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Car linked to 1976 cold case pulled from Illinois river after tip from fishermen
A car pulled from the muddy bottom of a river in northern Illinois may bring authorities closer to solving a decades-old cold case. The 1966 Chevrolet Impala was recovered recently from a portion of the Pecatonica River in Winnebago County, and it’s believed to be linked to the disappearance of two men 10 years later, officials said.
Clarence Owens, 65, and Everette Hawley, 75, went missing in 1976, according to a description of the cold case shared online by the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office. Owens and Hawley were last seen on Feb. 19, 1976 at a farm auction near the county line separating Winnebago from neighboring Ogle County. Although the sheriff’s office said “an intense multi-agency investigation” followed involving local law enforcement and state police, neither Owens’ nor Hawley’s body was ever found.
Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana said the Impala was recovered after fishermen’s sonar equipment detected what seemed to be a vehicle beneath the surface of the river, CBS affiliate WIFR reported. The fishermen contacted authorities last week and, on Monday, fire officials from multiple agencies joined dive teams at the site and used a crane to help lift the car from the water.
“It’s quite challenging because it’s sitting in the mud, 8 to 10 feet, which is not that deep but deep enough,” Caruana told the station. He said that he was not surprised the recovered car was connected to Owens’ and Hawley’s cold case.
WIFR
“Not too many cars that meet that description is driving in the Pecatonica River,” the sheriff said.
Owens’ son, Tom Owens, told WIFR that his father and Hawley were friends and business partners. As a police officer in Rockford, which is included in Winnebago County, Tom Owens worked the case of the pair’s disappearance and said he believes foul play was involved, according to the news station.
The sheriff did not say whether remains were found with the recovered vehicle, but someone from the county coroner’s office was sent to the scene, WIFR reported.
Owens and Hawley were seen at the farm auction with the 1966 Chevy Impala, which belonged to Owens and which had a new coat of gold paint at the time, according to the Doe Network, a nonprofit organization and database for information about missing and unidentified people. The men had attended a political rally in the area before stopping at the auction, and planned to make a shared appointment in German Valley, about 25 miles west of Winnebago County, after leaving the auction. They never made that appointment.
CBS News
McDonald’s beef patties test negative for E. coli in Colorado, Department of Agriculture says
Colorado has seemingly eliminated one ingredient as a cause for death and illness, as states continue to investigate the source of an E. coli outbreak involving the Quarter Pounder hamburger at dozens of McDonald’s locations. As a result, the Quarter Pounder will begin to return to certain locations.
The Colorado Department of Agriculture announced McDonald’s brand “fresh and frozen beef patties” tested negative for E. coli after its lab analyzed dozens of subsamples.
CDA says it has completed all beef testing and does not anticipate receiving further samples.
Meanwhile, the federal investigation into the deadly E. coli outbreak in Colorado has focused on ground beef patties and onions. There continues to be no evidence that onions grown in Colorado are linked to the outbreak.
According to McDonald’s, The 900 restaurants that historically received slivered onions from Taylor Farms’ Colorado Springs facility will resume sales of Quarter Pounders without slivered onions. Those restaurants are in Colorado, Kansas, and Wyoming, as well as portions of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah. The restaurant chain also noted it has stopped getting onions from that facility indefinitely.
“The issue appears to be contained to a particular ingredient and geography, and we remain very confident that any contaminated product related to this outbreak has been removed from our supply chain and is out of all McDonald’s restaurants,” McDonald’s North American Chief Supply Chain Officer Cesar Piña said in a statement Sunday
Since the outbreak was first announced, CBS News Colorado confirmed one older man on the Western Slope died after consuming a Quarter Pounder from a McDonald’s location in the state. Initial information also confirmed more than two dozen people had become ill due to E. coli-affected Quarter Pounders.
Nationwide, this outbreak has sickened 75 people in more than a dozen states, but Colorado remains the only state impacted that has experienced a death due to it.
The Colorado Department of Public Health says there have been 26 cases reported in nine different Colorado counties, and they are located in several different parts of the state:
- Arapahoe County
- Chaffee County
- El Paso County
- Gunnison County
- Larimer County
- Mesa County
- Routt County
- Teller County
- Weld County
The illnesses were reported between the last days of September and through Oct. 11. An investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into the outbreak is ongoing.
McDonald’s company leaders previously said they’ve taken Quarter Pounders off the menu in states where there have been outbreaks.
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