Identified! IL - Wayne Co., Skeletal remains near Boyleston, Dec'17 - Megan Nichols

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Gardener1850

Gardener1850

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WAYNE COUNTY, Ill. — The FBI has taken possession of human remains found more than a week ago at a remote Wayne County, Ill. location.

Skeletal remains were found inside a blanket atop a burn pile at a very remote location south of the small community of Boyleston. A local landowner preparing to cut firewood came across the remains Dec. 26 and alerted police.

Crime scene specialists from the Illinois State Police and the FBI gathered evidence from the scene for four days before clearing the scene.
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http://www.courierpress.com/story/n...-found-southern-illinois-sent-fbi/1000303001/
 
It will take days, if not weeks for forensic investigators to determine the identity of human remains found Tuesday on a farm south of Boyleston. Wayne County Coroner Jimmy Taylor says Illinois State Police detectives, along with an FBI forensics team have joined the investigation. The scene is in a very remote part of Wayne County and has been secured by law enforcement as the investigation continues.
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http://www.wfiwradio.com/2017/12/28/headlines-for-thursday-december-28-2017/
 
WAYNE COUNTY — The Wayne County Sheriff Department confirms that the FBI and Illinois State Police are currently investigating the discovery of human remains found in rural Wayne County on Tuesday. Identification has not yet been made. There is an active open missing persons case in the county. Megan Nichols was reported missing from her Fairfield home located in Wayne County in July 2014. Authorities say a positive identification could take days to complete.
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http://www.mtcarmelregister.com/news/local_news/human-remains-found-in-wayne-county/article_18f5bdd5-7cfd-52b7-9542-1186c91e419f.html

Megan Nichols' Thread: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...-Megan-Nichols-15-Fairfield-3-July-2014/page9
 
Carl Vaughan, who lives just south of Fairfield, told News 3 he was driving to cut some firewood and noticed something shiny on the side of the road. He then pulled over and discovered human remains. Immediately, he said he called the police then called his girlfriend, Jacque Beck, explaining what he saw.

"He had found something and when I asked him what it was, he was like 'I found a body,'" Beck said. "He said it was a skull, he said you could tell what it was when you walked over there and looked, you could see plain as day what it was."
Vaughan picked Beck up from home before going back out to the scene with authorities. That's when Beck saw the sight with her own two eyes.
"It was just laying there, the bones, I don't even know how to explain it," Beck said. "Everything rushed through my mind. It's hard because you just don't know, that's somebody, that's really scary."
For now, no one knows who the remains belong to.
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http://www.wsiltv.com/story/37150041/human-remains-found-in-rural-wayne-county
 
Thank you so much Gardener, you are wonderful bringing this to our attention. The next one....actually I'm shocked all the time....seeing the tears of mothers missing their children. I try not to let it in and this works almost every time...almost.... The world is (at least a certain amount of people are) cruel....Only with some kind of distance I (we) can help.
 
Gardener1850 said:
I hope she will be found very soon and justice served. Do you think this could be her?
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I'm local as well. Initially I was hopeful this was her. It made sense at first; Yingying's case was a top priority for the FBI, so the fact they got involved immediately when these were found pointed to it being possible. Also, this location is just about 2.5 hours straight south of Urbana-Champaign down highway 45 -far enough away for him to put it in a place that would avoid being found by intense searching going on locally, but not so far that it would take him too long for round trip travel. He could have picked it out ahead of time looking on the satellite overlay on Google Maps.

Now, with the revelation that it was on top of a burn pile, I doubt that it is her. I can't imagine he would have had time to do something like this, and moreover, this has to be fairly recent. I can't imagine that a pile like that would be sitting there for six months, and the owner of the land wouldn't have noticed it until now.....
 
dm92 said:
I'm local as well. Initially I was hopeful this was her. It made sense at first; Yingying's case was a top priority for the FBI, so the fact they got involved immediately when these were found pointed to it being possible. Also, this location is just about 2.5 hours straight south of Urbana-Champaign down highway 45 -far enough away for him to put it in a place that would avoid being found by intense searching going on locally, but not so far that it would take him too long for round trip travel. He could have picked it out ahead of time looking on the satellite overlay on Google Maps.

Now, with the revelation that it was on top of a burn pile, I doubt that it is her. I can't imagine he would have had time to do something like this, and moreover, this has to be fairly recent. I can't imagine that a pile like that would be sitting there for six months, and the owner of the land wouldn't have noticed it until now.....
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I'm still thinking it could be her. The article says a local land owner noticed her as he was preparing to cut wood. Might not have been the person who owned that exact peice of land. We have a burn pile at the top of our property that I think something could be on for 6 months without is noticing. We only burn this particular pile when there is a lot more snow. So.... You never know. Could be wrong - but it's a thought.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
dm92 said:
I'm local as well. Initially I was hopeful this was her. It made sense at first; Yingying's case was a top priority for the FBI, so the fact they got involved immediately when these were found pointed to it being possible. Also, this location is just about 2.5 hours straight south of Urbana-Champaign down highway 45 -far enough away for him to put it in a place that would avoid being found by intense searching going on locally, but not so far that it would take him too long for round trip travel. He could have picked it out ahead of time looking on the satellite overlay on Google Maps.

Now, with the revelation that it was on top of a burn pile, I doubt that it is her. I can't imagine he would have had time to do something like this, and moreover, this has to be fairly recent. I can't imagine that a pile like that would be sitting there for six months, and the owner of the land wouldn't have noticed it until now.....
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I don't believe it was on a burn pile. It was hidden, but not buried. When the landowner was burning off the weeds, he saw a flare at the edge of the field and went to investigate. The blanket had sparked from the fire which is what caught his eye. He said it was just bones, but there were enough that he knew what it was. (human as opposed to animal)
 
who knew? said:
I don't believe it was on a burn pile. It was hidden, but not buried. When the landowner was burning off the weeds, he saw a flare at the edge of the field and went to investigate. The blanket had sparked from the fire which is what caught his eye. He said it was just bones, but there were enough that he knew what it was. (human as opposed to animal)
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There is a lot of confusion about this. What you are quoting comes from the original report in The Disclosure. Later media (online and TV) reports stated the guy who found it was going out to cut up a fallen tree for firewood, and noticed the remains about 5 feet from the side of the road, but made no mention of anything burning. Finally, the most recent report that details where the remains were being sent (Springfield FBI, then Quantico), claims they were found next to the road on top of a burn pile -but makes no mention if this pile had been mostly burned, partly burned, or not burned at all but just waiting to eventually be burned. Very confusing.
 
dm92 said:
There is a lot of confusion about this. What you are quoting comes from the original report in The Disclosure. Later media (online and TV) reports stated the guy who found it was going out to cut up a fallen tree for firewood, and noticed the remains about 5 feet from the side of the road, but made no mention of anything burning. Finally, the most recent report that details where the remains were being sent (Springfield FBI, then Quantico), claims they were found next to the road on top of a burn pile -but makes no mention if this pile had been mostly burned, partly burned, or not burned at all but just waiting to eventually be burned. Very confusing.
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Yes, it is very confusing - especially because the guy and his gf have basically different stories. I chalked it up to the inferior news reporters in the Fairfield area. (This is probably the biggest story they have had.) Also, I'm not positive which road this was. But listening to the locals, I believe it was little more than a dirt road - not a road that just anyone would drive on to go somewhere. If I find out exactly which road, I will post it. That would clear up some of the confusion. I figured it had to be pretty remote since he had to lead local LE to the body.

Edited to add:
I did see where they both said it was just bones, but there were enough that they knew what it was - that they were human bones. I saw gf on a WSIL tv interview and that's where I heard her say that. He had reportedly said the same thing to LE who told reporters.
 
who knew? said:
Yes, it is very confusing - especially because the guy and his gf have basically different stories. I chalked it up to the inferior news reporters in the Fairfield area. (This is probably the biggest story they have had.) Also, I'm not positive which road this was. But listening to the locals, I believe it was little more than a dirt road - not a road that just anyone would drive on to go somewhere. If I find out exactly which road, I will post it. That would clear up some of the confusion. I figured it had to be pretty remote since he had to lead local LE to the body.
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Last week I saw some pics on a local TV news channel's website from a story they did on the remains. Looks like it was in the vicinity of the intersection of county roads 1450E and 425N
 
dm92 said:
Last week I saw some pics on a local TV news channel's website from a story they did on the remains. Looks like it was in the vicinity of the intersection of county roads 1450E and 425N
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I don't think 425N intersects 1450E. If it does, it is in the boonies. Regardless, if you look on mapping, you can see how few buildings/houses are in the area of 1450 E and 450 N - 425 would be south of 450 (The roads are numbered from south to north and from west to east). There just isn't much there except roads to nowhere. And it's quite a ways from I64.
 
Just to the east of 1450 E and 450 N, there is a thickly wooded area. You can see dirt paths going around it. My guess is that is the area the body was found. Maybe the picture that you saw was the closest the press was allowed to get? Just guessing here - I'm not positive, but it's obvious someone knew the area. And they didn't want the body to be found.
JMO I will see if I can find the pictures you're talking about.
 
OK - I found them, and the pictures. http://www.14news.com/story/37148148/exclusive-people-who-found-remains-in-wayne-co-talk-to-14-news

"Beck says Vaughan was in the area to cut up a fallen tree when something shiny caught his eye on the west end of the property.
She says, at first, Vaughan thought it was a turtle shell, but as he got closer he realized it was a skull.
He immediately called police.
Officials couldn't find the remains, so he and Beck showed them where it was.
"They followed us and we got there, and we turned the corner I could see it. I mean I knew what it was. I didn't even have to get out the truck," said Beck.
Beck says it looked like part of the remains were wrapped in a blanket.
She says they've had a hard time dealing with that image, but hopefully this will bring someone, somewhere, the closure they've been needing.
"I slept better last night. I didn't sleep good the first night, said Beck."
Beck says some of the land where the remains were found had been burned to make it easier to farm..
She says maybe that's why they have now being discovered. ""

I guess that's where the burning the field came from. And possibly explains why it took so long to find the body.

Also, Vaughan said he had to lead them to the body, so I believe it was on the edge of the tree line to the east of 1450 and 425/450.
 
Yup, that's the story I saw, and the pics. I looked on Google Maps and found the general area they were in.

I don't think that it is Yingying, but it is possible it could be. This is basically straight down Highway 45 from Urbana-Champaign. He could have been looking for a remote spot weeks-months before on Google Maps or some other map site with a satellite overlay, and chosen this location as there are lots of wooded areas and few houses, so he would likely not have drawn much attention. Plus at roughly 2.5 hours away from UC, it is far enough away that this would not be on the authorities' radar as a potential area to search, yet close enough that he would have enough time to drive down there, conceal her, and drive back by sunup on Saturday morning. I wouldn't expect him to come via I64. He would have no need to as it is a straight shot down 45 and he could take I57 for much of the way.

My guess is though that it is likely someone else, as it would seem more likely that this would be chosen by someone more familiar with the area. In any event, hopefully they will be able to make a positive ID, and someone will have the answers they need......
 
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One of the reasons why posters come to Websleuths is because we do have strict rules about what can and cannot be posted.

Unless someone is a person of interest in the eyes of law enforcement we do not allow accusations to be made against people.

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Tricia
 
Per the Wayne County Press, Fairfield -
Remains Confirmed As Megan Nichols

The FBI has confirmed the remains of a body discovered recently were those of teenager Megan Nichols, missing since July of 2014.
Bones were discovered Dec. 26, 2017 in a field south of Boyleston. Those remains were collected by the FBI, who were able to positively identify them as those of Nichols.

Further details are not being released at this time, as the investigation is still ongoing. The FBI and the Wayne County Sheriff's Office continue to ask for the public to submit tips regarding the disappearance of Ms. Nichols.
 
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