Sheriff's Department Refuses to Release Reports in 'Active' Murder Case With 'Zero New Leads'

A detective with the Will County Sheriff’s Department wasn’t interested in meeting the daughter of a woman slain in an unsolved murder nearly 10 years ago, saying there are “zero new leads” in the case, but the cops also don’t want to release reports on the investigation, claiming it is “open and active.”

Patch requested all the police reports on the July 2005 murder of Lockport woman Melissa Mitchell but was denied by Deputy Chief Jerome Nudera.

“This is an open and active homicide investigation,” Nudera said in his letter of denial. Patch is appealing to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.

But while Nudera claims the investigation is both open and active, a detective on the case told the victim’s daughter in a voicemail that there really wasn’t any activity at all.

“There have been no updates on the crime that occurred,” the detective said in the Jan. 28 voicemail left for Mitchell’s daughter, Melanie Mitchell.

“We have had zero new leads,” he said. “You’re welcome to come in if you wanted to come in, if you had any additional information. At this time we have received no further information so, from my end it wouldn’t be a very productive meeting. If you have more information though I’d be more than happy to sit with you and jot down whatever you have, but on our end we have nothing, nothing further.”

Melissa Mitchell was 31 when she was found stabbed to death in a field across Broadway from the District 5 State Police Headquarters. Four years after Melissa was killed, the sheriff department’s spokesman at the time, Pat Barry, said investigators identified her boyfriend, Julio Alex Montenegro, 43, as their only suspect.

Montenegro reported Melissa as a missing person to the Lockport Police Department the day after she was last seen alive. Montenegro reportedly told police he met up with Melissa at Zelmo’s Full Moon Saloon on Plainfield Road in Joliet the night before. He said she was “upset with him because he got there late, and they got into a little argument.”

Montenegro told how Melissa took off on him, police said, but he managed to find her walking up Plainfield Road.

Melissa refused to get onto his motorcycle, so “he grabbed her and put her on the bike; however she was able to get away and started to walk away,” police said.

Montenegro claimed he “stopped his bike, put the kickstand down, and went after his girlfriend, but … she disappeared in between two houses, and that is the last he (saw) of her,” police said.

Melissa’s body was found the next day. Two days later, while detectives were trying to obtain a search warrant for Montenegro’s home on Campbell Street in Joliet, his garage burned down with his motorcycle inside it. City police at the time called the blaze suspicious but no criminal charges were ever brought in connection with the fire.

According to Melissa’s ex-husband, Scott Mitchell, Montenegro went to the Lockport home where she was living with a girlfriend the same day he reported her as missing. Montenegro pulled photos of himself and Melissa from their frames, Scott Mitchell said, and also took a journal. Scott Mitchell said the journal and photos were never found.

Montenegro has yet to respond to messages left for him with his son and on Facebook, or to call the number on business cards left at the front door of his home.

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