Ohio sisters find answers about their missing brother in Chicago after nearly two decades

By Carol Thompson, Darius Johnson

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    CHICAGO (WBBM) — Vilmarilys “Lilly” Hernandez and her sister had been looking for their brother Jean Eli Gonzalez since he went missing in September 2007.

“He was the one always like trying to make everybody laugh,” said Lilly.

They held onto hope for nearly 18 years and prayed their brother was still alive.

“Maybe he’s cold. Maybe he’s hungry,” Lilly said. “What happened to him?”

Jean Gonzalez arrived in Chicago from Puerto Rico in September 2027, looking for hope through a substance abuse program he learned about from police where he lived.

After landing in Chicago and talking with his mother on the phone, the family never heard from him again. All these years, they have not known what happened to him.

“It was a nightmare and it’s still a nightmare,” she said.

Brother goes missing

Jean Eli Gonzalez arrived in Chicago from Puerto Rico on Sept. 15, 2007, after hearing about a substance abuse program.

“A police officer from Puerto Rico, San Lorenzo, approached him and talked to him about the program,” his sister said.

He was given a brochure describing the “Programa de vuelta a la vida” or Back to Life program, which it described as “law enforcement officers committed to saving your life.”

It described services the program would provide, including “medical evaluation,” “food,” “psychological help,” “guidance on services that assist you,” “coordination of services with other government and private agencies,” “transportation to rehab centers,” and “coordination of medical assistance centers.”

“He was excited to be there,” Lilly said. “He was excited for his future.”

After arriving in Chicago, the family never heard from Jean again. They weren’t allowed to speak with him while he was getting treatment.

“They were like giving us different answers, like, ‘No, you cannot talk to him right now,’ or, ‘He left this program a few days ago.’ Then, ‘A neighbor paid his ticket back to Puerto Rico,'” said Lilly.

The sisters tried to file missing person’s reports. They called hospitals, shelters and even the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office to no avail.

An unidentified person is found dead

Around the time Jean went missing, several days later that same September in 2007, a man was found hanging off a billboard in the 4000 block of South Halsted Street, just off the Dan Ryan Expressway.

A note handwritten in Spanish contained a version of the Serenity Prayer, which is used in rehab programs. At the top was a name: Jean Eli Gonzalez.

Chicago police had the note, but there was no other identification on the body. The note could have been written by someone other than the man found.

The death was considered a suicide. The man was listed as an unknown. He was unidentified and remained so until February 2025.

Medical Examiner’s work to identify the unidentified

Dr. Ponni Arunkumar became the Chief Medical Examiner in Cook County in 2016. Working to identify the unidentified is a main goal for her.

“We’re always trying to find new ways to identify them,” Arunkumar said.

The ME’s office uses a variety of tools, including DNA samples, bone fragments, and scans.

Scans can reveal pacemakers, prosthetics, and even prior procedures like a craniotomy.

“We can get serial numbers or identifying information on those and then match them with hospital records,” said Dr. Arunkumar.

DNA samples are sent out to the Illinois State Police lab for analysis.

“It can take months to a year for those results to come back,” Arunkumar said.

A CBS News Chicago analysis of the most recent Illinois State Police biological sample testing data shows more than 2,000 samples waiting more than six months for testing statewide. A total of 800 of those samples are waiting at the Chicago lab. That amounts to nearly one in three of all untested samples waiting that long to be tested.

“The state labs are running all the homicide DNA testing, all the sexual assault cases, and now we’re adding our unidentified to the caseload they have already,” said Dr. Arunkumar.

For the body found in 2007, all that testing was done. But the file was on paper, not digital so the case never made it into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) database which launched in 2007 and 2008.

When the Cook County ME adds information to NamUs or its own publicly available database, detailed descriptions are also included — when known.

“We put out any information that may help identify them,” said Dr. Arunkumar. “For example, any tattoos or scars that may be unique, any clothing that has a unique pattern. We’ll put the photographs of that or photographs of tattoos, or even a photo of the face, just in case there’s family that may be looking.”

Some examples include:

Skeletal remains were found in a vacant South Chicago apartment building in 2024. A woman’s size large shirt was found with the body.

In January 2022, a newborn baby boy was found dead at a Near North side fire station at 1044 N. Orleans St. His body was inside a black duffel bag with RSM printed on it. His manner of death was determined to be a homicide. In 2005, a woman’s skeleton was found on Doty, just off the Bishop Ford Freeway. An anthropology report indicates she was over the age of 65 and died two to six years before being discovered. The oldest unidentified case in the public database goes back to 1983. A man’s body was found in the Cal-Sag channel on July 5 of that year.

In 2023, Dr. Arunkumar started a renewed effort to get some 200 older cases stored only in paper files from 1986 through 2014 into NamUs.

Finding the missing brother

The body found hanging from a billboard in 2007 was entered into the system in February 2025.

The next day, Jean’s sisters saw a Facebook post on another group’s page. It was the NamUs entry, translated into Spanish.

When they saw the post, they knew they had finally found their brother after nearly two decades of wondering what happened to him.

“I was like, that’s him,” said Lilly.

The family contacted the ME’s office to find out next steps.

“We had to go there to provide our DNA to be sure completely that he was our brother,” she said.

“We did have a DNA sample from the decedent in our case file and we were able to match the two,” said Dr. Arunkumar.

In 2008, Jean was buried in an unmarked grave in a Homewood cemetery, along with other unidentified people.

The sisters wear matching shirts with Jean’s face and a message.

“Here it says in Spanish, ‘Te encontramos,’ meaning, ‘We found you,'” said Lilly.

After more than 6,000 days, they can finally stop searching.

“We’re just waiting to go there and say our last goodbye, something that we didn’t have almost 18 years ago,” said Lilly.

Indigent burials for the unidentified are part of the ME’s effort to provide them dignity and respect.

Eleven currently unidentified have had DNA analysis returned. Those people will be laid to rest during a burial ceremony at Mount Olivet Cemetery in July.

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