Bolingbrook Teen Missing 19 Years Saturday

Another year will pass Saturday with the police coming no closer to solving the mystery of what happened to Rachel Mellon.

Rachel was 13 when she vanished on Jan. 31, 1996. She stayed home from school with a sore throat that day and was alone with her unemployed stepfather, Vince Mellon. The first time anyone realized Rachel was not ill in her room was when her mother, Amy Mellon, arrived home from work that evening and went to get her daughter for dinner.

The stepfather told the police he last saw Rachel about 2:30 p.m., just before he took the family dog out for a walk. The dog got loose, he told the law, and ran off after a rabbit. Vince Mellon, 48, made an effort to catch the German shepherd but gave up and went home. Later in the day, a real estate appraiser in the area on business stopped by the house and returned the dog, Vince Mellon claimed to the cops.

All the while, Vince Mellon’s story went, he presumed Rachel was in her room asleep.

In the first years following Rachel’s disappearance, her mother complained of the way the police handled the case. Amy Mellon claimed it took the cops an hour to show up to her house after she called, and then told her they could take no action for 24 hours after the initial report.

Even after the police got around to searching the Mellons’ house, officers found no sign of foul play. For a full two days after Rachel’s disappearance, the police considered the matter a missing person or runaway case, despite freezing temperatures and snow on the ground the day she disappeared, and evidence that the teen took nothing with her—if she did leave voluntarily—but slippers, the sweats she had been wearing in bed, and a blue blanket.

Rachel’s case languished for nearly four years. Then, on Jan. 29, 2000, the cops picked up Vince Mellon from his home on Joliet’s west side and held him for nine hours at the Bolingbrook police station.

During that time, they served him with a warrant ordering him to surrender samples of his blood, saliva and hair as part of a first-degree murder investigation.

Four days later, Vince and Amy Mellon were hauled before a grand jury, and the police revealed they had made “significant developments” in the case through the use of “technical advances.”

In the ensuing 15 years, the police have never revealed what the significant developments were that prompted them to pull the Mellons in front of a grand jury, or what technical advances brought these developments to light. And Rachel Mellon is still missing with no indication she is any closer to being found.

In the years between Rachel disappearing and Vince Mellon and his wife leaving town, he has been arrested on charges of theft, battery, drunken driving and domestic battery. He also has a warrant out for his arrest in connection with the 2005 drunken driving case.

Amy and Vince Mellon moved to a small town in Tennessee several years ago. Amy Mellon’s listed number there has been disconnected. Vince Mellon’s attorney for his criminal cases in Will County, Paul Napolski, said he has not heard from his former client in years.

Bolingbrook police Lt. Carter Larry said he spoke with detectives about Rachel’s case and was told “this is still an open investigation. Detectives continue to follow up on all tips and leads provided.”

Go take a look at our Facebook page.