Chicago woman found murdered, left in cardboard box in Indiana identified after nearly 50 years

A Chicago woman murdered and left in a cardboard box in rural Indiana in the 1970s has finally been identified after nearly 50 years as a Jane Doe.

Old-fashioned police work and some cutting-edge DNA technology brought dignity to the woman now known as Jane Hart.  

"Everybody knew everybody, so it was a big deal, you know, finding a dead body in a box," said Curtis Skoog. "I can't explain to you how awful I felt."

Skoog was just 16 when his dad found a small cardboard box while tending their farmland near Otterbein, Indiana, in 1976, about 15 miles east of Lafayette. Inside the box was the body of a woman who had been shot in the back of the head.

"It's been a long road, 50 years ago, and, like I said, it's pretty much tattooed in my mind," Skoog said.

Investigators determined the woman was between 55 and 65 years old. The box was in the field for only about 12 hours, but she was never identified. 

Benton County, Indiana, coroner Matt Rosenbarger was part of a team in 2019 that exhumed Jane Doe's remains to try and identify her. He said the initial goal was to give the victim a name.

"The DNA was very degraded and was very difficult to get a really good, deep profile," he said.

Then a breakthrough of sorts came in 2024.

The DNA Doe Project says through research they were able to find a Croatian woman put up for adoption and through census records they saw she moved from Ohio to Chicago as an adult. She was identified as Jane Hart. 

Her last known address was in Rogers Park, near Paulina and Lunt, but sometime in the 1970's she appears to had vanish from all public records.

"Things like probate court records, the records from the orphanage that Jane was in ... all of these records pointed to this one individual Jane Hart," said Traci Onders, director of case management of the DNA Doe Project. 

Onders was the team leader for this Benton County Jane Doe.

"Identity is a basic human right," she said. "Jane Hart, when she died, somebody went to great lengths to ensure that her identity was taken away from her."

Onders and her team of investigative genetic genealogists were able to give Hart her name back and determine she was born in 1906 and was 69 years of age when she was murdered. 

Rosenbarger said she worked as a housekeeper in Chicago.

"I think every Jane and John Doe should have their name and their family should know what happened to them," he said.  

For Skoog, he says he's very happy to have closure after all these years.