Man charged with 1985 murder of west suburban teen

A downstate man has been charged with the murder of a 15-year-old girl in west suburban Glen Ellyn in 1985.

Michael R. Jones, 62, of Champaign has been charged with two counts of murder and one count of aggravated criminal sexual assault, according to the DuPage County sheriff’s office.

Fifteen-year-old Kristina Wesselman was walking home from the Jewel near Butterfield Road and Route 53 in unincorporated Glen Ellyn on July 21, 1985 when she was murdered, according to police. She was last seen walking on a well-traveled path back toward her home.

Kristina never returned home and was reported missing by her mother, police said. Her body was found hours later by sheriff’s detectives in the field near the path she was last seen walking.

On Sept. 10, the sheriff’s office obtained new information regarding the Wesselman cause, according to police. Cold case detectives investigated the new information and located Jones.

A search warrant was conducted Friday at Jones’s home in the 2500 block of Southmoor Drive in Champaign, and he was charged Sunday, police said. He is being held at the DuPage County Jail and is scheduled to appear in bond court Monday.

“Since the date of the tragic murder, the case has remained open and active,” Sheriff John Zaruba said in the statement.

“Over the last 30 years the Sheriff’s Cold Case Unit has worked hundreds of leads that have sent them across the nation and thousands of man hours have been spent to catch the killer in his horrendous crime,” Zaruba said.

The case remains under investigation and anyone with information about the case, or any other incidents involving ones, are asked to call the sheriff’s office at (630) 407-2400 or text anonymous tips to 247637 and include the word Sheriff in the message.

Kristina Wesselman | DuPage County sheriff’s office