I am working on this webpage. Any information on this case, please email me.
Please check back often for an update. There is nothing paranormal going on at the cemetery or at the woods area.
A hitchhiker walking along west Irving Park Road just before 3am notices an unusual white pickup truck driving past him. Suddenly a few minutes later it reappears driving east now at a high rate of speed. Seconds later as the man keeps walking down the road he starts to hear moaning sounds from the side of the road. He looks around and notices something wrapped in a blanket that is tied with a rope. Not just any rope size rope, but a 32 foot rope tied in 13 elaborate knots with a hangman's noose draped at one end.
Inside the blanket, the man discovers a beaten body of a young woman who appeared to be in her late teens. The man tries desperately to revive the woman with nearby water from the Des Plaines River. When she fails to respond he frantically flags down a passing motorist and goes to the Schiller Park police station.
The police arrive on the scene and discover that the woman has large square bruises on the back of her head and face. This leads them to suspect that she was struck repeatedly with a heel of a boot or possibly a meat tenderizing mallet. She is immediately rushed to nearby Resurrection Hospital.
The next few days, local police get hundreds of calls but are not making progress in identifying this young severely beaten woman.
To make matters worst, there were no labels on her clothing or identification found on her.
It has now been eight days since this 5'4, 100 pound, hazel eyed with shoulder-length red hair woman was found. Her eyes remain closed. She lays motionless except for her chest that is rising methodically with the help of a respirator to help her breathe.
Outside in the hallway a policeman stands guard over the young woman. Whom is he guarding, nobody knows for sure.
Many people over the course of these few days have walked the hall to peek into the room. Some hesitant at first because of dreading she is a family member or friend that they've lost contact.
Most people shake their heads and walk away sobbing saying "it's not her." Others can't believe what they are seeing and wonder who can commit this horrendous act on such an innocent young woman.
The police did an outstanding job of sending out flyers to local schools, knocking on doors, asking around at parks and local hangouts. Some officers keep thinking they've missed some clue or have not followed a lead. The white pickup truck still cannot be found. It's an emotional roller-coaster that is taking it toll on everyone involved.
It is now September 18; investigators are still baffled as to whom this young woman that was found many days ago could possibly be? As the Sunday morning hours go by, the young woman peacefully dies without regaining consciousness.
Over two hundred person passed by her over the weeks but nobody was able to identify her. Her body still remained unclaimed, hospital employees along with the States Attorney in Niles started to collect money for her funeral.
Resurrection Hospital held a memorial service for this unidentified young woman on Tuesday in the chapel. In attendance were over 200 people, mostly doctors, nurses, workers and policemen who helped work the case.
The Rev. John Kuhlmey, hospital chaplain, reads a letter he had written that could of well have come from this unidentified young woman herself.
He begins to read, "Dear World,"
"I'm sorry to leave you so early, but for some unexplained reason someone didn't want me to linger here too long. I enjoyed my stay with you, especially the last days when people cared for me with a tenderness...How they loved and hoped and prayed for me (that) I would respond.
I am writing...kind of like a last request. There are so many girls out there just like me. Some of them are hungry and cold-hungry for love and cold for indifference.
Please do something for them. Search them out. Bring them to loving people. Help those who leave home. Find good friends for them, and let them know that life is good, and the world is beautiful."
After the service it was business as usual for the police, they still had leads to follow and find out who is this young woman. A local police officer even went as far as posting a reward for information leading to her killer. Still, nothing seemed to help identifying her or who did this crime.
On Monday October 3rd, the mysterious young woman whom had died in the hospital got a name. She was first identified by friends whom she was living with and then by her grandmother.
Positive identification through dental records and medical x-rays proved she was Deborah Rosencrans.
Deborah lived with her mother on the northside of Chicago until September 1st, when her mother moved to Florida where she remarried. Deborah was living with friends until she could join her mother in Florida.
She was last seen on the evening of September 1st when she went to visit a local neighborhood girlfriend.
Her friends did report to the police she was missing and went to look at pictures at the police station.
"It just didn’t look like her", her friends stated. The newspaper pictures didn’t even resemble their friend.
Her friends decided to give one last look and went over to the Forensic Medicine Lab., where they did identify the body. They gave the authorities Deborah’s grandmothers name who then identified the body on Monday.
Chicago Police did take a report of Deborah missing a week after the body was found. Deborah was reported missing three other times but had always returned home.
A Grand Jury investigation was launched and 8 to 10 people were subpoenaed. None were considered suspects.
Now that the police had a name they wanted to start all over to try to figure out her lifestyle, and talk to everyone who knew her.
Fifteen friends of Deborah appeared before the Cook County Grand Jury as investigators tried to learn about her background.
The Chicago police learned that the night she disappeared she had been riding with several other persons in a car. Eventually, a blue Oldsmobile had driven up alongside and Deborah recognized the driver. She asked them to stop the car and got out to talk with the other driver. As she walked over to the Oldsmobile she immediately was pulled into the car and it sped off. (This was the last moment her friends possibly saw her alive.)
Police now were on the lookout for a white pickup truck along with this blue Oldsmobile.
On October 11th the police released a composite drawing of two people Deborah was last seen with over that Labor Day weekend. They speculated it might be the same person.
Meanwhile, investigators were confident "they were getting closer to the end."
October 14th brought the hitchhiker into the newspaper since it was reported he failed 14 lie-detector tests in connection with her death.
He was subpoenaed to appear on Oct 15th before the Cook County grand jury investigating her death.
This is where my story stops because I couldn’t find any more information on how the case ended. All material referenced Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune.
To my knowledge I don’t think anyone was formally charged and the case remains open. Investigators believe she knew her killer.
Deborah Rosencrans is buried in Concordia Cemetery, Section 7, Forest Park, Illinois. Please respect the grave.
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