A teenage boy called a “person of interest” in the 2005 murder of an Aurora woman planned to burglarize a home on the street where the victim lived, according to an affidavit filed to obtain a search warrant for his home.
The boy had been seen riding a bike matching the description of one left on the lawn of Marilyn Bethell, 47, before she disappeared, the affidavit said.
He has been in juvenile custody on an unrelated charge for about eight months. Police said Wednesday that he has not been charged in the murder but is a “person of interest.”
Bethell disappeared in October after a bizarre chain of events that included a male driver crashing her car a short distance from her home, then fleeing in another car.
Police searched for Bethell until Dec. 26, when a man walking his dog along the Illinois Prairie Path stumbled upon her body in unincorporated Kane County. She had been shot in the back of the head.
Kane County Undersheriff Michael Anderson said investigators are waiting for crime lab results. “We’re confident we will bring it to a successful conclusion, but we still have work to do,” Anderson said.
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The boy, a former Waubonsie Valley High School student who was 14 at the time of Bethell’s disappearance, was arrested Nov. 1 for violating probation, police said.
He was on home detention with an electronic monitoring system, but he left his Aurora home 13 times between Oct. 30 and Oct. 31–the day Bethell disappeared, according to the affidavit.
She was last seen alive Oct. 30 at her workplace in Hoffman Estates.
About 7 a.m. the next day, witnesses said they saw an armed male speeding in Bethell’s Honda Accord a few blocks from her home. The Honda was followed closely by a man driving a red or maroon car. The driver of Bethell’s car crashed it into a parked vehicle, then jumped into the other car and sped away.
Police responding to the crash went to Bethell’s home and discovered a crime had been committed. Authorities would not describe what evidence was found in the home, but the affidavit states they found an open window and a red and black Magna Great Divide mountain bike that did not belong to Bethell on the lawn.
On Jan. 10, detectives with the Kane County sheriff’s office interviewed a friend of the teen in custody who told them the boy planned to commit a residential burglary on Quail Court, the street where Bethell lived, according to the affidavit. Detectives said the friend told them the teen had been riding a stolen red and black bicycle for several weeks.
Detectives also learned that the teen had bragged about carrying a gun to school and that he was a gang member.
Investigators obtained the warrant to search the boy’s home for guns, clothing containing blood or trace evidence, and evidence that might indicate gang affiliation.
Anderson said detectives did not have to serve the warrant because they were given permission by a resident to enter the home, which is near the accident scene.
He would not say whether evidence was collected.
Graffiti was found on a wall outside Bethell’s house. Investigators don’t believe the crime is gang-related, but the people involved may have been affiliated with a gang, Anderson said.
Police say the boy has a juvenile record of burglary and possession of a stolen motor vehicle. He “had a modus operandi of entering homes through ground-level windows and stealing the victim’s vehicles,” a Kane County detective wrote in the affidavit.
Investigators are looking for the second male involved in the car crash.
On Wednesday at the home of the teen in custody, a woman who identified herself as his mother acknowledged that her son has had trouble with the law.
“He’s a good kid, but police drive us crazy in this house,” said the woman, who declined to give her name.
She said she does not believe he had anything to do with Bethell’s murder.
“You have to prove something,” she said.
The boy’s attorney, Sandra Parga, declined to comment.
At an inquest in March, Kane County coroner officials said Bethell was shot in the head, and authorities said she probably was murdered soon after she disappeared.
Bethell had worked as an administrative assistant, but she was looking forward to a career as a substance-abuse counselor. She graduated last summer from the College of DuPage and was working as an aide to substance-abuse counselors at the SHARE program in Hoffman Estates.
For Bethell’s friends, the news that police have a “person of interest” was welcomed but also brought more anger.
Deborah Eastman, who cares for Bethell’s pet cockatiel, Dusty, said she still wants a reason for her friend’s death.
“Why Mari?” she said.
Anyone with information about the crime can call the Kane County sheriff’s office at 630-208-2024.
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