Autopsy fails to ID remains found in river

JOLIET — An autopsy performed Thursday on partial skeletal remains found Wednesday along the Des Plaines River did not "reveal any significant information in reference to the identity, race or sex of the skeletal remains," the Will County coroner's office announced Thursday afternoon.

There has been speculation the remains may be that of Stacy Peterson, a Bolingbrook woman who disappeared in October 2007, or Lisa Stebic, a Plainfield woman who disappeared in April 2007. Police have called both cases "potential homicides."

The office of Coroner Patrick O'Neil reported, "The partial skeletal remains consisted of a rib cage, spinal column and partial left and right femur bones. The head, arms and below the knee extremities were disarticulated."

O'Neil said the search continues for the missing remains.

Also, a forensic investigation continues as to whether the disarticulation is a result of a postmortem (after death) artifact or antemortem injury.

"Positive identification may hinge on forensic DNA analysis, which is being expedited through the Illinois State Police Forensic Crime Laboratory," O'Neil said.

The coroner's office, he said, was given a conservative time frame in receiving forensic DNA and forensic anthropology results of approximately two weeks.

A preliminary estimation of how long the unidentified person has been deceased is approximately several months or more, O'Neil said in a statement.

Other items that were discovered include shreds of blue jeans that contained a small amount of U. S. currency. Police continued to search the Des Plaines River on Thursday where the human remains were discovered in Channahon Township.

"We are still searching the area as part of a thorough investigation," State Trooper Mark Dorencz said.

A dive team took part in Thursday's search.

Around 2 p.m. Wednesday, a barge crew that had been clearing logs and debris discovered a partial skeleton near the south shore, approximately a mile west of the Interstate 55 bridge, near the Big Basin Marina. The cleanup crew has been working in the area for the last four days, according to reports.

O'Neil examined the body at the riverside Wednesday afternoon and attended an autopsy performed at the county morgue Thursday morning. Police said the search was expected to wrap up in the early afternoon.

One news outlet reported police had found a blue barrel near where the remains were found, but law enforcement sources did not confirm that report.

During the investigation, a relative of Stacy Peterson's husband Drew Peterson, said he believed such a barrel may have been used to dispose of her body.

Kelly Hollis said she and her husband, Steve, were hiking near Moose Island, a little further down the river, when they saw a blue barrel.

"It was either late fall (2007) or early spring (2008) and at the turnoff, we looked across the river and saw a plastic blue barrel all by itself," she said.

The Hollises immediately thought of Stacy Peterson but thought the barrel at the shore was "too obvious" to indicate anything sinister.

"But it stayed in my head and a few days later I called the sheriff's police who put me in touch with the state police hotline," Hollis said. "I left a message with the story and the police said wait a few days and call back if I didn't hear from them, so I did."

Hollis said she was never contacted by state police, but she found it "a little freaky" when she saw a news report saying a blue barrel had been found Wednesday.

"We saw that quite a while ago. Could it have been there all along," she wondered.

"Since early on in the Peterson case, we have received many reports regarding blue barrels throughout the region and we have investigated all of them," Dorencz said. "We have begun marking them because many times we have gotten tips regarding the same barrel."

State police said further information regarding the remains found Wednesday would likely be released by the coroner's office.

"We have not matched these remains to (these) high-profile cases and we have not ruled it out," Dorencz said. "Whether it is one of those or another disappearance, this was a person and we use all of our resources to identify them whoever they were."

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