Jane Doe exhumed - Previous stories: Summerfield's Jane Doe (9/9/01)
- Homicide victim's records sent to dental journal in hope of ID (12/3/01)
- Suspect linked to Jane Doe killing (9/7/02)
- Coroner wants body exhumed: Summerfield case gets another look (6/3/07)
- New sketch of Jane Doe may aid case (8/5/07)
- Summerfield Jane Doe
California family had adopted her in the 1960s
BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK AND BETH HUNDSDORFER
News-Democrat
BELLEVILLE --
For almost a decade, Sonja Wilcomer fell asleep in her Palo Alto, Calif., home knowing the telephone might ring with word about her daughter, Lolly.
Sometimes the calls came every few months, sometimes years apart; often in the middle of the night. Calls from friends who said they'd spotted Lolly in various states. Wilcomer grew to dread them, knowing the story of the girl she'd adopted from Costa Rica at age 2 1/2 would end badly.
Wilcomer, 86, a professional flora photographer, hadn't seen Lolly since the mid-1970s, when the troubled teen had run away from home for the final time.
She got the call she dreaded the most Friday.
A St. Clair County sheriff's detective notified Wilcomer that an FBI computer database had matched Lolly's fingerprints with that of the "Summerfield Jane Doe," who was found Sept. 6, 1986, strangled and mutilated in a cornfield about two miles outside the small village of Summerfield.
Her identity had been a mystery for 21 years.
"I had no idea of what kind of life she was living," Wilcomer said. "I was always fearful that something would happen to her."
FBI had listed her as Pholia Mylia Chavez, an alias she sometimes used, but her name was Eulalia Mylia Chavez.
Her family called her Lolly.
"She was my younger adopted sister," said Palo Alto businessman Neal Wilcomer, who was stunned by the news. "There were times when we were happy together but there were a lot of times where there was a lot of hell."
The toddler who came into the Wilcomer home in the 1960s grew into a troubled teenager who repeatedly ran away, her mother said.
"I'm trying to think of the last time I saw her," she said. "It was a long time ago. Maybe '74 or '75. Maybe when she was about 18. We had multiple problems with her. She would run away and steal. She was sent to juvenile hall several times."
Chavez gave birth sometime in the 1970s and placed the child for adoption. Wilcomer didn't know the name of the father or who had adopted the child.
But her mother recalled there were good times, too, like when Lolly sat in her room doing bead work and making her own clothes.
"We used to hear stories about her now and then. People would call. She was hitchhiking all over the place," she said.
People who knew her daughter said she blamed the Wilcomer family for throwing her out of the house. "She said stuff like that but it wasn't true," Sonja Wilcomer said.
On Monday, St. Clair County coroner's and sheriff's officials held a press conference to announce they'd identified the Summerfield woman as Chavez.
She was found in a field by a farmer harvesting corn Sept. 6, 1986, nude except for an article of clothing that had been used to strangle her. Her killer had mutilated her pelvic area after she died, and posed her body in a degrading position, legs spread.
"I don't wish what happened to her to happen to anybody," Chavez's brother said Monday. "It's a chapter of my life I would rather put a close to .... This was a shock. But I want whoever killed her caught."
Because of the woman's extensive dental work, the large amount of unusual clothing found scattered near her body, and evidence, such as a size 8 1/2 Western style boot print found at the scene, police thought the victim would quickly be identified and her killer caught.
Instead, it became one of the area's most baffling cases.
Fingerprints were taken during the 1986 autopsy, but no match was found. Sheriff's Department Capt. Steve Johnson said making such a match was very difficult because most prints were searched by hand.
The woman was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Belleville under the inscription, "Jane Doe -- Known only to God."
In June, St. Clair County Coroner Rick Stone exhumed the body in another attempt at identification, sending her remains to the forensic anthropology department of the University of Tennessee, where investigators were trying determine identity through DNA. A state police forensic artist measured the remains and used the data to compile a new composite sketch.
Then, Illinois State Police forensic scientist Matt Davis ran the prints taken in 1986 through FBI's highly advanced fingerprint system and got a hit. Chavez possessed an "FBI number," which means police had arrested her and she had been convicted of a crime.
Now that Chavez's identity is known, it may not be long before police know who killed her, Johnson said.
"We have, what I would think, in my investigative experience, a significant amount of evidence pertaining to a suspect. That evidence is now being analyzed at the Illinois State Police laboratory," he said.
News of the identification spread through Summerfield.
"It was a shock when they identified her," said Mark Mikeals, co-owner of Mike's Place tavern, a Summerfield gathering spot, where residents shared the news Monday and offered various opinions about the young woman's murder.
A final burial spot for Chavez, who was 27 when she was killed, has not yet been decided, Neal Wilcomer said, but they are discussing arrangements. Her remains could be flown back to California or returned to the Belleville grave where they were interred the past two decades.
The new composite sketch, which shows an attractive young woman with brown hair, is very similar to a mug shot police distributed Monday at the press conference. Chavez was petite, standing about 5-foot-1 and weighing between 100 and 110 pounds
Johnson credited the tenacity of the coroner's office with the identification. Stone thanked the News-Democrat for, "keeping the story alive."
When Chavez was still living at home, Wilcomer had encouraged her daughter to become a U.S. citizen, she said. "I tried to encourage her, but I don't think she ever did," she said.
But Wilcomer was wrong. Police said that somewhere on the long road that ended in Summerfield, Chavez had indeed become an American citizen.
Contact reporter George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk@bnd.com or 239-2625. Contact reporter Beth Hundsdorfer at bhundsdorfer@bnd.com or 239-2570.
