DNA matches skull found in Illinois home to Indiana teenager who died in 1866: NPR

In November 1978, a man in Batavia, Illinois, was renovating his home when he knocked down a wall, revealing what appeared to be a human skull between the studs.

Nearly half a century later – thanks to community fundraising, sophisticated DNA testing and the cooperation of a descendant – the identity of the skull was finally confirmed.

It belonged to an Indiana teenager who died of postpartum complications in 1866.

“We now know that the skull found in a wall in Batavia is that of Esther Granger,” Kane County Coroner Rob Russell announced at the conference. press conference on Thursday, surrounded by county officials and standing next to a replica of a skull in a glass box.

Granger was born in October 1848 in Indiana and married her husband, Charles, in 1865 at the age of 16, authorities said. She died the following year, shortly after giving birth to her first child, a girl.

Public sources say Granger was buried in Merrillville, Indiana, about 80 miles from the Chicago suburbs, where her skull was found more than a century later.

“So the question remains: If she died in 1866 in Indiana, how did she end up in the wall of a house in Batavia?” Russell said.

Investigators believe Granger was a victim of grave robbery, which was common and profitable at the time. Russell said perpetrators could make three to four months off a single body – often by selling it to medical schools for anatomy studies – and were rarely apprehended by law enforcement.

The working theory is that someone who lived in the Batavia house obtained the corpse (or parts of it) for medical research and, knowing the consequences, later hid it in the wall.

“There is no definitive answer as to how Esther ended up in that wall or where the rest of her body is, but being a victim of grave robbery fits the bill,” Russell said.

The house where the skull was found is “in the oldest part of Batavia,” said Mayor Jeffrey Schielke, and dates back to the 1850s.

“Thank you for helping us solve the mystery that we didn’t have a murderer we didn’t know about,” the mayor said to the coroner with a laugh.

Technology, time and money helped solve a decades-old mystery

The homeowner called Batavia police immediately after the skull was discovered in 1978, Russell explained, but their investigation was limited by the lack of DNA technology and genealogical records at the time.

The only thing they could guess was that the skull probably belonged to a young woman who died in her early 20s before 1900.

Over time, the case became murky, and the skull somehow ended up at the Batavia Depot Museum, a local history museum located on the site of a former train station. Batavia Police Chief Shawn Mazza said documents show the skull was in the museum as early as 1979, but there is no information about how or why it got there.

In March 2021, museum workers were cleaning out the inventory when they found a skull in a box. They called the police, who found the 1978 report and sent the skull to the coroner’s office cold case section for further examination.

After two years of “reviewing existing evidence and pursuing leads,” Russell said, the office learned of: A Texas company called Othramwhich uses a relatively new technique called forensic investigative genealogy to help solve cold cases.

Othram scientists examined the skull and obtained testable DNA. If Othram could obtain the profile, it would look through it in its database for potential family members, the company said, advising officials that they could try to cover the costs through crowdfunding.

Russell’s office appealed to the public for donations in December 2023 and ultimately raised approximately $7,500. Within a few weeks, Othram discovered that the profile was a match.

The company says Granger is the oldest unidentified case of human remains it has worked on to date, and one of the oldest people identified through forensic genetic genealogy.

“Not only did they have a match, but they also had a family tree with living relatives,” Russell said.

Investigators contacted that relative, 69-year-old Wayne Svilar, whose DNA confirmed that he was indeed Granger’s great-great-grandson.

Svilar, a retired police sergeant with the Portland Police Bureau in Oregon, worked with its casework unit in the early 2000s. Appearing at a news conference via Zoom, he said he initially thought the calls were scams and his wife assumed they were related to his past affairs.

“To be honest, we didn’t believe a word of it,” he said. “It took two or three phone calls to convince me.”

The Granger family managed to close the case and put her to rest

Svilar says what convinced him that “this was not a well-organized fraud” was the authorities’ passion and commitment to their work.

“The respect they showed us, my family, in this process was amazing,” he said.

Svilar said he grew up not hearing anything about Granger, although he regretted not talking to his grandparents more. He said that side of the family settled in Nebraska and “the only thing they ever talked about… was that life was really hard.”

After identifying Granger, authorities produced a composite sketch of what she likely looked like during her lifetime. Svilar said he sees some similarities between this photo and photos of his mother.

“I wish my mom was still here so I could tell her this story. She would love it,” he said. “I feel like the sense of closure and the respect we showed Esther in this process gave me a lot of satisfaction.”

With the consent of her family, Granger was buried in the Batavia cemetery. Svilar gave the eulogy and told reporters this week that although it was his first time in Batavia, he felt like he had been there before.

Coming full circle, Svilar added that he recently retired to take a job with the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, where some of his responsibilities will be on cold cases.

Russell said Granger’s remains are kept in a columbarium paid for by the city and marked with a plaque.

“From now on, she is forever a resident of Batavia – actually, probably a resident of heaven – but at least physically a resident of Batavia,” he said. “And we thought it was appropriate since she spent so much time here.”