Michigan mother arrested in 2003 cold case; charged with murder of newborn twins in unincorporated Stickney Township
By Will Jones
WLS-TV
December 5, 2020
STICKNEY TOWNSHIP, Ill. -- The Cook County Sheriff's Office announced charges in a cold case from more than 17 years ago.
Antoinette
Briley, 41, of Michigan was charged Friday night with two counts of
first-degree murder for the deaths of her newborn twin sons in
unincorporated Stickney Township.
On June 6, 2003, the victims were discovered by a Waste Management employee who was emptying trash bins in an alley in the 4800-block of South Latrobe Avenue, according to a Cook County sheriff's release.
The employee saw the bodies in the front lift bucket of her garbage truck, police said.
An autopsy determined the babies were born alive and died of asphyxiation, the release said.
"It was indescribable that someone would do that," said Stickney Township resident Dawn Pecnick.
Cook County sheriff's police said they conducted a thorough investigation at the time, but the case remained unsolved.
In 2018, they reopened the case and utilized DNA from evidence recovered
from the scene in an effort to identify the birth mother using the
latest developments in genetic genealogy, according to the release.
A
breakthrough from that research and subsequent investigations allowed
detectives to eventually identify Briley as the victims' potential birth
mother, police said.
The technology is the same used that broke the case of the Golden State Killer, according to lead detective Ginny Georgantas.
"The sheriff's detectives and sheriff's police officers worked hard on
this case then, it was never gone, it never was passed us," said the
sheriff's Chief of Public Safety. "The things that they did back then,
helped us today."
Detectives traveled to Holland, Michigan and
obtained a discarded item containing Briley's DNA, which was matched to
the DNA from the victims, police said.
"As part of the
investigation, sheriff's police detectives traveled to Holland,
Michigan, and obtained discarded items Briley's DNA, which was then
matched to the DNA from the victims," Chief of Public Safety Leo Schmitz
with the Cook County Sheriff's Office said in a press conference
Saturday.
On Thursday, police said they obtained information that
Briley was in Cook County and took her into custody after a traffic
stop in Oak Lawn.
"Briley was transported to the sheriff's police
headquarters here in Maywood, where she admitted post Miranda to her
involvement in the birth, death, and disposal of the two deceased
infants," Schmitz said.
Investigators say Briley lived about a
mile and a half away from the crime scene. Pecnick remembers detectives
questioning her and others in the neighborhood.
"I was in tears," she said. "I didn't, I couldn't; I was in shock."
"We did multiple interviews up and down the block, checking, doing
canvases but we didn't get anything back then. That's why this case now
jumping that way is so good," Schmitz added. "The murder happened 17
years ago, we don't ever give up."
Pecnick said she has always thought about the twins and what happened to them.
"What was going through her mind," Pecnick asked herself. "I think of them a lot."
Cook County Sheriff's Police said they and other agencies have been using genetic genealogy to review other cold cases.
"I'm happy that there's closure for the twins, there was no one fighting for them," said Georgantas.
Briley appeared in court for a bond hearing Saturday, which was set at $150,000, according to the Cook County Sheriff's Office.
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