S3E3: Longer Than We Knew

The Detectives look back on this season, and the new information updating a decades long investigation. They are still looking for Wyteria, but now have an updated case to help bring her home. Thank you to all those who have helped in this season. Follow for more information on upcoming cases and episodes. 

The Detectives finally located some extended family for Wyteria who agreed to assist them with this case and who agreed to provide the DNA that they need for Wyteria’s investigation. For this episode, Beth, Andrew, and Chris work further on this case and travel to Tennessee to collect DNA and hopefully another lead in the case.

In this episode, the Detectives discuss their work on Wyteria’s case as they continue their search for her.  Wyteria would have turned 89 just last month on May 1st, if she is still alive. And while that is possible, it may not be very likely.  So, we have to at least consider the possibility that Wyteria Jones is dead and still waiting to be found. And the Detectives have a few tools in their tool box. This episode includes AI-generated content.

Over the past several episodes, the detectives have travelled to Elgin, Joliet, Aurora, and Chicago as they seek more information in Wyteria’s case.  Now, they want to look at the forensic options they have moving forward.   For this episode, the detectives turn their attention to a group called the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System or NamUs, which is currently the only national repository for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed persons in the country.   This system might just be exactly what they need to bring Wyteria Jones home.This episode includes AI-generated content.

In this episode, we are travelling outside of Elgin once again to the City of Chicago to see the neighborhood where the Jones family lived in the late 1960’s before moving to Aurora…the same neighborhood that Waymon Jones lived in November of 1967 when he was arrested for murder.

This episode takes them to Aurora, a city with deep ties to Wyteria's past and a direct bus line that could have brought her right to her old doorstep. But Aurora also means revisiting the man who reported her missing: her husband, Waymon Jones. With family members alleging years of physical abuse, a prior battery arrest, and Wyteria herself on record reporting violence in the home, the detectives can't ignore what the statistics say - that women are far more likely to be harmed by someone they know. And just when they think they've mapped the edges of Waymon's past, one more record surfaces. Somebody Knows Something returns - and the investigation is far from over.

Detectives leave Elgin and head southwest to Joliet, Illinois — chasing one of their strongest theories in the search for missing woman Wyteria Jones. Could she have quietly slipped away to another city in 1982? The detectives trace every route she might have taken — Greyhound, Trailways, RTA buses, commuter trains — uncovering just how complicated that journey would have been. Then, when they go looking for the hotel a witness said Wyteria was headed to, they hit a wall. The "Joliet Motor Lodge" doesn't exist. But what they find in its place is a connection that changes everything. Along the way, they shine a light on other long-forgotten Will County disappearances, reminding us that every missing person leaves behind a family still waiting for answers.

In this episode, newly uncovered records turn the entire investigation upside down — revealing a timeline no one expected and connections to Elgin that run far deeper than anyone knew. Detective Beth Sterricker joins the team to break it all down, and what they find forces them to rethink everything. How long was Wyteria really here? Where did she go before Elgin? And does any of it point to what happened to her in 1982? The answers will surprise you.

In 1982, Wyteria Jones vanished from a rundown Elgin, Illinois hotel where she was living as an outpatient of the Elgin Mental Health Center. Over 40 years later, her case remains unsolved. In this episode of the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Podcast, Detectives walk the same streets Wyteria walked — from the historic Douglas Hotel to the bus stops of downtown Elgin — piecing together her final known movements. With one witness account, a rainy October day, and a building that's been completely gutted since 1982, the trail is cold. But somebody knows something.

Season 3 of Somebody Knows Something — the Elgin Police Department's Cold Case Podcast — opens a brand new case: the 1982 disappearance of Wyteria Jones.Detectives Andrew Houghton and Chris Hall introduce listeners to Wyteria, a Black woman from rural Tennessee whose family roots stretch back to the Civil War Era. After moving north to Illinois, Wyteria found herself in Elgin in the spring of 1982, staying at the Douglas Hotel while receiving mental health treatment. When the hotel closed that October, she walked out with her luggage — and was never seen or heard from again.What makes this case especially challenging? Her disappearance wasn't reported to police until January 1983, nearly four months later. The case file is thin. And the detectives are left with more questions than answers: Where was she going? Did she make it there? And why did she stop cashing her government checks and contacting her children — forever?In this season opener, the detectives share what little is known, lay out five working theories, and make a direct appeal to the public for help. If you knew Wyteria, lived at the Douglas Hotel, or have any information about her whereabouts in the fall of 1982 — somebody knows something.Tips can be submitted at www.ElginColdCases.com or by calling the Cold Case tipline at 847-289-COLD.