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Somebody Knows Something
S3E5: Aurora
00:22:23
This episode takes them to Aurora, a city with deep ties to Wyteria's past and a direct bus line that could have brought her right to her old doorstep. But Aurora also means revisiting the man who reported her missing: her husband, Waymon Jones. With...
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- [00:00]
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- [00:25]
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play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. This podcast is based on information sourced primarily from police and media reports, but certain names and other identifying details may have been changed or altered for privacy and security reasons. While the events and cases discussed are based on real investigations, some aspects may be simplified for time and for narrative purposes. Voice actors have been used to read from statements or documents. All information presented is intended solely to inform and raise awareness. Hosts may discuss theories regarding the cases examined in this podcast, but such discussions are not intended to and should not be considered by the listener to be legal. Conclusions all persons discussed are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Listener discretion is advised.
- [01:32]
Chief Anna Lally
This is Chief Anna Lally. Welcome to Somebody Knows Something, a podcast from the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Unit. In this podcast, we will shed new light on cold cases in the city of Elgin by sharing untold details and by encouraging anyone with information to come forward. You will come along with real cold case detectives as they investigate active cold cases in real time and seek justice for the victims and closure for their families. We believe that the Elgin Police Department and our community can work together to bring closure to cold cases because we know that in these cases, somebody Knows Something.
- [02:15]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Hello and welcome to Somebody Knows Something, the Elgin Police Department Cold Case Podcast. My name is Detective Andrew Houghton and
- [02:22]
Detective Chris Hall
I'm Detective Chris Hall. Last episode, we traveled to Joliet, Illinois to search for clues in Wyteria's disappearance and we talked about other missing girls from the 1980s in Will County. We also identified and visited the Joliet Motor Hotel and learned that the family who owned both the Douglas Hotel and and the Joliet Motor Lodge had some ties to another hotel in Texas. In fact, one former tenant told us that the owners helped facilitate bus travel to Texas for several tenants in Joliet. So we have to consider that maybe tenants from the Douglas Hotel had that option as well, or that the owners helped facilitate travel to Joliet.
- [03:01]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Before we get into our theories for Aurora in this episode, we do want to update listeners on that potential Texas Connection that we got a few weeks back. The tenant from the former Joliet Motor Hotel told us that he took a bus to Raymondville, Texas and stayed there for a brief period of time at another hotel that the Zima family owned. Last week, after digging through the Texas hotel occupancy tax accounts, quarterly reports from 1986, I actually found a hotel that we believe is the hotel he went to.
- [03:26]
Detective Chris Hall
Andrew discovered that Chet Zima paid taxes in third quarter of 1986 for the Raymondville Hotel, located at 450 East Hidalgo and Raymondville, Texas. Unfortunately, the Texas hotel occupancy tax account records we found only go back to 1986. So we are still looking to find out if the family owned the Same Hotel in 1982, but we feel that we've at least identified the right property. We are also still searching for more records for both the Douglas Hotel and the Joliet Motor Lodge. So if any listeners have any information about those hotels, or if any listeners in Texas have information about the Raymondville Hotel, please reach out to us.
- [04:08]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Well, now that that's out of the way, let's move on to another city that's much closer than Raymondville, Texas, and it's a place that we know. Witeria definitely had ties to Aurora, Illinois. As we talk about Aurora, there's one more thing we should mention that might make Aurora a more plausible destination than Joliet. As we reviewed the RTA records, we discovered that there was a suburban bus line that directly connected Elgin to Aurora. In fact, Bus 801 left Elgin and traveled south on Illinois Route 31, passing the Elgin Mental Health center on its way to Aurora. And that bus could have dropped Wytiria off on Lake street just a few blocks from her house.
- [04:55]
Detective Chris Hall
Aurora is a large city here in the western suburbs of Illinois. In 1982, Aurora, it boasted a population of over 80,000, making it one of the largest cities in the Chicagoland area. When a number of industrial parks and businesses came into the city in the 1980s, the blue collar town grew from the fifth largest city in Illinois in 1990 to the second largest today. As of 2025, Aurora has a population of just over 180,000 people. And it remains a large industrial hub here in the Chicagoland area,
- [05:29]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Similar to Joliet and Will County. We looked for missing person cases in Aurora and the surrounding area from the early 1980s, but we didn't really find anything similar to Wyteria's case because of its size. Aurora is actually situated in four different Kane County, DuPage County, Kendall county and Will County. We've already discussed some of the Will county cases in our Joliet episode, but the oldest Aurora missing person case in the National Missing and Unidentified person system, or NamUs, is from 1990. So we haven't found anything similar to Wyteria's case from the 1980s, at least not yet.
- [06:01]
Detective Chris Hall
We checked the surrounding area cases and in the other three counties too, but we didn't come across any women who disappeared in Kane, DuPage or Kendall county between 1980 and 1985. DuPage county does have Deborah McCall who disappeared in 1979, who Andrew and Matt mentioned in season one, but the rest of the cases from those counties are from the 1990s.
- [06:30]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Longtime listeners to our podcast will remember Deborah McCall. She was a 16 year old high school student at Downers Grove North High School when she was last seen on November 5th of 1979 wearing a beige hooded jacket, a sweater, blue jeans, light brown suede shoes and a yellow necklace. Police suspect that she was the victim of the area serial killer named Bruce Lindahl, who potentially murdered at least 12 women between 1976 and 1981 because a photograph that appeared to be Deborah was found in his belongings. Unfortunately, her body has never been recovered. As for Whiteeria's case, Bruce Lindahl was dead by 1981 and so similar to Karen's case, he is not a suspect in her disappearance.
- [07:07]
Detective Chris Hall
As for Elgin, Andrew and I know all of our missing persons from both Kane and Cook counties. Currently, Whiteeria is our oldest case on record and as the date of this recording, we have not located any other area missing people from King county and that are similar to Witteria's case last season.
- [07:25]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Chris and I talked about the Ripper crew and we know that during the 1980s they were active in the western suburbs and Chicago. In fact, they were even active in the fall of 1982 when Witeria vanished. A number of their victims were black women who were alone, but most of their known victims remains have been recovered and they were typically recovered within months of their murder. We certainly can't rule out that some unknown offender abducted or harmed Whiteeria in some way in Elgin or Joliet or Aurora or somewhere else. But so far we haven't found any evidence to link her to another case like that or any serial offenders or even the Ripper crew specifically.
- [07:58]
Detective Chris Hall
Well, while we have not linked Whiteeria to any active serial killers or other offenders in the area, it is still possible that she was a victim of a violent crime on her way to Aurora or while in Aurora. So let's consider the option that Whiteeria did actually arrive in Aurora and talk about the people that were in her life when she did live there. The most notable person, perhaps is her husband and the man who reported her missing, Waymond Jones.
- [08:30]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Anytime we look at these old cases, the one thing we spend a lot of time doing is reviewing criminal history of all the people involved, if they have one. And we interview as many people as we can who knew the victim or any suspects around that time that the case happened. Typically, we start with the missing person because we need to know if they've been arrested, what type of background they have, things like that. For this case, we know that Wyteria did not have any criminal history in her background and that she was never arrested.
- [08:54]
Detective Chris Hall
As for Waymond Jones, he died in 2013. So while we can't interview him about the case or his background, we can review his criminal history to get a sense of his background. On May 19, 1980, Waymond Jones was arrested by the Chicago Police department in the 10th district of Chicago for a simple battery. The 10th district is located on the west side of Chicago and includes the neighborhoods of North Lawndale, Little Village, and Lower west side. The records that we have document that Wayman was living in Aurora when he was arrested, but he clearly still had ties to the city of Chicago where he and Wyteria lived prior to their move to Aurora. The problem was that for months we didn't know who the victim was in that case or the circumstances surrounding it. And because it is over 45 years old, the arrest records for a simple battery case are far beyond the retention. So many records like that no longer exist. Longtime listeners will recall that when Andrew and Matt tried to find records from the 1983 case related to the person who left the series of beaver squeezer letters in Susanna's car at PM Bentley's, those cases no longer existed. So we were afraid that the same might be true in this case.
- [10:09]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Luckily, Chris was able to get some records from the archives of the Chicago Police Department, and we learned that the case involved a juvenile at a school in Chicago. Waymond at the time was working at the Chicago public school system, and the complainant for the case appeared to be the mother of a child at a school where he was working in 1980. The report is brief, but we can at least say that Wyteria was not the victim in that case. Initially, we were concerned that she might be because the Illinois Domestic Violence act wasn't passed in Illinois until several years after the 1980 arrest. A domestic battery as a statutory offense wasn't on the books until 1990. Our initial thought was that this case could have been a domestic battery and just classified as a simple battery back in 1980, depending on. Depending on how the law was written then. But based on the records we got from Beth and that Chris got, we now know that Whiteeria was living in Elgin in 1980 when this battery occurred and she was not the victim in that case. Yes.
- [10:58]
Detective Chris Hall
So now we know that she was not involved in that case. But knowing that Waymond was accused of and charged with the battery to a girl is helpful and gives us a little more insight into his background. And to be fully transparent, we should add that the case against Wayman was later dismissed. But any arrest in a person's history is something that we wanted to at least be aware of or consider.
- [11:20]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Even though Wayman's arrest for battery was not against Witeria, some family members reported that he was physically abusive. At least one family member told police in 2014 that Whiteeria was missing her two front teeth because Wayman had knocked them out when he punched her in the face during an argument sometime around 1974. So we have some potential evidence of domestic abuse. We have this prior arrest for simple battery.
- [11:42]
Beth
Yes.
- [11:43]
Detective Chris Hall
So we have a family member making allegations of some physical altercations between Wayman and Whiteeria. And we also know from our training and experience that emotional and especially physical abuse in a relationship can often escalate.
- [11:57]
Detective Andrew Houghton
According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, nearly one in four women have experienced rape, physical assault or stalking in their lifetime. And according to the Bureau Of Justice Statistics, 76% of female murders were perpetrated by someone known to the victim. That's 20% higher than male victims. So statistically, women are much more likely to be killed by an intimate partner or a person who is known to them than a man is.
- [12:19]
Detective Chris Hall
We can also take the reverse approach when looking at statistics. When looking at stranger murders, only 12% of females were murdered by total strangers versus 21% of men. So again, we know that at least from a statistical perspective, it is much more likely that Wyteria, if she was murdered, for example, was killed by someone she knew. And obviously we can't assume anything, but it is worth at least noting.
- [12:42]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Yeah, for sure.
- [12:43]
Detective Chris Hall
Since we are on the topic of domestic violence, we wanted to mention another factor in domestic related homicides and that factor is strangulation. We want to be clear that we don't have any reports that Wayman or anyone else strangled Witeria in the past, but we thought we would mention that here since we are talking about domestic violence. In the Journal of Emergency Medicine in 2007, researchers reviewed data from 11 cities and determined that 45% of women women who were murdered by an intimate partner had been non fatally strangled at least one time prior to that homicide. In fact, a single instance of non fatal strangulation increased that victim's chances of being murdered by that suspect by over 600%. While some of the research is a bit dated, even as recently as 2024, organizations like domesticshelters.org noted that strangulation is the highest predictor of murder.
- [13:34]
Detective Andrew Houghton
While they are not related to Witeria's case, our cold case homicide caseload currently includes three strangulation murders, all from the 1990s, and all three of them involve women who were murdered in their own homes. To make them even more tragic, all three women were mothers. Let's briefly discuss those three homicides.
- [13:58]
Detective Chris Hall
On November 17, 1992, Gina Langosh was strangled in her apartment on St. Charles street here in Elgin. She was murdered one day before her 30th birthday and her two year old son was sleeping in the home when she was murdered. Gina's case remains an active cold case investigation on her current caseload.
- [14:16]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Then on November 21, 1994, 28 year old Tracy Boyer was found strangled and stabbed to death in her apartment at the River's Edge Apartments near downtown Elgin. Her nine year old daughter returned home from a weekend with her biological father and a day at school and found Tracy. Tracy's two and a half year old daughter was also discovered alive in the apartment with her mother. The unknown offender left that toddler alone in the apartment with her mother for possibly 24 to 48 hours. Her case, like Gina's, is an active cold case homicide on our caseload.
- [14:46]
Detective Chris Hall
And lastly, on April 13, 1999, a witness observed a two year old little girl wandering the hallway of an apartment building on Locust Street. Police identified the mother of the child. When they checked the apartment, they discovered 20 year old Monique Love dead inside. Her 11 month old son was found alive and unharmed inside the apartment with his dead mother. Her case remains a cold case to this day.
- [15:15]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Reminding people that these cases exist and educating people about domestic violence is one more way we can use this platform to to help solve cases and help people in our community. You can read more about the cases we just discussed on our website and if you have information about Gina's case or Tracy's case or Monique's case, please contact us.
- [15:34]
Detective Chris Hall
Also, if you or someone you know have experienced domestic violence, especially domestic violence in which an intimate partner has strangled someone, please contact law enforcement. We are all here to help. You can report domestic violence to your local police department or crisis center or to places like the National Domestic violence hotline at 877-2-End DV. That's D. David V. Victor, which is also 877-863-6338. Breaking the cycle of domestic violence is extremely hard. But taking that first step allows us to provide services and hopefully prevent further abuse, including a potential homicide. The main takeaway from our research into domestic violence and our own experiences with it as police officers is that a person who physically assaults an intimate partner is more likely to also then murder that partner in a subsequent incident. Especially if a prior assault involved strangulation. For Wayman, we don't have any evidence of strangulation, but we certainly have at least one prior arrest for a battery against a victim. And we have a family member who reported that there was physical violence within the home. So while again, we are not saying that Wayman was responsible for Whiteeria's disappearance, we can't eliminate that as a possibility yet. If she did go back to Aurora.
- [17:07]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Yeah, we can't say for sure, at least not yet, if Wyteria did make a trip back to Aurora in the fall of 1982. So Chris, Beth and I decided we should take a trip down to Aurora ourselves to see the place where she lived and to continue our investigation into the disappearance of Wyteria Jones. To get to Aurora, we decided to drive the same route that the bus would have taken from downtown Elgin to the bus stop near her home. So we could recreate that potential route the best that we could.
- [17:32]
Detective Chris Hall
Alright, so looks like we've traveled directly from one of the bus stops in Elgin, southbound on Route 35, 31, all the way to Aurora here. This probably would have been the most direct route that Whiteeria would have taken back in the day if she chose to travel from Elgin to Aurora.
- [17:49]
Beth
Yeah, the direct Aurora bus went from Downtown Elgin down 31 and then hits Lake Avenue. I'm sorry, Lake street. Once we get into Aurora here. So we're staying at the bus stop.
- [18:00]
Detective Chris Hall
It looks like this bus stop here is probably only a few blocks away from her address on Hammond.
- [18:07]
Beth
Sounds about right.
- [18:08]
Matt
Yeah, I think it's what, it's 800 block?
- [18:11]
Detective Andrew Houghton
Yeah.
- [18:11]
Matt
So it's about six or seven blocks from here to there, which is a very walkable distance from her house to the bus. Stop along. Yeah, 31.
- [18:21]
Beth
A couple different bus stops along Lake Avenue, but this one seems like the most logical approach to get it over to Hammond. His Hammond run the same direction. It's parallel to where we are now. So we're gonna walk this bus stop to the 800 block and just kind of see how long it takes us. Not a lot of sidewalks through these
- [18:40]
Detective Andrew Houghton
neighborhoods, but pretty dense. But you can definitely make it pretty
- [18:46]
Beth
much straight over to Hammond from here.
- [18:50]
Detective Andrew Houghton
And as we kind of get up
- [18:51]
Beth
to Hammond, it took us what, 15 minutes? Yeah, I would say maybe to walk over here.
- [18:57]
Detective Andrew Houghton
So it's not that far.
- [19:00]
Matt
No, not at all.
- [19:02]
Beth
And it's a nice residential kind of area.
- [19:05]
Detective Chris Hall
This neighborhood that we're in, this is, you know, your typical blue collar northwest suburb Chicago neighborhood, you know, mainly blue collar. Probably most these houses were built in the 50s, I would take a guess.
- [19:20]
Beth
Yeah, something like that.
- [19:21]
Matt
Right. And look at this size of the compound at Alga Health center when she used to be there and she used to walk all over the place over there.
- [19:28]
Detective Chris Hall
Yeah.
- [19:29]
Beth
So I mean, I think her walking what, seven blocks, I think is what we counted. Yeah. Is not anything crazy. It seems like it would make sense if this was her destination, that getting back to Hammond would be pretty simple from downtown Elgin. Not unheard of for her to go that far. Like you said, she walked around quite a bit when she was at the Elgin Mental Health Center. And then to get from Elgin to Aurora, it's about a two block walk to Grove Hop. The bus ride about a half hour and then walk 15 minutes to get to Hammond.
- [20:01]
Matt
Very doable.
- [20:03]
Beth
So it would make sense if this was the route she decided to take.
- [20:12]
Detective Andrew Houghton
The Jones family's former home is a small single family brick home in the 800 block of Hammond Avenue. And it was built in 1927. The three bedroom, one bath home looks pretty much what you would expect out of a Chicago suburban home or even a home in Chicago itself. It's a pretty little house with a porch and a garage and it sits along a three lined street. The lawn is well kept and a single car garage sits behind the home. In the 1980s and even today it looks like the quintessential working class neighborhood of Chicago. Reminiscent of a film by John Hughes.
- [20:42]
Detective Chris Hall
The brick home sits just a few blocks from the bus stop where bus 801 could have dropped Watia off on its route from downtown Elgin through Aurora. With family still in town at that time and with prior connections to the city, that trip does make logical sense when we think about the logistics of travel in the Fox valley area in 1982. While we now know that she was not living in Aurora prior to her move to Elgin in 1975, it still is possible that she decided to travel back there after the Douglas Hotel closed, but we still don't know what happened to her.
- [21:15]
Detective Andrew Houghton
We did, however, find out one more thing as we reviewed old records for Waymond Jones and it involved another violent incident that could be relevant to Witeria's case. Nearly two decades before her disappearance, all the way back in 1967, Waymond Jones was arrested in the City of Chicago and that arrest was for murder. Next episode Beth, Chris and I will be traveling to Chicago to see the site of a murder connected to Waymond Jones and to visit the neighborhood where he and Witeria lived prior to their move to Elgin. While we're there, we will dive deeper into Waymond Jones background and his 1967 arrest as we continue considering our theory that something could have happened to Whiteeria and aurora back in 1982. Here on somebody Knows Something.
- [22:13]
Chief Anna Lally
If you or anyone you know has information about this case or any other cold case in Elgin, please contact the Elgin Police Department Cold case email@coldcasetipslginil.gov or the cold case tip line at 847-289-COLD. You can also review cold case information on the Elgin Police Department's Cold case page at www.elgincoldcases.com where every cold case, homicide and missing persons case is listed with photographs and information about each case.
- [22:52]
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- [23:22]
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