More than four years after the body of a missing Illinois woman was found in the woods, a suspect has been charged in connection with her disappearance.
Vanessa Ceja-Ramirez, 22, was reported missing after going on a walk with her mother in the Midlothian Meadows Forest Preserve in November 2020, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.
Two days later, she was found dead.
Police say Ceja-Ramirez was found strangled, with her body partially burned. Investigators further noted that there was evidence she had been sexually assaulted.
After filing dozens of search warrants and submitting DNA evidence, police say they’ve identified the suspected killer as 30-year-old Dakota Petrey, who lived in an Oak Forest apartment where Ceja-Ramirez’s phone allegedly pinged following her disappearance.
Petrey’s DNA matched DNA found on the victim and he was known to spend time in Midlothian Meadows, authorities allege. There is no indication he knew the victim.
Petrey was arrested on Jan. 18 after he was released from jail in Fulton County, Ill. on unrelated charges, the sheriff’s office says. He is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated sexual assault. It is not immediately clear if he has entered a plea or retained an attorney.
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“This heinous crime is every parent’s worst nightmare,” Sheriff Thomas Dart says in a statement. “It took years of tireless work by our police detectives to investigate this case, but we never gave up on finding Vanessa’s killer and seeking justice for her and her family.”
Following Ceja-Ramirez’s disappearance in 2020, her family mourned her loss.
“She’s just somebody that we believed in, that had our future in her hands, just like most of our kids here,” her uncle Alejandro Villegas told CBS Chicago. “She was a sweet child that was humble, smiled, shy. She was a good person. And she just didn’t deserve anything of this.”
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