nothing into the freezing January weather but a pair of slippers, the sleep clothes on her back, and possibly a blue blanket. Police then came and looked around the house, Amy Mellon said, but nothing happened after that.
Right around the fourth anniversary of Rachel’s disappearance, perhaps to make up for lost time, Bolingbrook police brought Vince Mellon into the station and held him for nine hours. Officers also served a search warrant for his blood, saliva, and body hair as part of a first-degree-murder investigation.
Four days after this, Vince Mellon was trotted before a grand jury. Police also revealed that they had discovered “new information” through “technical advances,” amounting to “significant developments” in the case. It looked like the investigation had finally taken off.
That was in February 2000. Whatever the new information, significant developments and technical advances may have been, they remain as great a mystery today as what happened to Rachel. Her stepfather, in the intervening years, has run afoul of the law on a variety of charges. Her mother was also picked up for theft, which involved the couple stiffing a Joliet motel out of a night’s stay. Both Amy and Vince Mellon, who now live in Cleveland, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to the theft charge.
By the time Stacy Peterson disappeared, Rachel Mellon would have been a young woman of twenty-five. No one has ever been arrested or charged in connection with her disappearance. Prior to the tenth anniversary of the young girl’s disappearance, State’s Attorney Glasgow, whose administration handled the Mellon matter throughout its history—except for a four-year stretch following his electoral defeat in November 2000—said that Rachel’s was “obviously at the top of our list as far as the cold cases we have.”
Rachel’s father, Jeff Skemp of the Chicago suburb Forest Park, said he’s accepted that his daughter is probably not coming back, although he’s never totally given up hope that she might be living somewhere no one can find her.
Skemp, who works as a cab dispatcher, remembers meeting Drew Peterson.
“I kind of liked him,” Skemp said. “He was real brazen and kind of cocky. I think the whole world knows he’s cocky now.”
His lukewarm admiration of Peterson, however, doesn’t extend to police in general.
“I just think that Will County’s just inept,” Skemp said. “I know Bolingbrook is. They did the same thing with Rachel that they did with Stacy. They waited a week before they went in the house.” In fact, state police searched the Peterson home three days after Stacy was reported missing. Still, Skemp says, “They wait too long before they realize the seriousness of the case. They just got a terrible track record.”
That track record includes not only the unsolved cases of Stacy Peterson, Lisa Stebic, Joan Bernal, Jeri Lynn Duvall, Inge Strama, and Rachel Mellon but also two high-profile Will County homicides in which police did arrest someone—only, in each case, it turned out to be the wrong man.
On May 18, 1998, state police were called into Frankfort for the first murder in the village’s 128-year history. The Frankfort police asked for the state agency’s assistance because they thought they were ill-equipped to lead the investigation of such a serious crime. As it turned out, the state police—the same agency now handling the Peterson and Savio investigations—didn’t prove themselves any more adept.
Juliet Chinn was a forty-three-year-old, long-time employee of Oak Forest Hospital. She worked as a pharmacist on the second shift, along with her boyfriend of nine years, fellow pharmacist Barry McCarthy.
One Monday afternoon Chinn failed to show up at work, which was strange for her. She did not call in to explain her absence, which was stranger. At the suggestion of a coworker, McCarthy left the hospital and drove to Chinn’s Frankfort condominium to check on her.
When he got there
Right around the fourth anniversary of Rachel’s disappearance, perhaps to make up for lost time, Bolingbrook police brought Vince Mellon into the station and held him for nine hours. Officers also served a search warrant for his blood, saliva, and body hair as part of a first-degree-murder investigation.
Four days after this, Vince Mellon was trotted before a grand jury. Police also revealed that they had discovered “new information” through “technical advances,” amounting to “significant developments” in the case. It looked like the investigation had finally taken off.
That was in February 2000. Whatever the new information, significant developments and technical advances may have been, they remain as great a mystery today as what happened to Rachel. Her stepfather, in the intervening years, has run afoul of the law on a variety of charges. Her mother was also picked up for theft, which involved the couple stiffing a Joliet motel out of a night’s stay. Both Amy and Vince Mellon, who now live in Cleveland, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to the theft charge.
By the time Stacy Peterson disappeared, Rachel Mellon would have been a young woman of twenty-five. No one has ever been arrested or charged in connection with her disappearance. Prior to the tenth anniversary of the young girl’s disappearance, State’s Attorney Glasgow, whose administration handled the Mellon matter throughout its history—except for a four-year stretch following his electoral defeat in November 2000—said that Rachel’s was “obviously at the top of our list as far as the cold cases we have.”
Rachel’s father, Jeff Skemp of the Chicago suburb Forest Park, said he’s accepted that his daughter is probably not coming back, although he’s never totally given up hope that she might be living somewhere no one can find her.
Skemp, who works as a cab dispatcher, remembers meeting Drew Peterson.
“I kind of liked him,” Skemp said. “He was real brazen and kind of cocky. I think the whole world knows he’s cocky now.”
His lukewarm admiration of Peterson, however, doesn’t extend to police in general.
“I just think that Will County’s just inept,” Skemp said. “I know Bolingbrook is. They did the same thing with Rachel that they did with Stacy. They waited a week before they went in the house.” In fact, state police searched the Peterson home three days after Stacy was reported missing. Still, Skemp says, “They wait too long before they realize the seriousness of the case. They just got a terrible track record.”
That track record includes not only the unsolved cases of Stacy Peterson, Lisa Stebic, Joan Bernal, Jeri Lynn Duvall, Inge Strama, and Rachel Mellon but also two high-profile Will County homicides in which police did arrest someone—only, in each case, it turned out to be the wrong man.
On May 18, 1998, state police were called into Frankfort for the first murder in the village’s 128-year history. The Frankfort police asked for the state agency’s assistance because they thought they were ill-equipped to lead the investigation of such a serious crime. As it turned out, the state police—the same agency now handling the Peterson and Savio investigations—didn’t prove themselves any more adept.
Juliet Chinn was a forty-three-year-old, long-time employee of Oak Forest Hospital. She worked as a pharmacist on the second shift, along with her boyfriend of nine years, fellow pharmacist Barry McCarthy.
One Monday afternoon Chinn failed to show up at work, which was strange for her. She did not call in to explain her absence, which was stranger. At the suggestion of a coworker, McCarthy left the hospital and drove to Chinn’s Frankfort condominium to check on her.
When he got there
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