Champaign man arrested in connection with 1985 death

Kristina Wesselman, 15, was murdered on July 21, 1985, while she was walking home from the Jewel Food Store near the intersection of Butterfield Road and Route 53 in unincorporated DuPage County near Glen Ellyn.

Officials say Michael R. Jones, 62, was arrested Sunday morning after detectives received a tip regarding the 30-year-old cold case.

In 2002, a law introduced by former DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett was passed in Illinois, which required anyone convicted of a felony offense in the state to submit blood, saliva and tissue for genetic marker testing, Berlin said. “With the arrest and charging of this defendant, however, the family of Kristy Wesselman and the people of DuPage County are one step closer to obtaining the full measure of justice that they so richly deserve”, Berlin said.

“He was a shown a picture of Wesselman and said, ‘As God is my witness, I’ve never seen her before, ‘” Berlin said.

Wesselman never returned home and was reported missing by her mother, officials said. Police said she was raped and stabbed eight times.

A rape kit was used during her autopsy, and semen found in her body led to a DNA profile of her attacker. But the DuPage County sheriff’s office released few details on Jones’ most recent arrest Sunday.

Various suspects, including an unemployed laborer who lived near the field, were taken in for questioning, but nothing ever came of it.

By pure luck, DNA acquired from the suspect of aggrevated domestic battery in 2015 allowed authorities to link him to the rape and murder of Kristina Wesselman which had gone unsolved for 30 years.

The ACLU sued DuPage County law enforcement for violating Henry’s constitutional rights.

An arrest has been made in a cold case that has baffled investigators for three decades.

Cops believed the killer had likely taken it as a twisted memento, and may have even given it to another woman afterwards.

Investigators repeatedly investigated Willis’ claims, they told the Tribune, and called the information “ungrounded”.

Authorities asked for the public’s help solving the case in 2011 by asking for information about an heirloom pearl ring she was wearing at the time of the attack. After her death, police said then, they scoured pawn shops and jewelry stores looking for it, to no avail.

Detectives traveled outside Illinois to tell Wesselman’s mother about the arrest, Berlin said.