Identified! IL - Lake Co., Fem 207UFIL, 25-35, in woods, Dec'99 - Mary Kate Sunderlin

Officials say the body of a woman known to authorities only as Jane Doe has been buried after spending more than five years in a vault at the Lake County coroner's office.

Her battered body was discovered in a North Chicago forest preserve in 1999.
http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_211152814.html

The petite woman was believed to be in her 30s.
http://www.kwqc.com/Global/story.asp?S=3660931

Isn't that sad to have no one to claim your body?? She had to be someone's daughter..sister..neice..maybe a mother..grandaughter, etc. I wonder what the story is behind her life. Her killer is still out there...I wonder how many more lives he has taken since then. Everyone who is murdered deserves justice...poor little thing.

Are the sketches available anywhere?

mere said:

Are the sketches available anywhere?

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I have looked around and haven't found anything. If you can't find them, you might want to try the DOE network or the Chicago coroner's office.

Wow, that's a missed opportunity. Here this case makes national news, and they didn't put a sketch and description in the story.

This is how these cases just languish and languish, unsolved. Stuff like that, where they take up a paragraph to talk about how many times they passed her pic around, but don't put the pic actually in the national news story.

I tried looking for a picture of her myself, but there isn't any identifying info to even search on, such as a Jane Doe # or a date of discovery, except Richard Keller's name, and that turned up nothing useful.

Sad all around.

I believe this is her:

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/207ufil.html

Thanks for the link.

Oh heavens, that sounds hopeless. A transient from Europe, or at least from somewhere outside the US.

Prayers for her pour soul.

She may have been a transient from another country, possibly somewhere in Europe, based on dental work that didn't appear to have been done in the U.S.

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I wonder if that was considered because of the materials used or the methods used? A dentist who migrates here from another country would use the methods he learned when he first attended dentistry.

She may have been from another country, or she may have been American who spent some time in another country.

The hair style is kind of unusual for the time period. Militant maybe?

http://www.doenetwork.us/cases/207ufil.html



Unidentified White Female

* Located on December 9, 1999 in the Forest Preserve in Lake County, Illinois.
* Cause of death was multiple injuries. Manner of death is homicide. Authorities believe she was killed within 24 hours of when her body was found.

Vital Statistics

* Estimated age: 25 - 35 years old
* Approximate Height and Weight: 4'9" (145 cm.); 90 lbs. (41 kg.)
* Distinguishing Characteristics: Brown hair; blue eyes. She had short, recently dyed brown hair with a wide shaved section above her ears. She had partially shaved eyebrows. She had pierced ears, which had been closed. She had no distinguishing piercings or tattoos.
* Dentals: She had prominent gaps between her teeth. Dental chart available.
* Clothing: She was wearing a blue and white striped hooded pullover shirt and an old pair of dark blue sweatpants. Her feet were bare and her toenails were partly painted with green polish.

Vital Statistics
The victim was located on December 9, 1999 in the Forest Preserve in Lake County, Illinois. She was disfigured by a severe beating that led to her death. She may have been a transient from another country, possibly somewhere in Europe, based on dental work that didn't appear to have been done in the U.S.
Investigators quickly zeroed in on Jason Strong, who lived at the Motor Inn Motel near U.S. Highway 41 and Illinois Highway 173 in unincorporated Lake County and worked at a nearby adult bookstore. Strong was sentenced in May 2001 to 46 years in prison for the murder. Authorities believe Strong killed the woman soon after he met her walking on the roadside and invited her to his motel room in December 1999. Two other men--Jason Johnson, and Jeremy Tweedy, --worked with Strong at the bookstore and lived at the motel located between Zion and Wadsworth. Tweedy was sentenced in July 2000 to 2 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice. Johnson was sentenced to 3 years in prison in September 2000 after pleading guilty to concealing a homicide.
One of the men told police they discarded the woman's identification in a garbage bin at the motel. Police traced the contents of the can to a garbage dump about 10 football fields long, where they abandoned the search. In trying to identify the woman, police enlisted the help of the FBI and ran her photo and fingerprints through missing-persons databases, but there were no matches.

http://nampn.doenetwork.us/cases/sunderlin_mary.html



Mary Kate Sunderlin
Above Image: Sunderlin, circa 1999

Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

# Missing Since: September 4, 1999 from Carpentersville, Illinois.
# Classification: Endangered Missing
# Date Of Birth: April 7, 1965
# Age: 34
# Height: 4'11"
# Weight: 100 lbs.
# Hair Color: Brown
# Eye Color: Gray
# Race: White
# Gender: Female
# Distinguishing Characteristics: Dark facial hair over upper lip.
May be wearing contacts or eyeglasses. Speech impediment,
long and dark hair on arms.
# Medical Conditions: Unspecified medical condition.
# AKA: Mary Sunderlin-Chamizo
# Case Number: 00-16469

Details of Disappearance
Mary was last seen in the vicinity of the 1300 block of York in Carpentersville, IL. She has not contacted her family since Labor Day weekend in 1999.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=3895090

Very good, long, detailed story at link.

Excerpt:

"We caught the case 13 months after she went missing. It just got lost as they say in the system. It's a shame, but it's what happened," said Cmdr. William Valko, Lake Co. Major Crimes Task Force.

She was a Jane Doe, lost to the passage of time. That is until a Racine County Sheriff's detective searching a missing persons Web site came across the case of 34-year-old Mary Kate Sunderlin. Her story was rather unremarkable, other than the fact she was just under 5-feet tall and had space between her teeth.

"The fact that she's 4-foot-11 triggered it. I know it was Lake County's girl -- it's just so rare for a girl to be so short and adult," said Det. Eileen Reilly, Racine Co. Sheriff's police.

Detective Reilly phoned Lake County authorities on Tuesday. By Thursday, they had compared the dental records and confirmed the murdered woman's identity.

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From May 2015:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/subur...on-strong-lake-county-met-20150528-story.html

A man convicted of murder in Lake County walked free from prison Thursday after the case against him collapsed, once again illustrating the depth of the problems that have plagued the county's justice system.

The evidence against Jason Strong eroded steadily during the 15 years he spent behind bars until little remained to tie him to the killing of a woman whose battered body was found in a forest on the Waukegan-North Chicago border in 1999. The case was unusual from its start in that he was convicted about five years before the victim had even been identified as 34-year-old Mary Kate Sunderlin, a mentally disabled Kane County woman.

Authorities agreed to clear Strong, 39, after recent pathologists' reports indicated prosecutors had originally been wrong about both the time Sunderlin died and the nature of her wounds, crucial elements of the case against Strong because they had reinforced his confession and the witness statements.

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This is interesting, from October 2010:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...conviction-mary-kate-sunderlin-dna-evidence/2

Hiring private investigators, the family linked Sunderlin to several individuals, including a mother and daughter who had cared for her and attracted interest from police...

Police in Kane County, where Sunderlin had lived, suspected that the pair stole from Sunderlin's bank account, according to Carpentersville Cmdr. Tim Bosshart. Sunderlin's ATM card was used to withdraw cash from her account three days before she was found dead, according to police, but her family said she never used the card, preferring to make withdrawals from a teller. A year after she was killed, someone tried to secure a replacement ATM card for Sunderlin's bank account. Police reports implicated the daughter, saying she posed as Sunderlin's sister...

Without telling her family, Sunderlin had also married a man with a lengthy criminal record and a long history of mental illness. Under questioning by police, he confessed to murdering Sunderlin in 2002 and repeatedly referred to her as dead — though Sunderlin's whereabouts were still unknown. Police were skeptical of his confession but nonetheless investigated his claims. Elgin police, acting on those claims, dug in a yard in Elgin trying to find Sunderlin's body, not knowing it had been recovered two years earlier in Lake County.

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Yet another incredibly sad story. I hope she has found some peace at last.

May 2016:

Man convicted, then cleared of murder in Lake County sues police

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-jason-strong-sues-police-met-20160503-story.html

A man who served more than 15 years in prison for murder before winning his freedom has filed a federal lawsuit against the law enforcement officials in Lake County who built the faulty case against him.

Jason Strong was found guilty of murdering a woman whose body was discovered in a Waukegan-area forest preserve in 1999 — and prosecutors and police won the conviction years before the victim would be identified as Mary Kate Sunderlin, a mentally disabled woman from Kane County.

But Strong, who was sentenced to 46 years in prison, was freed last year after the case collapsed amid new evidence that raised doubts about his guilt. Strong, 40, alleges in his suit that law enforcement officials — including several Waukegan officers and other members of the Lake County Major Crime Task Force — conspired to wrongfully convict him, violated his due process rights and coerced a false confession through an "unconstitutional interrogation."

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Last month, Strong received a certificate of innocence from Lake County court.

"He continues to suffer as he struggles to integrate into the free community and repair his shattered life," the lawsuit says.

Strong seeks damages from Lake County and its major crime task force, several communities whose officers worked on the task force, former Sheriff Gary Del Re and 14 current and former officers. The lawsuit highlights the Waukegan Police Department's involvement not just in the investigation of Sunderlin's murder but in many other cases that collapsed in Lake County.

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Wrongfully convicted Lake County man settles suit for $9 million

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20170926/wrongfully-convicted-lake-county-man-settles-suit-for-9-million

A former Waukegan man wrongly imprisoned for a 1999 murder will receive $9 million through a settlement with the law enforcement agencies that put him behind bars.

Jason Strong, 42, will receive $6 million from Waukegan in the settlement's biggest payout. The financial balance will be divided among Lake County, Vernon Hills, Round Lake Beach, Buffalo Grove, Libertyville, Lincolnshire, Barrington Hills, North Chicago and Park City.

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Sunderlin's murder remains under investigation, Nerheim said. Because it's an open case, he declined to say whether there is another suspect or if he expects someone else will be charged.

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I remember that before Sunderlin was identified, several aspects of the case were regarded as being similar to the Racine Jane Doe. With Strong's conviction tossed aside, I wonder if authorities are going to look in that direction again?

Here's a photo of Mary from about 1981 - the other two photos of her seem cruel and almost dehumanize her IMO.

And another case where the UID was falsely believed to have been from Europe because of the dental work.
Another American lady.