PALOS HEIGHTS, Ill. — A bag of bones found hanging from a tree near Cal-Saag Strait in December 2022 is now being kept at a Texas lab that specializes in forensic genetic genealogy.
The bones were discovered a few days after Christmas when a passerby walking along the bike path at Lake Catherine Nature Center in Palos Heights noticed something suspicious hanging from a tree adjacent to the canal.
When a passerby removed the bag from the tree and looked inside, they found bones and asphalt rocks.
“It was speculated that a moving vehicle had attempted to throw the bag into the canal from the Southwest Highway overpass, but failed to reach the water,” Palos Heights Police Chief Bill Chaykowski said. “The bones ended up hanging in a tree near the water.”
The bones were sent to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, where anthropologists determined they were a mixture of human and animal bones.
The package in which the bones were found was sent to the Northeastern Illinois Regional Crime Laboratory in Mundelein, another private crime lab used by Palos Heights police.
“We pay a fee to a private lab to expedite DUI fingerprints, DNA and blood/urine kits instead of the state lab having them backlogged,” Chaykowski said.
The age and origin of the bones remain unknown.
The Cook County medical examiner recently turned the bones over to Otram, a Woodland, Texas-based company that works with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies across the U.S., using state-of-the-art technology to analyze DNA and other forensic evidence to solve previously cold cases.
Osram investigators will compare the results to public databases in the hopes of finding a match. They will contact families to see if they have missing people and ask them to submit a DNA sample with family members who have submitted their DNA to try to find a possible match. They will then contact families to see if they have missing people and ask them to submit a DNA sample to try to find a match.
Palos Heights Police and Otram have teamed up with DNASolves to launch a crowdfunding platform asking for the public’s help to cover the $75,000 costs of conducting advanced DNA testing and providing closure to the family of their lost loved one.
Meanwhile, Chaykowski said police have no reason to believe any crime occurred in Palos Heights.
“It’s a little odd, and I think someone just passing by put weights on the bones in hopes that they would end up in the canal,” the police chief said. “Our investigators have done a great job pursuing this case and determining the process to determine where the bones came from.”
