DNA testing has shown that a skull found in the wall of an Illinois home decades ago belonged to an 18-year-old woman who died just after the Civil War.
Kane County officials told a news conference Thursday that a skull discovered in 1978 during renovations at a property in Batavia, west of Chicago, has now been linked to Esther Granger, an Indiana woman who died after giving birth in 1866.
County officials were able to create a family tree and even contact a living relative, Granger’s great-grandson, who provided a DNA sample. They also generated an impression of her likely appearance. Authorities have speculated that Granger’s body may have been stolen and moved by grave robbers.
The skull was thought to be old, perhaps from before 1900, but despite research it had been in storage at the Batavia Depot Museum for almost 50 years, with its mystery unsolved.
It was rediscovered in 2021 in a box while museum staff were cleaning. Police were contacted and the coroner’s office began the process of formal identification using modern techniques.
“Esther was born on October 6, 1848 in Indiana. In 1865, at the age of 16, she married Charles Granger and after a few months became pregnant with their first child,” Coroner Bob Russell said at the news conference.
“In May 1866, Esther gave birth to a girl, but lost her life shortly afterwards due to complications of childbirth,” he said. Granger was buried in Indiana and the baby was named Esther in her honor.
The province had used the Texas company Othram Laboratories to sequence the skull’s DNA. It was crowdfunded through DNASolves.com, which raised $7,500.
After just three weeks, Othram produced an ancestral match and was able to find Granger’s great-grandson, Wayne Svilar, 69, a retired sergeant from Portland, Oregon. When approached in April, he was hesitant to participate.
“To be completely honest, we didn’t believe a word of it,” he said at the press conference. “I said, ‘You can keep talking if you want, but I don’t believe you.'”
Svilar founded a cold case unit in 2004 while working at the Portland Police Bureau. He currently works on cold cases for Multnomah County in Portland. He and his wife thought the call might be related to an old case of his.
“What convinced me this wasn’t a well-organized scam was their passion for their work,” he said. “There’s a sense of closure. I wish my mother was here so I could tell her the story, she would have loved it.”
He added that the illustration of Granger’s face resembled his own mother.
However, the mystery is not completely solved. How did the skull end up in a wall in Illinois when Granger’s body was buried in Indiana?
“We will never know exactly, but with data and good reason, we have come to a common sense theory: we believe Esther was the victim of grave robbing,” Russell said.
“Grave robbing was quite common at that time because it was quite profitable. The grave robbers earned the equivalent of three to four months’ income for the average person working 60 hours a week,” he added.
Although the practice was illegal, the law banning grave robbing was not always enforced, Russell said. The result was hugely controversial, with riots and even murders of alleged perpetrators after some suspected serious robbery incidents.
Russell speculated that the skull might once have been purchased by a medical student.
Granger was buried in the West Batavia Cemetery, where her name was already engraved on a stone tower. Svilar traveled to the internment and delivered a eulogy.
Coincidentally, the neighboring city of North Aurora announced Wednesday that it had solved a cold case murder investigation dating back to 1979.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
