Found dead in a box 50 years ago, Chicago cold case finally reveals the victim’s identity

Nearly 50 years after a woman’s body was discovered inside a cardboard box in an Indiana cornfield, investigators have finally learned who she was. The breakthrough closes one of the region’s longest-running mysteries, ending decades of unanswered questions that began with a shocking discovery in 1976.

The victim has been identified as Jane Hart, who was born in 1906 and was 69 years old when she was killed. She had been shot in the back of the head, and despite years of investigation, her identity remained unknown until this week, thanks to advances in genetic genealogy. The identification was announced following work by the DNA Doe Project and was reported by the New York Post. 

Hart was born in Ohio to a Croatian woman who had immigrated to the United States in 1905. She later moved to Chicago, where she worked as a housekeeper, before disappearing from public records sometime during the 1970s.

It took almost half a century to finally learn who she was

Farmer Norman Skoog and his 16-year-old son, Curtis, found Hart’s body on October 8, 1976, while working their field near Otterbein, Indiana. She had been placed inside a cardboard box that investigators believed had been left in the field only about 12 hours earlier, even though they estimated Hart had actually been killed roughly a week before.

According to the Lafayette Journal and Courier, Hart was fully clothed in a green double-knit pantsuit when she was found, while a shattered perfume vial lay nearby. Investigators also noted a scar about 3 inches long from a previous radical mastectomy. Then-Benton County Coroner Harold Konzelman told the newspaper in 1976 that authorities had “so few clues to go on,” and the case eventually went cold without identifying either the victim or a suspect.

Over the years, investigators explored multiple theories. Current Benton County Coroner Matt Rosenbarger, who helped exhume Hart’s remains in 2019, said possibilities ranged from a mob-related killing to Hart simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time because there were no matching missing-person reports in the area. Curtis Skoog also wondered whether the box had been dropped from a helicopter since no one remembered seeing a suspicious vehicle. Then-sheriff Don Steely suggested in 1977 that Hart “may have been somebody who walked right into the middle of something.”

Unfortunately, many families continue waiting years for answers in unsolved homicide cases. Another chilling investigation drew national attention after the body of a 7-year-old boy was discovered in a freezer, leading authorities to make multiple arrests as the circumstances surrounding his death came to light. 

The investigation took a major turn when the Benton County Coroner’s Office partnered with the DNA Doe Project in 2021. Researchers discovered Hart had Croatian ancestry, which complicated the search because people of Eastern European descent remain underrepresented in the genetic databases used for forensic genealogy. Team co-leader Harmony Vollmer said that made the case especially challenging.

Researchers eventually traced records to a Croatian immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1905 and gave birth to a daughter the following year. The girl was later placed in an orphanage before eventually moving from Ohio to Chicago. Team co-leader Traci Onders said probate records and additional documentation helped connect the historical records to Hart. Surviving family members later submitted DNA samples and uploaded their results, ultimately confirming her identity. 

For Curtis Skoog, who was a teenager when he found the body, the case never faded from memory. “It’s been a long road, 50 years ago… it’s pretty much tattooed in my mind,” he told CBS. Hart’s identification shows that even decades-old cases can still find answers through advances in forensic science and determined investigative work. In another case that took years to resolve, a UK man was recently convicted of murder after prosecutors alleged he fabricated evidence while continuing to deny responsibility.