Speaker 3: episode aired in March, Cook County Sheriff's Department in Metro
Speaker 3: Police located Chad Smith alive in Chicago. Chris helped reunite
Speaker 3: him with his mother, and we removed him from our
Speaker 3: caseload and from Leeds. So our Nameus cases and our
Speaker 3: cold case files now include four people as of the
Speaker 3: date of this recording. Those people are why Teria Jones,
Speaker 3: Darren Wood Maynor, Escalante Martinez, and Franco Loyo.
Speaker 4: Other area people that we've talked about in past episodes
Speaker 4: of our podcast are also included in Name Us. There's
Speaker 4: Deborah McCall, who was sixteen years old when she disappeared
Speaker 4: in Downers Grove in nineteen seventy nine. Andrew Matt talked
Speaker 4: about her in season one because her disappearance is potentially
Speaker 4: linked to an area serial killer named Bruce Lundall. Then
Speaker 4: there's Barbara Gluker, whose case we are still working on
Speaker 4: today with Mount Prospect, and girls like April Rose Zane
Speaker 4: and Sarah Elizabeth Avon, who we mentioned in episode four.
Speaker 4: We also listened multiple young black women and girls. Last episode,
Speaker 4: Who Were Awesome, missed from Chicago in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 4: and they are listed in NAMES two along with thousands
Speaker 4: of other women, men, and children.
Speaker 3: People like Keana Galvin from South Elgin and Lisa Stebeck
Speaker 3: and Stacy Peterson, who we briefly mentioned in our Joliet episode,
Speaker 3: are also included in the Missing Person's database in NamUs.
Speaker 3: All three women are pretty well known cases here in Illinois,
Speaker 3: and they're all still missing. I think one staggering thing
Speaker 3: that both of us have found is that there are
Speaker 3: just so many people, especially young women and girls, listed
Speaker 3: in NamUs. It's truly heartbreaking. And there's one more young
Speaker 3: woman we'd like to briefly discuss here in our podcast
Speaker 3: who's an area of missing girl and is also listed
Speaker 3: in NamUs. She also had links to season one this podcast.
Speaker 3: Twenty six year old Kimberly M. Shanders disappeared from Carpentersville, Illinois,
Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty seven. We didn't mention her case in
Speaker 3: season one, but we had some tips come in during
Speaker 3: that season which mentioned her, and there are some odd
Speaker 3: coincidences that link her to season one. For starters, Kimberly
Speaker 3: was a twenty six year old white female who was
Speaker 3: last seen at the meadow Vale Shopping Center in April.
Speaker 3: Just like twenty three year old Karen Sheeper's only Kimberly
Speaker 3: vanished in nineteen eighty seven and Karen disappeared in nineen
Speaker 3: eighty three. Also, just like Barbara Lucert, Kimberly left her
Speaker 3: house and planned to go to a concert before she disappeared.
Speaker 4: Coincidentally, Kimberly had also traveled in Nashville, Tennessee, just a
Speaker 4: month prior to her disappearance because she loved country music
Speaker 4: and dreamed of moving to Nashville for the music scene.
Speaker 4: Being a music fan, she entered a local radio station
Speaker 4: contest and won two tickets to see Chris Christofferson in
Speaker 4: concert in Meryllville, Indiana. Kimberly did not have a car,
Speaker 4: but she did have one hundred and twenty dollars in
Speaker 4: travelers checks when she left to head to Indiana on
Speaker 4: April twenty fourth, nineteen eighty seven, but she never cashed
Speaker 4: those checks and Kimberly never came back.
Speaker 3: Police were never able to prove if she actually did
Speaker 3: make it to the concert, but they do believe that
Speaker 3: she likely made it to Merylville because an employee at
Speaker 3: the Meryllville Holiday n told police that Kimberly had asked
Speaker 3: about a bus that would go back to Chicago. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: he told her that such a bus existed, because, according
Speaker 3: to him, the only bus at that time ran on
Speaker 3: local routes and didn't go all the way to Chicago.
Speaker 4: Similar to why Tiia's case, police have never been able
Speaker 4: to confirm if Kimberly bought a bus ticket in Maryllville, Indiana,
Speaker 4: or anywhere else. The companies back then didn't keep records
Speaker 4: of passengers. Plus we now know that she didn't cast
Speaker 4: your travelers checks, so if she did buy a ticket,
Speaker 4: she may have paid cash for it, and there's no
Speaker 4: paper trail at all for that purchase. Kimberly, like many
Speaker 4: other girls in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, just
Speaker 4: simply vanished.
Speaker 3: Kimberly Shanders was approximately five foot one to five foot
Speaker 3: two inches tall, weigh one hundred and ten to one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifteen pounds, and had brown hair and brown
Speaker 3: eyes when she disappeared in nineteen eighty seven. She also
Speaker 3: wore glasses and at pierced Ears. We encourage our listeners
Speaker 3: to check out Kimberly's case and other area cases on
Speaker 3: NamUs where you can read about the cases, see pictures
Speaker 3: of the missing people, where you can find contact the
Speaker 3: agency working on each case. If you have information on
Speaker 3: Kimberly's case or any other area missing person case, please
Speaker 3: contact us and we can help find the right agency
Speaker 3: for you to talk to brig your case.
Speaker 4: While our hope is that updating Whyterius case with DNA
Speaker 4: could lead to an identification, it isn't a certainty. Kimberly
Speaker 4: Shanders had meilial DNA and dental records and NamUs, and
Speaker 4: so does Barbara bluecurt and a number of our other
Speaker 4: cold case missing people as well, but they are all
Speaker 4: still missing names. Is just another tool, But we believe
Speaker 4: that updating Whyteria's case and using this tool is one
Speaker 4: huge step that we definitely need to take.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And while it might not guarantee that we find
Speaker 3: her in twenty twenty six, once that DNA is uploaded,
Speaker 3: it's there for future investigators too. Maybe we won't find
Speaker 3: Wayteria during this current investigation, but over the past few months,
Speaker 3: neighboring agencies have found skeletonized remains in places like Baker's Lake,
Speaker 3: Forest Preserve in nearby Barrington and Raceway Woods in Carpersville.
Speaker 3: As police around the state and country work to identify
Speaker 3: newly discovered remains, it is entirely possible that remains from
Speaker 3: around the country or around the area could be found
Speaker 3: years later and identified as Waiteria because we uploaded familial
Speaker 3: DNA during our investigation.
Speaker 4: Absolutely and in fact, human remains found in twenty twelve
Speaker 4: along I ninety four and Cicero Avenue were identified in
Speaker 4: February of twenty twenty six as sixty four year old
Speaker 4: Ronald M. Reischer because Illinois State Police were able to
Speaker 4: get DNA from a relative. This technology can and has
Speaker 4: solved cold cases, and a future set of unidentified remains
Speaker 4: found even decades from now could be compared to DNA.
Speaker 4: For Wateriia's family, she deserves to be found and identified
Speaker 4: and placed at rest. Getting DNA for this case is
Speaker 4: the best chance to do that moving forward.
Speaker 3: Kimberly's case and Wayteria's are the types of investigations that
Speaker 3: certainly make us think that we should be considering areas
Speaker 3: outside of Elgin and Kane County for potential human remains
Speaker 3: for Wahteria. As we said she could literally be anywhere
Speaker 3: in the country because she was missing for four months
Speaker 3: before she was reported missing, and she had ties to Tennessee,
Speaker 3: potentially to Texas and other states that we haven't mentioned before,
Speaker 3: so we have to cast a large net for her.
Speaker 3: Let's start with Tennessee. We know that why Terry had
Speaker 3: ties there because she was born there, she had family there,
Speaker 3: and she lived there briefly in nineteen seventy six. And Tennessee,
Speaker 3: just like Illinois, has a number of cases involving missing people.
Speaker 3: With that in mind, when it comes to missing persons,
Speaker 3: as we've said in other episodes, we want to highlight
Speaker 3: as many of those cases as we can, even if
Speaker 3: they're not technically ours. One group that we've met since
Speaker 3: we launched our podcast is the creators and hosts of
Speaker 3: a podcast called Missing in Hushtown. They, similar to us,
Speaker 3: use this platform to discuss missing person cases, but do
Speaker 3: so in rural Tennessee, and a percentage of their revenue
Speaker 3: goes directly to the family and their cases. In fact,
Speaker 3: the sister of one of the missing people for their
Speaker 3: first season actually works alongside the host on the podcast.
Speaker 4: For season one, Missing in Hushtown discussed the disappearance of
Speaker 4: a twenty one year old Jennifer Wicks and her two
Speaker 4: year old daughter, Adriana in March twenty fifth, two thousand
Speaker 4: and four. They were reportedly last seen in Cross Plains, Tennessee,
Speaker 4: which is a small town roughly forty miles north of Nashville,
Speaker 4: in the company of Jennifer's boyfriend, Joey Benton. Both Jennifer
Speaker 4: and her daughter are still missing.
Speaker 3: For season two, the group covered the disappearance of eleven
Speaker 3: year old Bethany Murkowski from Jackson, Tennessee area. Bethany was
Speaker 3: reportedly lasting at Old Hickory Shopping Mall in Jackson, Tennessee,
Speaker 3: on March fourth, two thousand and one. She has described
Speaker 3: as four foot eight inches tall, ninety five pounds, and
Speaker 3: she was lasting wearing a green shirt, blue jeans, and
Speaker 3: black shoes. The state of Tennessee now honors the children
Speaker 3: who are missing and the families who are still waiting
Speaker 3: for answers on Tennessee Missing Children's Day every March fourth,
Speaker 3: the anniversary of her disappearance.
Speaker 4: We know that these cases are not our cases, but
Speaker 4: these are young women and children who matter and who
Speaker 4: are missing. We've had the pleasure of meeting the hosts
Speaker 4: of Missing in Hushtown and Jennifer's sister, and we decided
Speaker 4: that if we can use this platform to generate some
Speaker 4: more attention for their case, that's exactly what we should do.
Speaker 4: So we encourage listeners to our podcast to check out
Speaker 4: Missing in Hushtown and again encourage listeners to start the
Speaker 4: name of database from missing people in your own area.
Speaker 4: You might just have some information that could help close
Speaker 4: some other cases, even outside of Elgin, And if we
Speaker 4: can help some other agency or some other family members,
Speaker 4: we certainly want to do that. All the way back
Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty three, police spoke with Byteria's family, but
Speaker 4: like we've said before, DNA was something that was not
Speaker 4: comprehendible even back then. Over the years, Elgin Police have
Speaker 4: attempted to get access to fingerprints and downal records for Wayteria,
Speaker 4: but we've never been able to locate any of those,
Speaker 4: and so if a set of human remains were recovered
Speaker 4: in the nineteen eighties or nineteen nineties or even the
Speaker 4: two thousands, we'd have no idea and there's no way
Speaker 4: to link those remains to Wayteria. Plus, this case was
Speaker 4: never updated with Familia DNA over the past few years
Speaker 4: because quite frankly, we didn't have a unit doing this
Speaker 4: full time. Our own policies have been updated to reflect
Speaker 4: changes in technology, and we now attempt to collect DNA
Speaker 4: within a set timeframe. So our hope is we don't
Speaker 4: have any cases slipped the crew, and we upload everything
Speaker 4: as soon as we can with the newest technology that
Speaker 4: is available.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like you said, with the advent of more
Speaker 3: advanced DNA technology, there's more options now that we can
Speaker 3: use to try to link missing people to unidentified remains.
Speaker 3: But again for this case, we have a huge problem.
Speaker 3: Wayteria didn't disappear forty hours ago. She disappeared over forty
Speaker 3: years ago, so we can't get a toothbrush or a
Speaker 3: comb or some other item to get her actual DNA
Speaker 3: profile or Whyteria. Plus, she had no criminal history and
Speaker 3: she doesn't have a DNA standard in CODIS, not that
Speaker 3: that would matter because cotis didn't even exist when she disappeared.
Speaker 3: That's how old this case is.
Speaker 4: For this new investigation, we are left with one option
Speaker 4: and one option only. We need multiple sources of familial
Speaker 4: DNA for Wateria to submit to NamUs so that we
Speaker 4: can attempt to link her to any unidentified remains. As
Speaker 4: our listeners know, Wayteria had five children, but unfortunately a
Speaker 4: number of them have passed away, plus one of her
Speaker 4: daughters was placed with an adopted family, and we are
Speaker 4: still working to track her down, so our pool of
Speaker 4: people to provide familial DNA is shrinking by the year.
Speaker 4: The other issue that we have had is that the
Speaker 4: type of DNA we need is very specific, so before
Speaker 4: we can submit any familial DNA to name us, we
Speaker 4: need to actually find suitable donors and then collect it,
Speaker 4: which means more investigation and potentially more travel outside of Belgium.
Speaker 3: Next episode, we will continue our search for Whyteria and
Speaker 3: continue our quest to collect DNA in her case. Our
Speaker 3: listeners will come along with us as we build a
Speaker 3: family tree and work to obtain DNA standards that could
Speaker 3: be a game changer in this case. As we end
Speaker 3: this episode, we again want to ask our listeners to
Speaker 3: contact us with any information you might have about Wateria
Speaker 3: or any other missing person case we've mentioned this season,
Speaker 3: because we know that in each and every one of
Speaker 3: these cases, somebody knows something.
Speaker 2: If you are anyone you know has information about this case,
Speaker 2: or any other cold case in Elgin. Please contact the
Speaker 2: Elgin Police Department Cold Case email at Coldcase tips at
Speaker 2: elginil dot gov or the cold Case tipline at eight
Speaker 2: four seven two eight nine cold. You can also review
Speaker 2: cold case information on the Elgin Police Department's coldcase page
Speaker 2: at www dot elgincoldcases dot com, where every cold case, homicide,
Speaker 2: and missingperson's case is listed with photographs and information about
Speaker 2: each case.