Wyteria Jones’ life is as mysterious as her 1982 disappearance.
The married mother of five was last seen in late September/early October at the Douglas Hotel in Elgin, an offsite residential facility for the Elgin Mental Health Center from which she was moving.
Some said her plan was to go to Aurora, where her husband lived, and others said she was headed to Joliet. She never made it to either destination as far as police are aware and has never been seen again.
Her disappearance 44 years ago makes hers the Elgin Police Department’s oldest unsolved missing person case. And what makes it all the more difficult to solve, says detective Andrew Houghton, is how little they know about Jones, who was 45 years old when last seen.
“We’d like to get some personal information about her time here,” said Houghton, a member of the police department’s Cold Case Unit, which also includes detectives Chris Hall and Beth Sterricker.
“Wyteria is Missing” is the the name they’ve given to the third season of their “Somebody Knows Something” podcast, which launches in late March on Spotify, Apple and other streaming services. It will explore different theories as to what might have happened, including whether she might have intentionally disappeared.
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“We are also hoping the podcast will elicit new tips from people who knew her,” Houghton said.
The podcast’s first season was a surprising success when they were able to solve the mystery of Karen Schepers, who went missing in April 1983. The show spoke to people who knew or may have last seen the 23-year-old Elgin woman, delved into theories of what might have happened to her and included a search of the Fox River — where her car and remains were ultimately found.
Unlike the second season, where they looked at several unsolved cases, “we made the decision to use (this newest) podcast for a single case,” said Houghton, who was assigned to the Cold Case Unit when it was newly formed in 2024.
It’s not clear exactly when Jones was last seen, he said. It could have been on or about Oct. 1, 1982, the day the hotel closed.
This is the description of her case posted in 2017 on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System website, namus.nij.ojp.gov:
“A witness reportedly observed her with her luggage in the days leading up to the closure, likely in late September, and advised that she was en-route to Aurora on a bus. Her then-husband lived in Aurora. Another witness reported that Wyteria had planned to stay at the Joliet Motor Lodge rather than return home, but she never arrived there. Her husband reported her missing on January 29, 1983.”
Waymon Jones told Elgin police that he didn’t realize his wife, whom he married in 1960 and with whom he no longer lived, was not in Joliet until her mail started getting returned, Houghton said.
Her husband has since died, Houghton said, but detectives are hoping to speak to other family members to learn what they know about her disappearance and to obtain their DNA to create a victimology profile to be uploaded to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
“We are trying to update her case to current standards,” he said.
This will be the first time the unit uses forensic genetic genealogy, or FGG, which employs DNA to help identify unclaimed remains and solve missing person cases, he said. But they need DNA from multiple family members to build a profile.
“The real hope is not to only get a better idea of her time here and victimology, but getting to learn about her and build theories about her time here,” Houghton said of the podcast.
Jones had been living at the Douglas Hotel, which in 1982 was a residential outpatient center for people being treated at the Elgin Mental Health Center.
Illinois started closing mental health facilities in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to historian Bill Briska, who has a video about the hospital’s history posted on YouTube. The inpatient population dropped from 4,600 to less 1,000 over 20 years when that state shifted its treatment approach by giving more funding to community agencies, Briska said.
“It’s unknown what she was being treated for,” Houghton said. “We’re still working on getting records from the mental health center.” She was receiving care from a community agency and the Elgin Mental Health Center, he said.
There’s not a lot of information on who else lived in the hotel while Jones was there, Houghton said. Detectives are trying to locate 40 other people who are believed to have been staying there at the time, he said.
Cold cases are unresolved for a reason, said Sgt. Matt Vartanian, who helmed the Scheppers cold case podcast with Houghton and now oversees the Cold Case Unit. “We truly need the public’s help to get a resolution and closure for the families,” he said.
At the time of Jones’ disappearance, Elgin police officers talked to the Elgin Mental Health Center and verified she was a patient, Houghton said. Reports indicate that Jones left the hotel voluntarily, but “there wasn’t a lot of follow-up after that point,” he said.
Jones’ case was put on the LEADS missing person database in 1983, and it’s since been added to solvethecase.org after the Elgin detectives met the website creator at a conference.
Vartanian said Elgin is unique in using a podcast to try to unearth new details and tips in cases that have long gone cold.
“We’ve met a lot of true crime podcasting groups and individuals doing this work. We are the only active law enforcement agency doing it,” he said.
Anyone with information about Wyteria Jones can contact the Elgin Police Department via email at [email protected] or by phone at 847-289-COLD. Information on other cases can be found at www.ElginColdCases.com
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.Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.