Human Remains From 1992 Building Fire IDed As Aurora Woman

AURORA, IL — Human remains found in a construction landfill in 1997 have been identified as those of an Aurora woman, The Will County Coroner's Office announced Friday.

Using DNA, the remains were identified as those of Marie R. O'Brien, whose cause of death is still undetermined.

On May 13, 1997, a University of Illinois archeologist was working in a construction landfill in Rockdale when he located a human bone. Further investigation by Will County Sheriff's Office detectives uncovered numerous more human skeletal remains, most of which were broken, in various layers of debris — a mix of brick, stone and wood, officials said.

The debris came from the former Rust Craft building in Joliet, which had housed several companies. The three-story building with a full basement was abandoned from 1986 to 1992, the same year a fire destroyed most of the building.

After the fire, officials said, excess debris was removed while the rest was used to fill the basement. In 1995, the basement was excavated and sent to Rockdale, where the bones were found two years later.

It wasn't until 2009 that then-Will County Coroner Patrick O'Neil formed a cold case unit to investigate the case, among others. With the Federal Bureau of Investigation's help reconstructing the cranium, the team completed forensic anthropology studies and developed and entered DNA into the national missing and unidentified persons database.

Although numerous leads came out of the investigation, they were ultimately eliminated, the coroner's office said.

After she was elected in 2020, Coroner Laurie Summers continued to support the cold case unit, officials said. To propel the 1997 cold case, the coroner's office partnered on June 8, 2021, with Othram Inc., a Texas-based lab, to develop a DNA profile to submit to genealogy site Family Tree, which narrowed down family leads to a few people.

Officials said investigators went on to interview people from Illinois, Texas and California, while Othram narrowed the search to one person in California using DNA profiling and genealogy studies. The lab's investigation indicated the person could be the unidentified person's brother.

The coroner's office learned from interviews with a California man that he had a sister he lost contact with in 1984, officials said. Additional testing determined that he and the woman are 100 percent related as half-brother and half-sister.

Cold case investigators from the Will County Coroner's Office and Will County Sheriff's Office continue to look into the case, officials said.