UNSOLVED IL - DuPage Co., Newborn male in box, Apr'66

Cubby

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These are pay to view articles so I am going to bring over what I can.
TEACHER HELD IN DEBBIE CASE FINDS A BODY
[SIZE=-1]Pay-Per-View - Chicago Tribune - ProQuest Archiver[SIZE=-1] - Apr 3, 1966[/SIZE]
[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Clark said the baby appar ently had been placed in the cardboard box very soon after it had been born It was wrapped in a quilt Also in the box was a baby s ... [/SIZE]

Anyone have a newspaper subscription where we can get the full article?

This is from a cold case we are discussing on an unsolved murder in 1966. The primary suspect and his father found the infant child and turned the child over to an attorney who then turned the childs remains over to the DuPage coroner.

A phone call to DuPage Coroners office has no information on this child, nor did the coroner ever hear of the case.

I'm presuming either this child was identified or God forbid forgotten and the details of his case and his info are lost.

Would anyone be interested in doing some research with me to see if we can find any media indicating this child was ever identified? We may not find anything but it would be interesting to know if he was id'd.

Thanks for any interest and help.
 
Another snippet of a PTV article regarding this child.

TEACHER HELD IN DEBBIE CASE FINDS A BODY

[SIZE=-1]Pay-Per-View - Chicago Tribune - ProQuest Archiver[SIZE=-1] - Apr 3, 1966[/SIZE]
[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]The body of an infant boy was found yesterday in a cardboard box turned over ... Schofield had found the box on the east side of Klein road near Smith road ... [/SIZE]
 
So far this is all I can find about baby. Pretty sad if there are no more articles on it.

Schofield Case Will Go
To Grand Jury This Month
DuPage County
Loren Schofield's case will be
presented sometime this month
to a grand jury sitting in Wheaton,
State's Atty. William V.
Hopf said this week.
Schofield, free on $50,000 bond
after his arrest for the murder
of 10-year-old Debbie Fijan,
found himself again in the spotlight
last weekend when he
and his father, John Schofield,
discovered a cardboard carton
containing the. body of a dead
infant boy.
THE ELDER S c h o f i e l d ,
Wayne Township road commissioner,
and his son were working
on remote Klein Road near
Smith Road in the area where
Debbie's stabbed and beaten
body was found on Feb. 11.
They saw the carton, tied
with a rope, lying alongside the
road. Opening it they saw
blood-soaked cloths and thought
it might be evidence in the murder
case.
Calling their attorney, George
Carbary of Elgin, they were
told to bring it to his office immediately.
Once there, Carbary
determined that what the
carton htld was not evidence
linked to the Fijan case and
suspected that it was an abandoned
decomposed body of an
infant.
He called Hopf, who sent Det.
Jack Fischer and Deputy Robert
Wilson to get the box.
UPON ARRIVAL at Central
DuPage Hospital, authorities
determined that it contained a
full-term baby boy, probably
dead for two or more months.
The body was in a frozen condition,
Wilson said, and so decomposed
as to make full examination
impossible.
Although transporting a dead
body without authorization is
against the law, no. charges
are to be pressed against the
Schofields. According to Fischer,
"We are convinced that they
did not know at the time what
the box contained."
 
Thank your branwynbreeze. shadowangel posted in Debbies thread in the CC forum, it is very possible this young baby found in the box was likely stillborn. Saying as morbid as it sounds disposing of a still born child in this manner was not uncommon back then. Perhaps that was the case and then the end of it......

I did confirm with the DuPage county coroners office earlier today there are only two open unidentified cases in DuPage, both of which have threads here, and are the skeletal remains found at Herrick Lake FP in April of 2010, and DuPage Johnny doe, an unidentified child found in Oct 2005.

thanks for your help branwynbreeze
 
In a 1966 article about a different abandoned baby in Chicago a detective said the cases were nearly impossible to solve - he said that the County has 4 or 5 cases every year and had only solved 1 in the previous two years. 8 to 10 dead and abandoned babies over 2 years time in just one county and only 1 of them solved. Amazingly sad.
 
From the Newspaper Archive Website
http://newspaperarchive.com/
PTV newspaper subscription

From the Mt Vernon, IL Register News 040466:

"Schofield Finds Body of Baby
Wheaton, Ill. (AP) --
The DuPage County coroner says it is unlikely that Loren F. Schofield had anything to do with the body of a newborn boy except to have been its finder.
"Based on the evidence I have found, Schofield did nothing but find the body," Coroner Dr. Samuel K. Lewis said Sunday night.
Schofield, 27, is charged with murdering Debbie Fijan, 10. Her body was found in a ditch near West Chicago in early February.
The body was marked by 18 stab wounds.
Schofield's attorneys turned the body of the infant boy over to DuPage County authorities Saturday. It was encased in a cardboard box.
One attorney, Robert Chpaski of Elgin, said Schofield and his father, John Schofield, road commissioner of Wayne Township, found the box on a road north of West Chicago.
Since being released on $50,000 bond, Schofield has been working with his father.
Dr. Lewis said he could not determine how old the baby was or how it had died.
The body had been wrapped in a quilt. The box also contained a baby's shirt, a wash cloth, towels and clothing.
Deputy Coroner James Clark said the infant apparently had been placed in the box shortly after it was born."
 
They saw the carton, tied with a rope, lying alongside the
road. Opening it they saw blood-soaked cloths and thought
it might be evidence in the murder case.
Calling their attorney, George Carbary of Elgin, they were

told to bring it to his office immediately.

Seriously??? OH, you've been charged with murder, you've found another body, bring that bundle to my office???

I suppose in 1966, maybe not so outlandish? But today, here, we know evidence was lost.

jmho ymmv lrr
 

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