Posted on 10/25/2024 5:35:53 AM PDT by V_TWIN
The skull of an Indiana teen was found in the wall of a home near Chicago.
Officials in Kane County have solved a decades-old cold case involving a human skull discovered in 1978. A couple in Batavia found the skull inside a wall while remodeling their home. Initial testing at the time indicated the skull had been there for a significant period.
In 2021, the Batavia Police Department and Kane County Coroner reopened the cold case, determined to identify the remains. A Texas company specializing in forensic genetic genealogy employed modern DNA technology to identify the remains as those of 17-year-old Esther Granger. Officials said Granger died in Merrillville, Indiana, in 1866, most likely from complications during childbirth.
"You got to be careful with DNA. You only get one shot sometimes,"Michael Vogan from Othram Labs told WLS.
A DNA sample from Granger's second-great-grandchild was used to confirm her identity. It remains unclear how Granger's remains ended up in Kane County, but officials told WLS that they believe she may have been a victim of grave robbing.
"We don't have any names of anybody in town or relation to her. She's kind of a mystery to us,"Mayor Jeffrey Schielke of Batavia told WLS.
Not sure how she ended up in Merrillville Indiana I do know they have a good Portillo’s there.
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“officials told WLS that they believe she may have been a victim of grave robbing”
Thanks Larry Lucido. The school here used to have a very beaten-up and repaired human skeleton to teach anatomy, donated generations earlier by a doctor who was retiring. By the time I got to high school, it had been replaced with modern fiberglass replica.
There were “teens” then? Gang wars?
Since she is supposedly buried in the Dennis Cemetery according to Find a Grave...How about exhuming the body...because wouldn’t any relative have that same DNA?
The 1865 Illinois census has a Granger Family with someone in her age group in Cook County Chicago. Time to open the grave in the Dennis Cemetery. Otherwise the story is not conclusive. Perhaps the skull is a cousin??
How could they pinpoint a second great grandparent from sampling one person? Is DNA testing really that specific?
Well, I know DNA testing is used all the time to convict people and also as of late, to exonerate people that were wrongfully convicted before DNA testing was available......so yeah, apparently it is very accurate.
This is gruesome, but I have heard (via YT) that unscrupulous types sometimes go to remote graveyards and dig for gold teeth.
Kinda pretty. I say NOT GUILTY.
Yeah it happens....many people are buried with all kinds of valuables.....rings, pendants.....all kinds of things.
It takes a special kind of evil to dig up a corpse to rob it.
Maybe the second great grandchild had sent in DNA for testing and when the lab found a match they were contacted.
Esther died in 1866 and a daughter named Esther was born in the same year and died at age 31.
Find a grave is the best source.
I’m guessing that they traced the DNA from the skull to a match from one of those DNA family tree sites. But I thought that would just get you to a relationship - not great-great grandmother or whatever it was.
Although I suppose with a match to another person on the website they could narrow it down pretty closely. Probably also used forensics to determine the age at death and when she died, location, etc.
Interesting stuff. I’m glad that she had a proper burial and it wasn’t a murder with her body stuffed in a wall.
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