Skull found inside wall of Illinois home belonged to teenager who died in 1866, police say

Police were able to use DNA analysis to solve the mystery of a skull found inside the wall of a home in Illinois.

Officials said the skull had been found in 1978 by a homeowner in Batavia who was renovating the house. Police investigated the discovery but were unable to determine who it belonged to, so the skull was sent to the Batavia Depot Museum for storage.

'I wish my mom was still here so I could tell her. She’d love it.'

Then in March 2021, workers at the museum rediscovered the skull and contacted the Kane County Coroner’s Office. They asked for a DNA profile to be made and were able to identify to whom the skull belonged.

Investigators matched the DNA profile to the genetic material of the great, great grandson of 17-year-old Esther Granger.

Granger had died in childbirth in 1866, and officials believe that grave robbers dug up her body and sold it for medical experimentation. She had been buried in Merrillville, Indiana, alongside her husband.

“There’s this sense of closure," said 69-year-old Wayne Silvar, the great, great grandson. “I wish my mom was still here so I could tell her. She’d love it.”

Kane County Coroner Rob Russell says that medical experimentation would explain why Granger's skull ended up about 80 miles away from where she was buried. At the time, doctors would pay for fresh corpses to increase their anatomical knowledge, but the demand only incentivized the unseemly practice of grave robbery.

Officials said the woman's skull was laid to rest in August at the West Batavia Cemetery.

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