42 years later, police search Fox River for clues in 1983 disappearance of Elgin woman

Forty-two years after a 23-year-old Elgin woman vanished without a trace, Elgin police and a dive team searched the Fox River on Monday for clues they hoped to find in the frigid, murky water.

The water search for Karen Schepers, who disappeared after attending a party with coworkers at a Carpentersville bar in 1983, was expected to continue Tuesday.

Schepers’ case was at the top of the list for Elgin’s new Cold Case Unit, led by detectives Andrew Houghton and Matt Vartanian.

The two meticulously combed the river on Monday with members of Chaos Divers, a dive team that travels the country using sonar to search bodies of water for missing people.

“By checking all these spots and either ruling something in or ruling something out, it gives us a lot of information going forward,” Houghton said. “We’re cautiously optimistic. We don’t want to get our hopes up. But we also want to get answers.”

Police say Schepers was last seen around 1 a.m. on April 16, 1983, at Bentley’s, a now-closed bar, with about 20 coworkers. Schepers was reportedly the last person from the group to leave. She and her yellow 1980 Toyota Celica were never found.

According to police, she had a brief argument with her fiance, Terry Schultz, after she asked him to stop by and he declined, telling her he had a busy work day ahead.

Investigators said he initially was viewed as a suspect. But he cooperated with investigators until he died in 2015 and passed a lie-detector test.

Monday’s search saw the team slowly traverse the river north and south from near the Interstate 90 overpass down to the Kimball Street bridge, using sonar to detect “shadows” in the water that might imply a vehicle.

“You have to go slow, and you have to be thorough,” Vartanian said. “So we want to make sure that we do it the right way.”

At least two spots were flagged for having a possible vehicle by early afternoon. Diver Mike McFerron donned a dry suit before plunging into the 41-degree river just north of Slade Avenue Park and south of the Judson University campus. He pulled up some debris, but it was too soon to tell if it was from Schepers’ car.

Regardless of what they do or don’t find, Houghton says it still moves the case forward by eliminating one possibility of the six or so working theories they have.

“Sometimes the absence of evidence is evidence,” he said. “We’re hopeful. But at the end of the day, if we find nothing, that still helps us. I think it’s still a positive.”

Divers may also check two ponds on Tuesday that investigators believe were close enough to her route home to warrant a search.

Jacob Grubbs of Chaos Divers said they’ve been using sonar to search for missing people for four years.

“We’ve been able to bring home 19, ranging from being missing from six days to 23 years,” he said. “It’s a blessing to help these families.”

Police Chief Ana Lalley said it’s the first time the river has been searched using this technology as part of the Schepers case.

She said that even though the case is over 40 years old, there still is an urgency to the investigation.

“The Cold Case Unit was created because families deserve to know what happened to their loved one and to have that question answered,” she said. “Imagine if you have someone that you’re thinking about every single day, wondering ‘where is she, what happened to her?’ Ultimately, the goal is to be able to answer that question.”