At NIU, mounting frustration with lack of details in homicideOctober 26, 2010 10:25 PM | 65 Comments | UPDATED STORY
Hundreds of people lit candles Tuesday night to honor Northern Illinois University freshman Antinette "Toni" Keller in a somber end to a day of mounting frustration over the lack of information about her presumed death.
DeKalb police revealed Tuesday morning they had waited a week before telling the community that burned remains were found in the park Keller said she was going to Oct. 14, even though items apparently belonging to her were found nearby. Police said they wanted to be sure the remains were human before announcing the find.
Authorities also reclassified the Keller case a homicide investigation, though the remains still have not been positively identified as hers.
DeKalb police Chief Bill Feithen said he believed the slaying was an "isolated incident" but wouldn't give any specifics. And police said they had no suspects in custody.
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The turn of events left nerves frayed.
"It feels like they're keeping things from us," said freshman Andrew Buchanan, a close friend of Keller's. "We just want some closure."
"You really can't sleep because you don't know what's going on," said Ravina Ewing, of Dolton, who was worried about her 22-year-old daughter's safety.
Even Keller's family has had a hard time getting answers, although the ones they do get bring them no peace.
"It's a level of violence that's hard to hear," said Mary Tarling, a cousin of Keller's and a spokeswoman for the family. "We're still carrying on and looking past all of that detail toward the answers that we seek."
Keller, an art student from Plainfield, disappeared after telling friends she was going for a walk toward Prairie Park, just south of Illinois Highway 38. The park is now temporarily closed.
Tarling said she is frustrated with the lack of information from police but understands it is to "protect the investigation."
"It's hard to take for us -- for myself and Toni's dad," she said. "It's a cruel waiting game. We're trying to understand and be patient."
She said police share news with the family "slightly before" it's announced at news conferences, but they know little more than what's been released publicly.
"We have no choice but to let this investigation unfold and wait with everyone else," she said.
Feithen said police didn't announce the find until Saturday night because forensics experts had to be brought in from out of town to examine the site and remains.
Forensic experts not involved with the investigation said it's not unusual for such work to take a week or more.
"Fire is the most destructive," said Clyde Snow, who helped identify skeletal remains in cases involving serial killers John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and the 1979 American Airlines crash in unincorporated Cook County near O'Hare International Airport. "Of course it depends on the condition of the remains, but when there's fire involved, that can be particularly puzzling and complicated."
"From an identification standpoint, fires are tough," agreed Ronald L. Singer, past president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and technical and administrative director of the Tarrant County medical examiner's office in Fort Worth, Texas.
"Heat is not a friend of DNA," said Singer, who was involved in the identification of dozens of fire victims after the deadly 1993 federal Waco raid.
Campus security consultants said that because the remains were found off-campus, NIU officials were at the mercy of another agency to provide information on the investigation. However, they said, college officials need to push for details that can help ease anxiety on campus.
"It's part of that old way of thinking -- if we don't talk about it, it'll go away," said Adam Thermos, owner of Strategic Technology Group, a Massachusetts-based campus security management consulting firm.
Gary Margolis, a managing partner at Margolis, Healy & Assoc. of Vermont, which specializes in higher education safety and security, said that "when police are investigating and the coroner is involved, there are a lot of scenarios they are obviously evaluating, and the top priority isn't necessarily filtering information to the university."
However, he said, he believes that is a mistake.
"I lived it," said Margolis, who was the University of Vermont police chief in 2006 when undergraduate Michelle Gardner-Quinn disappeared while walking to her dormitory after a night out. Hikers found her body about a week later. She had been raped, beaten and strangled. "If you give people information, they don't panic. If you don't and they fill in the blanks, then they panic."
Loe Unterborn, a close friend of Keller's from Neuqua Valley High School, said her friend's disappearance has been a nightmare. "I can't get it out of my head," she said.
Unterborn, who lives in Naperville, said the friends were both vegans and often cooked together, watched movies or hung out near the large pond behind Keller's parents' home. They had plans for the weekend Keller disappeared, she said.
Unterborn said she believes the police are working hard, but "I wish they'd give us more information."
Officials said the FBI and Illinois State Police are working on the case, along with more than 40 DeKalb-area police officers.
School officials have heightened security on campus and locked student dorms earlier than usual. There is a greater police presence on campus, and buses are running longer hours.
NIU President John Peters told students Tuesday night that they need to continue to support each other.
"My message to you tonight is take care of each other," he said. "To look out for one another. ... In those ways, we can honor Toni and we can be true to the tradition of NIU."
The campus endured a Valentine's Day 2008 shooting that left six people dead, including the shooter, and more than a dozen wounded.
Peters said earlier Tuesday that "NIU has been tested before, and we have demonstrated our resilience."
Tarling said she already sees evidence of that.
"There's a piece of Toni in every single one of you, or you wouldn't be here," Tarling said to the crowd at the service, thanking students for making posters of support for Keller's parents, who she said have read and appreciate all the messages.
Keller's friend Brooke Bocek, 20, tearfully recalled some of Keller's favorite things, such as drawing on the sidewalk with chalk and listening to the Beatles.
"She shone like the sun itself," she said.
Feithen said anyone with information on the case -- particularly about fires in Prairie Park around the time Keller went missing -- should call 815-753-8477 or the DeKalb Major Case Squad at 815-895-3272.
Michelle Manchir and Becky Schlikerman contributed to this report.
-- Angie Leventis Lourgos and Christy Gutowski
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