Sleepy Hollow family using billboards to seek information about daughter’s death

The mother of a Sleepy Hollow teen who died under mysterious circumstances in 2009 has paid for billboards in Algonquin and Cary offering a $30,000 reward for information leading to a criminal conviction.

“We are hoping it will reach more people and hoping it will help bring up some tips,” Martha Schneider, mother of Anna Mary Schneider, said Monday. “If you know something, say something.”

The billboards were posted Monday morning at Route 31 north of the downtown bypass in Algonquin and at Route 14 and Three Oaks Road in Cary. Another is due to go up Dec. 29 on Route 22 near Gardner Road in Fox River Grove. All three will remain until Jan. 31, according to the Schneider family.

In January, additional billboards will go up at Route 31 near Klasen Road in Algonquin and another nearby location along Route 14, said Steve Weber, owner of Liberty Outdoor Advertising in Cary.

Weber said he has never had a request like Schneider’s in his 24 years in the billboard business in McHenry County.

Anna Schneider died on July 4, 2009, near her family’s backyard pool while home for summer break from the University of Hawaii.

She was a lifelong competitive swimmer and avid scuba diver, so her family was shocked when they were told she died from drowning.

After her remains were exhumed in 2020 and a new investigation was conducted by a national cold case team, the Kane County Coroner’s Office reclassified her death as homicide by chloroform.

However, no arrests or charges have come in the three years since.

Earlier this month, Sleepy Hollow Police Chief Sam Parma asked that anyone with tips about Anna Mary Schneider’s death email him directly at sparma@sleepyhollowil.org or call the police department at (847) 426-4425 “and ask to be sent to my direct voicemail” — do not leave a message in a general voicemail.

Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser has urged anyone with information about Anna’s death to contact her office as well.