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VOLUME 9 • ISSUE 48
7124 WINDSOR LAKE PARKWAY, SUITE 5 • LOVES PARK, IL 61111
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2019
Tip leads to identity of Jane Doe, alleged killer Investigators able to crack 20-year-old McHenry County cold case
By Jennifer Eisenbart CORRESPONDENT
The time–thousands of hours–was dedicated. The work–courtesy of three Racine County Sheriffs and their departments–never ceased. And in the end, both resulted in both the identity of a long-dead Jane Doe and her alleged killer being identified. On July 21, 1999, a man out walking his dog in the Town of Raymond discovered a body–beaten, burned and abused–a few rows into a cornfield along 92nd St. In the 20 years that followed, the two names that came to light Friday in a Racine County Sheriff’s Department press conference were never discovered, never considered. A tip from a concerned citizen in Florida at the end of September led first to one break in the case, and then another. The name of Jane Doe changed Friday to Peggy Lynn Johnson, a 23-year-old woman from McHenry, Ill. The woman accused in Johnson’s death is 64-year-old Linda Laroche, a registered nurse who, it was discovered, had taken Johnson into her home following the death of Johnson’s mother when the young woman was 18. Laroche is formally charged with first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse. Within hours of the news conference Friday, Johnson’s grave at Holy Family Cemetery in Caledonia had been adorned with a new paper certificate that announced her real name, and a wooden cross with the name
etched on it, as well as flowers and a balloon that read “never forgotten.” Investigators never gave up The trail may have gone cold, but as Racine County SherPeggy Lynn iff Christopher Johnson Schmaling said Friday morning, the Jane Doe case from 1999 never grew dust. “Over the last 20 years, we have dedicated thousands of investigative hours to bring this heartbreaking murder to its resolution,” he said. “That date has arrived today.” The sheriff announced during an eight-minute news conference that the body found in a cornfield on July 21, 1999, belonged to Johnson, a cognitively impaired woman who sought help at a local medical clinic after her mother’s death and met Laroche. “Peggy lived with Laroche in McHenry for the last five years of her life,” Schmaling read from a prepared statement Friday. “There she suffered long-term, horrific abuse at the hands of Linda Laroche.” Laroche was taken into custody by members of the Racine County Sheriff’s Department in Cape Coral, Florida, Nov. 5. According to Schmaling, she was not fighting extradition was expected to be returned to Wisconsin to face the charges. According to the criminal complaint filed in Racine County Circuit Court Friday, the body of Johnson had been dragged from a vehicle and
put in the cornfield, most likely no more than 12 hours prior to it’s discovery. When the autopsy was performed, investigators discovered that the body had “several suspicious Linda Laroche marks, burns, abrasions and lacerations throughout.” The pathologist from the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office, also found numerous broken ribs–both old breaks and new ones apparently inflicted after death–numerous wounds to the head that included a broken nose, malnourishment and infections in a variety of places. The cause of death of officially listed as “homicide by sepsis pneumonia as the result of infection from injuries sustained from chronic abuse.” No drugs were found in the victim’s body. As Schmaling said at the news conference Friday, the “utterly barbaric brutality” had stayed with members of the department, and the case remained under investigation. “We examined well over 1,000 missing persons’ cases around the country and traveled to several states following investigative leads,” Schmaling explained. “Her DNA was entered into a nation-wide unidentified victims’ database. As new technologies were developed, her DNA was submitted for familial/genealogical testing, and her body was exhumed for chemical isotope testing
IRM COURTESY PHOTO McHenry County News
The Illinois Railway Museum’s Happy Holiday Railway has your boarding pass to fun starting Nov. 23 and continuing through Dec. 23. Seating on the train must be reserved in advance, as most trips sell out well in advance. Trains depart from and return to the East Union Depot at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. Tickets, trip times, and more information can be found online at irm.org.
All aboard the Happy Holiday Railway One of the Illinois Railway Museum’s most popular events, Happy Holiday Railway, is being expanded and improved for 2019. The boarding area has been moved from alongside Barn 9 to the historic 1851 East Union Depot, the oldest railway station in use west of Pittsburgh, following building improvements made since the beginning of the year. In addition the museum will be providing streetcar rides on its one-mile trolley loop at no additional cost to
Happy Holiday Railway ticket holders. The event is also expanding to include dates before Thanksgiving and on weekdays before Christmas. In 2019 Happy Holiday Railway will run on Nov. 23, 24, 29 and 30; and on Dec. 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22 and 23. Happy Holiday Railway will continue to include the features that have made it so popular in past years including a 40-minute train ride through the winter countryside with Santa Claus and his elves, cookies
and hot chocolate on the train, gifts for kids of all ages who are on Santa’s “good list,” caroling at the museum, and a holiday lights display at the boarding area. Seating on the train must be reserved in advance, as most trips sell out well in advance. Trains depart from and return to the East Union Depot at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. Tickets, trip times, and more information can be found online at irm.org.
SUBMITTED PHOTO McHenry County News
Peggy Lynn Johnson, formerly of McHenry, is buried in this grave in Racine County under the name Jane Doe. Former McHenry resident Linda Laroche has been charged with her murder, which occurred in 1999. Plans have been made to move Johnson’s body to Belvidere, Ill., where she will be buried alongside her mother’s body.
(conducted by the Smithsonian.” In spite of the time and extreme effort put into the case, it took until this fall for the case to get a break. The victim and the abuser On Sept. 23, the sheriff’s department received a tip from a concerned citizen, saying that Laroche had been telling people in Cape Coral, Florida, she had killed a woman when she lived in Illinois. Investigators discovered that Laroche had lived in McHenry in 1999, with her then-husband and five children, three still in the home. Investigators discovered that Johnson–born March 4, 1976–had lived with her mother, who had died when she was 18 years old. According to the criminal complaint, Laroche’s children remember Johnson coming to live with them, with Laroche allegedly telling them she took Johnson in because she was homeless and that the young woman would act as a nanny and housekeeper in exchange for staying with them. The children, according to the complaint, went on to recall the abusive behavior displayed toward Johnson things ranging from “screaming at her like an animal,” to making the young woman sleep in the crawl space under the home. One child recalled Laroche “stabbing at Peggy’s head with a pitchfork,” another recalled Johnson being slapped on the head and face, the complaint contends. Another child once asked Johnson why she had a black eye, and was told that Laroche had punched her. In November, Laroche’s former husband confirmed the abuse, calling his former wife “a force to be reckoned with,” according to the complaint. He also recalled coming home to find Johnson lying lifeless on the floor. His wife allegedly told him Johnson had overdosed and she was going to take her from the home so they would not be involved and to take the children out for ice cream. Laroche was interviewed several times by investigators, with her story changing each time, the complaint alleges. The first version was that Johnson stole from the Laroche family, stole drugs that Laroche allegedly brought home from a jail program and hid in the crawl space, and bought men into the home. The day of Johnson’s death, Laroche allegedly said she found Johnson at the kitchen counter with pills. The young woman, she said, then fainted and
Laroche “didn’t know what to do,” in spite of being a registered nurse since 1987. Laroche claimed that she called Johnson’s grandmother and turned her over to the grandmother, the complaint alleges. The grandmother denied the story, and Laroche later amended her statement to say she wasn’t sure whom she left Johnson with. The story changed again in the next interview, with Laroche saying that Johnson took the pills. Laroche then drove Johnson to Wisconsin and let her out of the car at the side of the road in a rural area. According to Laroche, Johnson “was not injured at all when she dropped her off,” and “something must have happened to her after she dropped her off,” in contradiction to the information from the autopsy, according to the complaint. The investigation Schmaling and former Racine County Sheriffs Bill McReynolds and Bob Carlson, as well as Racine County District Attorney Tricia Hanson and numerous members of the sheriff’s department attended the news conference on Friday. After the short briefing, Schmaling said he would not take questions, explaining that the investigation is “very active” and ongoing. He did, however, explain that neither Johnson nor Laroche’s names had come up previously in the investigation, and a missing person’s report had never been filed for Johnson. “I think that is important to understand,” Schmaling said, adding that Johnson’s mother and father were both deceased, as well as a brother. Johnson has a sister, but the two had never met. In the coming weeks, Schmaling explained, Johnson’s body will be sent toBelvidere, Illinois, to be buried alongside her mother’s body. Laroche, as of Monday afternoon, had yet to arrive in Wisconsin. Schmaling took the time at the news conference to mention investigators both past and present, noting some had retired, and others were literally traveling the country as he spoke to put the final pieces of the picture into place. “Year after year after year, we plugged away at this case,” he said. “We never gave up.” Schmaling also continues to ask anyone with information on the murder to come forward by calling Lt. Brian Vanscyoc at 262-886-8497.