Authorities excavate at South Elgin home a decade after teen girl disappeared
A decade after teenager Kianna Galvin went missing, Kane County authorities performed a “forensic excavation” at a South Elgin home Thursday in an attempt to find evidence connected to the disappearance.
Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser said ground-penetrating radar scans at the residence on the 800 block of Revere Road revealed “anomalies” beneath the surface that detectives believe warranted further examination.
“We have not forgotten Kianna, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to seek the truth,” Mosser said. “It is my hope that renewed efforts will finally bring the answers her family deserves.”
South Elgin police and the Fox Valley Major Crimes Task Force conducted the search, which began Thursday morning and lasted until mid-afternoon. Revere Road, a one-block street, was temporarily closed.
Authorities searched for the remains of 17-year-old Kianna Galvin, who was last seen leaving her home May 6, 2016, after telling her sister she was going to nearby Jim Hansen Park.
Attempts to reach Kianna’s mother, Fiona Galvin, on Thursday were unsuccessful.
During a vigil in 2020 in front of the South Elgin police station, Fiona Galvin said, “My whole mission in this vigil is to light a candle to keep focus on this case that's still ongoing, that's not solved, and to pressure the police to get more evidence to charge the person who's the primary suspect with the circumstantial and probable cause evidence that they have.”
Neighbors and childhood friends of Kianna’s gathered Thursday near the scene of the search.
“I’m just praying that they find her,” said Kristina Rothert, whose daughter was acquainted with Kianna. The girls attended Willard Elementary School in South Elgin.
Andrew Abraham of South Elgin, a friend and former classmate of Kianna, said Fiona Galvin has never given up on finding out what happened to her daughter.
“If it weren’t for (Kianna’s) mom, this would not be anything right now,” he said of Thursday’s search. “We knew about (the possibility she disappeared at the house) years ago.”
Others at the scene said the former residents of the Revere Road house left shortly after Kianna’s disappearance. The current owners purchased it several years ago and said Thursday that police contacted them about three weeks ago.
In April, the Investigation Discovery network show “Hunt for the Missing: Chicago” broadcast an episode focused on the case, entitled “The House on Revere Road.”
After her disappearance, police interviewed a man who lived in the basement of a home on Revere Road, several doors down from Kianna’s house on Concord Avenue.
Police discovered Facebook messages to the man from Kianna indicating she was on her way to his house to buy marijuana shortly after 12:30 p.m. the day she disappeared.
The man, who has never been charged in Kianna’s disappearance, told police the girl never entered the house and left after only a few minutes. He also told police she had texted another man, but police found no evidence of those texts.
Instead, police said Kianna’s phone was disconnected from the network “in a manner that would be indicative of the battery being removed or the cellphone being destroyed” just after 1 p.m. that day. That’s according to documents received by the Daily Herald through a public records request in 2018.
Blood was found on a garbage can of the man’s neighbor that authorities determined “was a 99.999% match” for the child of Kianna’s parents.
The man police interviewed about Kianna’s disappearance was sentenced to 15 years in prison for an unrelated assault on a woman, according to court records from 2018.