When his daughter went missing in April 1983, Loren Schepers chartered a plane so he could fly over the Elgin area in the hope he might spot her canary yellow 1980 Toyota Celica from the sky.
The 23-year-old woman disappeared in the cold, dark, early morning hours while driving home to Elgin from a bar in Carpentersville. The temperature was below freezing and roads were slick; Karen Schepers could have easily gone off the road somewhere along the way.
He “felt like it was his job to find her,” Gary Schepers said of his father’s search, but he would die without knowing what happened.
While there are still many unanswered questions, it would seem the mystery of Karen’s disapperance was solved this week with the discovery of her car at the bottom of the Fox River in Elgin. Located in about 7 feet of murky water northwest of the Slade Road boat launch, the vehicle was recovered Tuesday afternoon and the skeletal remains found inside assumed to be those of a woman who vanished more than four decades ago.
Despite how distinctive her car was, his father would never has spotted it regardless of how many times he looked, Gary Schepers said. “The … yellow car was upside down,” he said.
Final identification will be made by the Kane County coroner’s office in a process that will take several weeks, officials said. But Karen Schepers’ family has been notified and the assumption made that she has been found at last thanks to the Elgin Police Department’s cold case unit and their podcast, “Somebody Knows Something,” which led to the river search.
“This has been going on for so long, and for so long nothing happened,” said Gary Schepers, who lives in DeKalb and is the oldest of nine children. “It’s like you’ve been watching glaciers move, and all of a sudden things are happening every day.”
After Karen vanished — her car gone, her savings untouched and credit cards unused, her apartment exactly as she left it — police were stymied. Did she leave to make a new life for herself? Become despondent over a breakup with her boyfrend? Meet up with the wrong person and become a victim?
Police would occasionally revisit the case over the years, once creating a billboard featuring her photo and details about her disappearance, Schepers said. There were countless stories in local newspapers. Elgin residents knew her name.
It’s a relief for the family that she’s been found and they now know what happened, Schepers said.
“She’s not out there wandering around with amnesia or brain damage or any of the scenarios you think of in 40 years,” he said.
Elgin police are keeping mum on what they think happened and what led them to examine the area where she was found. They’re not returning phone calls despite the success in solving a case that’s long frustrated them.
What is known is the police never searched the Fox River for her car when she was first reported missing, something that has some people asking why, especially on social media.
But Schepers said he wasn’t surprised by how they handled the case. It was a different time.
“I don’t think they took missing persons cases as seriously as they do now,” Schepers said.
He remembers talking with a journalist friend who had covered the John Wayne Gacy serial killing case.
“What everyone whose kids were missing (had been) told by police was that they took off for some reason; they will probably be back,” he said. Regardless of whether it was wrong or right, “it seemed like that was the attitude at the time,” he said.
Born just 13 months apart — Gary was the oldest and Karen came next — his memories are the kind any siblings would have, he said.
“We fought like cats and dogs a lot of the time,” but they’d also stay up all night talking from their bedrooms, Schepers said. “It was like anybody’s little sister. She’s your best friend and your enemy wrapped up all in one.
“The thing about her, and it drove me crazy, is whatever you could do, she could do just as well if not better,” he said.
Karen could play the saxophone and the piano. She loved the long motorcycle trips she’d take with her boyfriend to places such as Utah, he said.
They grew up in Sycamore, and graduated from high school there. When their mother remarried and moved the family to Texas, Karen moved to Elgin to live with her father and stepmother, Schepers said. Later, she moved into her own apartment in the 300 block of Lovell Street.
Despite the broken romance, things were going well, her brother said. She had paid off her car, was working as a computer programmer at First Chicago Bank Card in Elgin and taking classes at Elgin Community College, Gary Schepers said.
Her friendships were deep, he said. People, even those she made at summer camp, still remember her, he said.
“I don’t think it’s just because of the disappearance. There are just some people that you remember. She was a remarkable person,” he said.
While their father died a few years ago, their mother, Liz Paulson, is still alive and living in DeKalb. They’ve told her about the police finding Karen’s car and the human remains found inside, information that has left her overwhelmed, Gary said.
“But this is a woman who raised nine children and was a nurse in a maternity ward for almost 50 years. If there’s anyone who can handle it, it’s her,” he said.
Schepers commended the Police Department and the cold case unit for reopening the investigation, noting that they always treated his mother well.
Karen was declared legally dead years ago, but the family never had a memorial service. It’s something they will be discussing, he said.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
