Cops: Bones belong to missing Fox Lake man murdered at party
The skeletal remains found Friday on Chicago's South Side have been identified as those of a murdered Fox Lake man missing for more than two years.
Police say Jesse M. Beskow, 20, was killed at a party in Palatine in July 2006, and his body left in a wetland area near the Calumet Incinerator at East 110th Street and South Stony Island Avenue.
An autopsy showed Beskow, of 41 Nippersink Road, died of a gunshot wound to the head, a Cook County Medical Examiner's Office spokesman said.
Police are searching for a 24-year-old male they say was the shooter, said Palatine Cmdr. Kurt Schroeder.
The investigation into Beskow's disappearance went cold until February 2008, when Fox Lake police got word of a rumor he was murdered on July 25, 2006, at a condominium at 900 E. Wilmette Road, a police release stated.
Since then, police from Fox Lake, Palatine and the Cook County States Attorney's Cold Case Unit have interviewed dozens of people, including five subjects who were at the party but denied knowing the victim's whereabouts.
Detectives searched the condo on April 8 and collected swabs from an area of the ceiling that had been repainted. The samples did not contain enough genetic material for a comparison, the release said.
Last week, police tracked down a sixth person from the party who said Beskow had in fact been murdered. The witnesses previously brought in for questioning eventually admitted to also seeing the murder, the release said.
They told police Beskow was sitting at a table when the 24-year-old suspect shot him in the head. His body was carried to a bath tub and washed, wrapped in a blanket, put into the trunk of a car and driven to Chicago.
Police also found the suspect's father, who admitted he helped dispose of Beskow's body. On Thursday, the man led detectives to a spot covered in 12-foot-tall weeds next to the city's Calumet Incinerator, the release said.
On Friday, Palatine police and cadaver dogs located what turned out to be animal bones. Detectives returned Saturday and around 2:30 p.m. found Beskow's skeleton.
Palatine police say they have one person in custody. No charges were expected to be filed Monday, but Cmdr. Schroeder said it's likely they will be soon. He wouldn't comment on a possible motive.
Fox Lake Police Chief Mike Behan said a relative of Beskow turned in a missing-person report two years ago and detectives have been following the trail ever since.
"Through the course of the investigation, detectives learned about the party in Palatine, and we went to them," he said. "This was an excellent job by all investigators from both departments."
Behan said, however, the investigation isn't over by either department and that further charges are pending for everyone involved.