PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — A nearly half-century mystery has been solved.
Investigators have connected a teenager’s skull found in 1978 in the wall of a home in Illinois to a retired Portland police sergeant.
At the time, tests indicated the skull was much older than the 1978 discovery date.
The skull was donated to a historical society where it remained until 2021, when detectives reopened the case.
Using forensic genealogy, a coroner outside Chicago identified the remains as Esther Granger.
Her great-great-grandson, Wayne Svilar, is a retired Portland police sergeant who helped start the cold case unit in Portland.
Records show Granger died during childbirth in 1866. She was just 17 years old.
It is not clear how her skull ended up inside the walls of the house. The coroner believes she was the victim of a graverobbing.
In the 1800s, corpses were often stolen and sold to doctors or students for study.
Svilar said when investigators first reached out to him, he didn’t believe them.
“What convinced me that this was not some well-organized scam was their passion for their work. And just the commitment they had to what they were doing,” he said. “And that’s been every step of the way. The respect that they’ve shown us, my family, in this process has been incredible.”
Svilar traveled to Illinois for the reinternment of Granger’s remains.