BY BETH HUNDSDORFER AND GEORGE PAWLACZYK - News-Democrat
Katie found and lost her mother in one day.
Katie is the daughter of Summerfield's "Jane Doe," who was strangled and left in a cornfield outside the small village. She remained unidentified for more than 21 years until in January 2008 an FBI fingerprint recheck revealed she was 27-year-old Eulalia Pholia Mylia Chavez Wilcomer.
"I was at work and I waited until I got home and I Googled it," said Katie, who asked that only her first name be used to protect her and her adopted family. "I was like, 'Oh, my God!' So I found out who she was and that she was murdered in the same day."
A 1983 police photo of Eulalia Pholia Mylia Chavez Wilcomer. - Provided/BND
Katie, now 32, learned the name of her mother, who gave her up for adoption in California when she was an infant, from her mother's high school friend in 2008, then learned through a computer search that her mother was found in an Illinois cornfield near a small town called Summerfield, strangled, mutilated and unidentified for decades.
The news of her mother's murder brought fear, said Katie.
"He could still be out there. You would think that after 20 years, he is obviously unstable. If something with my name on it goes into print, anybody could read it," Katie said. "He might be cuckoo bananas if he's going around killing people."
Though its been 24 years since the murder, police insist they are still pursuing the killer by following every lead, including the latest that involves a register for what used to be called the Lebanon Hotel.
"Although it's been a long time since this homicide happened, it's still very important to the citizens of St. Clair County and to the sheriff's department to continue to investigate it," said Capt. Steve Johnson of the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department. "Throughout that time, the case has changed hands through many investigators who have come and gone, but we are always constantly looking for possible leads."
A former Lebanon police chief, Jerry Harris, said he remembered hearing that Chavez had stayed overnight in a room in the village, possibly with a boyfriend.
Three years ago when reporters tried to follow up on this tip, the former hotel owner refused access to the sign in book. Recently, at the request of the News-Democrat, another former police chief, Adolph Bradley, went to current Chief Dale Warke and asked him to investigate the sign-in book. Warke said he would investigate and contacted the sheriff's department.
Katie said she hoped her mother's killer would be caught.
"It would be really nice if this murder could be pinned on somebody and somebody would pay for it," Katie said.
For Katie, the news of her mother's death has brought disappointment and a realization that any information she learns about her mother would be second-hand from her mother's biological sister, newspaper accounts and police reports.
Katie knows nuggets of information. She knows her mother liked to be called "Lia" and did not like another nickname, "Lolly." She knew that she was an artist who drew and made jewelry and clothing. She attended Foothills College in Palo Alto, Calif., in winter and spring 1976. She volunteered with Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
Katie knows Lia Chavez, then 18, gave birth to her at Stanford Hospital on Sept. 21, 1977. Chavez took her baby girl home to her apartment, kept the baby for four to six months, then gave it up for adoption.
Katie was told her father was English and a musician.
"It would be kind of cool to know who he was," Katie said. "I have nothing on him. I have no idea."
Lia Chavez and her sister were close, but lost touch after she gave Katie up for adoption, Katie said. Katie keeps in touch with her aunt.
Katie also contacted her grandmother, Sonja Wilcomer, who adopted the Costa Rican-born Lia and her sister, when the family lived in Panama. Sonja Wilcomer has said that her daughter left home about five years after her husband, Maurice Wilcomer, a former U.S. Foreign Service employee, died in 1972.
"Her reaction was not warm, at all. She didn't speak warmly of Lia, at all," Katie said. "I would think that even if Lia was a really bad kid, whatever, was into drugs, most parents, if your daughter's dead and your granddaughter calls, you're not gonna be like your mom was a bad seed. I don't want to talk to you."
Katie said Sonja Wilcomer told her that Lia came to her house once with a baby, but she didn't pay much attention.
"Sonja said, 'I thought that baby was a boy, though,'" Katie said.
Sonja Wilcomer told Katie that Lia was into prostitution and drugs. No drugs or alcohol were found in Lia Chavez body during her autopsy in 1986.
But during a Saturday interview, Wilcomer, 88, said she remembers the conversation with her adopted granddaughter differently.
"When she called, it was kind of a shock to me," Wilcomer said.
"Maybe she thought differently, but I believe I spoke very affectionately of her mother. I'm amazed that she thought that I didn't. I told her about all the things her mother liked to do."
Between 1977 and 1986, Lia Chavez's life becomes a mystery to Katie, her sister and her adopted mother.
Southern Oregon State College security officers arrested Chavez near its Ashland campus on July 1979 for stealing a purse. Chavez, then 20, did not list an address.
A farmer harvesting corn found Chavez in a field south of Summerfield on Sept. 6, 1986. She had been dead for less than 24 hours. A collection of mismatched women's clothing in various sizes was strewn near her body. She was strangled with a piece of clothing and her genitals were mutilated with a knife after death.
She remained unidentified when her body was exhumed in June 2007 and transferred to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in an effort to identify her. There, well-known anthropologist Richard Jantz placed the remains in the anthropology department's heavily guarded bone yard, called "The Body Farm," to become fully skeletonized.
An FBI fingerprint check later led to her identification. A fingerprint check shortly after she was found failed to identify her when an investigator mistakenly entered an age range of 18 to 25 for the computer. Chavez turned out to be 27.
Sonja Wilcomer opted to leave Chavez's body at the university, despite the efforts of several Summerfield residents to arrange a burial in their village. After her identification, Chavez's bones were transferred to a collection box and placed with about 800 other sets of human remains for study.
Katie said she thought it would have been nice if her grandmother would have taken the people of Summerfield up on their offer to bury Chavez there.
"For all I know, my mom was some crazy drug addict. I have no idea," Katie said. "But even if she was, I just think that there were other, really nice things about her. Why couldn't she be portrayed in a nice a way as possible?"
