Alma Mendez: Missing jogger's throat was slashed, autopsy shows
Indigo Ace
Missing jogger's throat was slashed, autopsy shows
Mendez found in lake
Police officers prepare to remove the body of Alma Medez from a lake
in the Sauk Trail Woods Forest Preserve on October 30, 2007. The
Chicago Heights woman disappeared after going jogging in the area two
days earlier. (Tribune photo by John Smierciak / October 30, 2007)
By Matthew Walberg | Tribune staff reporter
November 1, 2007
A missing Chicago Heights woman whose body was found in a south
suburban forest preserve lake was beaten on the head and her throat
was slashed, according to an autopsy Wednesday.
Alma Mendez, 39, of the 300 block of West 14th Place died of multiple
injuries, physical assault and multiple incisions on her neck,
according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
Mendez's relatives had reported her missing Sunday night after she did
not return from a jog in the Sauk Trail Woods Forest Preserve near
South Chicago Heights, a place where she ran almost daily. Searchers
combed the woods until Tuesday afternoon, when her body was found
floating near the bank of the lake, just yards from the jogging path.
On Wednesday, Cook County Forest Preserve police spokesman Steve
Mayberry said the case had been classified as a homicide
investigation, noting that Mendez suffered "blunt trauma to the head
and a laceration to the throat."
Mayberry said there were no suspects. When asked whether police had
identified any people of interest in connection with the slaying, he
said: "I can't comment on that. The investigation is ongoing."
He said he did not know whether a weapon had been recovered or if
investigators were looking for a specific kind of weapon. He said
there was no indication of sexual assault.
Cook County sheriff's police are investigating with help from both
forest preserve police and Chicago Heights police.
Several of Mendez's family members were called to the Markham
Courthouse on Tuesday night to speak with detectives, her sister Maria
Lopez, said Wednesday.
"We went last night to give more information about my sister," Lopez
said. "They [detectives] did not give us a word; they said they did
not want to give us false leads, that they were going to discuss the
evidence this morning and take it from there."
Lopez did not elaborate on the questions they were asked, saying only
that they pertained to "the way she was, the things she did."
Mendez had been under increasing stress in the months before her
death. Her mother suffered a brain aneurysm, and she separated from
her husband of 19 years within the last month.
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mwalberg @tribune.com
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-mendez_01nov01,1,4108118.story
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"Indigo Ace" <indi...@seesignature.com> wrote in message
news:472b1618....@news.prodigy.net...
Aw geesh. Was her husb named Wayne or Peterson or anything like that?
jc