OREGON, Ill. (AP) — The former mayor of a northern Illinois city is making a final attempt to crack an unsolved double homicide dating back to 1948.
The shooting deaths occurred on the outskirts of Oregon, about 100 miles west of Chicago. Twenty-eight-year-old Stanley Skridla was killed while on a date with 17-year-old Mary Jane Reed, who was found dead four days later about 2 miles away.
Former mayor Mike Arians, who has been investigating the killings for more than 15 years, is coordinating an exhumation and autopsy of Skridla’s body on Thursday. He hopes the autopsy reveals evidence that will make a break in the nearly 67-year-old case.
Arians tells the Chicago Tribune that he believes a local law enforcement officer who had an affair with Reed may have been the killer.
