S3E3: Longer Than We Knew

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This podcast is based on information sourced primarily from police and media reports, but certain names and other identifying details may have been changed or altered for privacy and security reasons. While the events and cases discussed are based on real investigations, some aspects may be simplified for time and for narrative purposes. Voice actors have been used to read from statements or documents. All information presented is intended solely to inform and raise awareness. Hosts may discuss theories regarding the cases examined in this podcast, but such discussions are not intended to and should not be considered by the listener to be legal conclusions. All persons discussed are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Listener discretion is advised.

**Ana Lalley** (1:02)
This is Chief Ana Lalley. Welcome to Somebody Knows Something, a podcast from the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Unit. In this podcast, we will shed new light on cold cases in the city of Elgin by sharing untold details and by encouraging anyone with information to come forward. You will come along with real cold case detectives as they investigate active cold cases in real time and seek justice for the victims and closure for their families.
We believe that the Elgin Police Department and our community can work together to bring closure to cold cases. Because we know that in these cases, Somebody Knows Something.

**Andrew Houghton** (1:46)
Hello, and welcome to Somebody Knows Something, the Elgin Police Department Cold Case Podcast. My name is Detective Andrew Houghton.

**Chris Hall** (1:53)
I'm Detective Chris Hall.

**Beth Sterricker** (1:55)
And I'm Detective Beth Sterricker.

**Chris Hall** (1:57)
On our last episode, we visited sites related to Wyteria's time here in Elgin, and we discussed our first two theories for her case.
We also mentioned that we are still waiting on records for about Wyteria's time regarding the Elgin Mental Health Center and her government benefits. Then we ended the episode by saying that we plan to travel to Joliet, Illinois. But just like in Season 1, things changed.

**Andrew Houghton** (2:19)
While we are still working on finding records for her government benefits, Beth was able to gather dozens of pages of records for Wyteria that recount her time here in Elgin that we had never seen before. So we are pivoting this episode to address those new records, which shed an entirely new light on this case.

**Chris Hall** (2:35)
In this episode, Beth is making her official Somebody Knows Something full episode debut.
She is joining us to break down the new information that we have, which may point us in some new directions. These new records might even make us reconsider our original theories once again as we continue our search for Wyteria Jones.

**Andrew Houghton** (3:01)
Beth, thanks for joining us this episode, and thanks for all the hard work you're doing behind the scenes on this case. Why don't you tell the listeners a little about these new records we got?

**Beth Sterricker** (3:09)
Sure, so over the past few months, I have been working together records about Wyteria.
As we said in episode two, when we visited the EMHC property, we went into this case not knowing how long Wyteria was there, or if she was actually living at the property before she moved to the Douglas Hotel. I know from talking to my dad that we believed it was likely she may have spent at least some time there, because he recalled that the Douglas Hotel mostly housed people when they transitioned from EMHC back to public society. But we hadn't confirmed if she was actually at the facility, or how long she was actually in Elgin. Well, now we have a lot more information.

**Chris Hall** (3:44)
Yep, that's right. Based on the records that Beth gathered, we know a lot more about Wyteria's life, really from between 1955 and 1982
The records really help us understand her family life more, and her time while in Elgin. We now know that we have a lot more information to help us with that victimology piece of this investigation. While we will not discuss any potential diagnosis or specifics about Wyteria or her care, we did learn a lot of valuable information about her over the past few weeks.

**Andrew Houghton** (4:11)
We did, Chris. The records help us understand a lot more about her background and her time here in Elgin. For example, when I originally said in episode one that it appeared that Wyteria moved to Elgin sometime in the spring of 1982, that was totally wrong. At the time, we were going off limited records that we had, including some original reports and federal census records. But we now know from the new records that Beth got, that Wyteria was living here at the Douglas Hotel all the way back in 1975