Suspected Serial Killer Charged In 1997 Lake County Homicide

WAUKEGAN, IL — A former truck driver and suspected serial killer has been charged with the murder of 39-year-old Julie Konkol, who was found dead behind an abandoned truck stop in Lake County more than two decades ago.

A joint investigation by state and federal agencies led to the issuance of an arrest warrant Wednesday for a man whose DNA has been linked to the killings of at least four women, according to a statement from the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

Samuel William Legg III, 52, of Chandler, Arizona, has been held in Medina County Jail following his arrest on a 1997 sexual assault charge and subsequent indictment for the 1992 killing of another women found dead at a truck stop.

Konkol's body was found on Oct. 23, 1997, by a construction worker behind the old Senter's truck stop at 43067 Old Route 41 in Russell, near the border with Wisconsin. An autopsy determined someone strangled her to death.

“This case has been a dark cloud hanging over Lake County for nearly 25 years," Lake County State's Attorney Mike Nerheim said. "But, through the gallant effort and tenacity of numerous law enforcement agencies and people involved, a murderer will finally answer for his crime."

Konkol was a Greendale, Wisconson resident who spent about the last two weeks of her life living in a van and working at various locations washing and waxing semi trucks, investigators said at the time.

According to newspaper reports from the time, the van's co-owner — Konkol's boyfriend — was charged with lying to investigators during questioning about the homicide. But eventually all leads were exhausted and the case went cold, according to the sheriff's office.

In 2006, DNA evidence collected from the scene of Konkol's killing was matched with samples from a 1996 homicide in Wood County, Ohio. Then in 2012, DNA indexing linked DNA the homicide to a 1992 homicide in Mahoning, County Ohio.

But because Legg had not been arrested or convicted of any felony since the Combined DNA Index System began collecting samples, his DNA was not logged. The samples from the Lake County scene were labeled as an unknown male, according to the sheriff's office.

The sample was tested again in 2018 in an effort to identify a possible family or other genetic connection. The sheriff's office said a familial connection was found, and the investigation of that connection lead to a break in the case and the finding that Legg was a "one-in-a-trillion match" with the DNA found on Konkol's body, according to the sheriff's office.

Sheriff John Idleburg said he was grateful to be able to move toward offering some justice to Konkol and her family.

"We always strive to be the voice of those who cannot speak anymore and always stand with victims as their advocates to ensure they can achieve justice," Idleburg said. "Even if investigative leads on a case begin to go cold, we will never allow a victim’s case to collect dust on a shelf, our Cold Case Unit regularly looks at them in our relentless pursuit of justice for victims.”

According to reports from Ohio, Legg was found not fit to stand trial by a Mahoning County judge twice in 2019. Prosecutors reportedly faced a one-year deadline for him to be "restored to competency" to face charge. At a hearing in April, a judge said progress was being made.

During the period when the murder occurred, Legg lived in Ohio and worked as a long-haul trucker around the Midwest, according to the sheriff's office.

Legg later moved to Arizona, where he was eventually ordered to receive mental health treatment after being diagnosed with delusions, schizophrenia and neurosyphilis, according to a WEWS-TV report.

The investigation into Konkol's killing was conducted by cold case unit of the sheriff's office, the FBI's Chicago office, Lake County prosecutors, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations and local authorities in Medina, Wood, Lorain and Mahoning counties in Ohio.

Legg will eventually face extradition to Lake County to face two counts of first-degree murder in Illinois. The bond on his arrest warrant was set at 10 percent of $3 million.