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Skull found in Batavia, Illinois home in 1978 identified as teen who died in 1866
CHICAGO (CBS) — Authorities in Kane County finally solved a cold case dating back 46 years, when a human skull was found during a home renovation project in Batavia in 1978.
The Kane County Coroner’s Office said the skull has been identified as Esther Granger, a 17-year-old girl who died in Merryville, Indiana, in 1866. Authorities believe she died from complications during childbirth.
A couple remodeling their home in Batavia found what appeared to be a human lower jaw inside a wall. Police later found a partial skull inside the same wall. The bones were sent to the anthropology department at Northern Illinois University, which confirmed the bones were human, and likely dated back much further than 1978.
The skull was later donated to the Batavia Historical Society, where it remained until 2021, when it was turned over to Batavia police, and then the Kane County Coroner, in hopes of identifying the remains.
With the assistance of Texas-based Othram, which specializes in forensic genetic genealogy, the coroner’s office was able to use modern DNA technology to identify the remains.
Officials tracked down Granger’s second great-grandchild, who provided a DNA sample to confirm the identity of her remains.
It’s still a mystery how Granger’s remains ended up in Batavia. Kane County Coroner L. Robert Russell theorized that the girl might have been the victim of a grave robbery after she died, or that doctors at the time of her death might have purchased her remains to learn more about human anatomy.
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A quarter of U.S. households live paycheck to paycheck, analysis finds
Living “paycheck to paycheck” is a phrase often used term to describe households that are under financial strain. But what does it really mean, and how many people find themselves depleting their paychecks shortly after earning them?
Bank of America Institute defines living paycheck to paycheck as a households “where necessity spending is more than 95% of their household income, leaving them relatively little left over for ‘nice to have’ discretionary spending or saving.” to be living paycheck to paycheck.
“Many of these spending pressures are likely unavoidable, as they relate to family and housing costs,” Bank of America Institute senior economist David Tinsley told CBS MoneyWatch.
In a Bank of America Institute survey of consumers in the third quarter of 2025, roughly half said they considered themselves to be living paycheck to paycheck.
Bank of America Institute also looked at its own customers’ spending patterns to determine that close to one-quarter of Americans actually live paycheck to paycheck, with most of their monthly income going straight toward essentials.
“The share of households that are living paycheck to paycheck has been rising slightly over the last few years, which is not terribly surprising, because prices have risen for a lot of essential goods — groceries are more expensive, the cost of car insurance is up, and child care is up, too,” Tinsley said.
Higher income, higher housing costs
While lower-income households have a higher share of people who live paycheck to paycheck, some families that are higher up on the income ladder also fall into the same category.
Around 35% of households with incomes below $50K a year are living paycheck to paycheck, up from 32% in 2019, according to internal Bank of America data. Meanwhile, about 20% of households earning $150,000 are living paycheck to paycheck, according to Bank of America Institute’s findings. That’s largely because they have high, fixed housing costs, according to Tinsley.
“People with higher incomes tend to have high-priced homes, and many will have large monthly mortgage payments. So it’s perfectly possible someone with a high income could have a lot of it swallowed up by essentials,” he said.
Hard cycle to break out of
It’s financially straining to live paycheck to paycheck. “It’s usually thought of as a bad thing, that adds stress and is detrimental to a person’s sense of financial well-being,” Tinsley said.
It’s a hard cycle to break out of, too. Housing costs, which are often a household’s greatest expense, can be hard to minimize.
“For most people, they can’t do much about where they live and how much they pay for their home, if they have kids at a school in a particular neighborhood,” Tinsley said. “A lot of these costs are sticky, and there isn’t much to do about it.”
In the longterm, such households end up with little in savings, and are exposed to financial shocks.
“If there were another inflation shock, or a sharper downturn to economy than expected and some people lose jobs, then people living paycheck to paycheck are most immediately pressured to make sharp reductions in spending to balance the books,” Tinsely said. “And that impacts the overall economy.”