Lake County Sheriff’s Office finds a body in a bag in Old Mill Creek
A woman’s body was found on the side of the road in Old Mill Creek early Wednesday morning. Investigators in Lake County have a lot of questions but not many answers. Authorities are hoping that someone who knows more about the disturbing find can help shed some light on it.
“We’re combing through missing persons reports, so any that are here in Lake County. We don’t find any, we’ll go broader, surrounding counties, surrounding states,” said Christopher Covelli, Deputy Chief of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Around 2:45 a.m., Janet Whitmore was crossing the dark night to get to work in the south. When she looked down the road, she saw something: deer. She had her brights on and her eyes open for them.
“And when I turned to look to my left there was something on the side of the road, and it was an odd shape, and I thought to myself is this a bunch of garbage or is this a dead deer,” she shared. “And then I kept going.”
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after a body was found in a bag on the side of a road on Wednesday morning:
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after a body was found in a bag on the side of a road on Wednesday morning. https://t.co/mXQpWEd024
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) November 30, 2023
Multiple cars didn’t call 911 until daylight, which was more than four hours later.
“Stunned. A little freaked out that that is what I saw,” Whitmore said.
At 7 a.m., the body of a woman was found on the side of Hunt Club Road, south of Route 173. Covelli said that his department is doing everything it can to find out more about the case.
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Covelli said that this is a murder investigation and that a garbage bag was partly over the woman’s body when it was found.
“She is a Caucasian woman. Sheriff’s detectives did observe some trauma to the woman’s face,” Covelli said.
After an exam, the police said they think she was killed. The Lake County Coroner and Sheriff’s Office said she is 39 years old and that they are now working to find her family.
Police have not said how she died or made her name public. Covelli says that the department is now working backwards as they look into this terrible finding.
“Try to identify who this victim is, where she may be from, what she may have been doing and ultimately try to identify an offender and hold them accountable,” said Covelli.
Additionally, the sheriff’s office stated that the woman did not have any distinctive scars or tattoos that would have helped with the recognition process.
People are being asked to help them with camera video, and they also plan to use license plate readers in the area to find leads. The police say they don’t know when the body was left on the side of the road, but Whitmore says it was before 3 a.m.
“My hope is that if they can narrow down the time with at least me saying it was at least that early, that there will be some surveillance somewhere that somebody will see it,” she stated.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office wants anyone who knows anything to call them.
