For three months, Karen Tiemann had to take it on faith that her husband, the pilot who disappeared March 31 while flying his small plane to Valparaiso, Ind., was dead.
Newspapers would not allow her to place a death notice of her 35-year-old husband because there was no death certificate. There was no death certificate because there was no body.
Last week, however, the body which Karen Tiemann knew had to be somewhere in Lake Michigan finally washed up to shore near a home in Lake Forest. And by next week, a report will be filed certifying the body indeed is that of James Tiemann, of Libertyville.
A Cook County Hospital radiologist earlier this week compared bone X-rays taken before Tiemann’s disappearance with the body found last week, according to the Lake County coroner.
Tiemann apparently crashed while flying his small four-seater plane from Waukegan to Valparaiso where he planned to meet his wife and attend a Lutheran basketball tournament at his alma mater, Valparaiso University.
Last month, pieces of Tiemann’s plane washed up to shore.
For 14 years, James Tiemann worked as a nuclear operator at Commonwealth Edison’s Zion nuclear power plant in charge of a team of troubleshooting engineers.