No Suspects In Woman's Brutal 2005 Stabbing Murder, Sheriff's Department Claims

A deputy chief from the Will County Sheriff’s Department claims investigators don’t have a single suspect in a mother’s brutal 2005 stabbing death.

The declaration by Deputy Chief Jerome Nudera contradicts a 2009 statement from his own department’s spokesman. The spokesman, Pat Barry, who has since retired, identified Julio Alex Montenegro, the boyfriend of slain Lockport resident Melissa Mitchell, as the sole suspect in her murder.

In a March 5 letter to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, Nudera said, “To this date no suspect has been officially named as a part of this investigation and as a result our office is pursuing all leads as to the identity of the perpetrator.”

Nudera also wrote that, “In every sense of the word this investigation remains ongoing,” which also runs counter to what has been said by someone else in his department.

In fact, a detective who actually investigated Mitchell’s July 2005 murder left a voicemail for the slain woman’s daughter in which he said nothing much has been going on at all.

“There have been no updates on the crime that occurred,” the detective said in his Jan. 28 voicemail.

“We have had zero new leads,” he said, discouraging the young woman from stopping by to speak with investigators.

“You’re welcome to come in if you wanted to come in, if you had any additional information,” the detective said. “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.”

Nudera is trying to convince the attorney general’s office that releasing reports on Mitchell’s murder is not in the public interest. Besides claiming detectives have identified no suspects and insisting the case is active, Nudera also expressed reservations about how releasing the information “would make it extremely difficult for any future defendant to get a fair and unbiased trial,” presumably once his department manages to develop a suspect and then charge him with a crime.

Mitchell was 31 when she was found stabbed to death in a field across Broadway from the District 5 State Police Headquarters. Montenegro, now 43, reported her as a missing person to the Lockport Police Department the day after she was last seen alive.

When he made the report, Montenegro told how he met up with Mitchell at Zelmo’s Full Moon Saloon on Plainfield Road in Joliet the night before, according to police. He said she was “upset with him because he got there late, and they got into a little argument.”

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

Mitchell 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.

Mitchell’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 Scott Mitchell, Montenegro went to the Lockport home where Melissa Mitchell 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 failed to return calls for comment.

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