Photo: Racine County Sheriff’s Office
The sheriff’s office in Racine County, Wisconsin, reached out to investigate — and after an officer talked with one of the suspect’s children, who recalled her mother’s alleged years-long abuse of the cognitively impaired victim, they arrested 64-year-old Linda Sue LaRoche on suspicion of murder.
“The utter barbaric brutality inflicted on this young woman is something none of us will ever forget,” Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said in anews conferenceFriday.
With the arrest, authorities also publicly identified the Jane Doe found in the field. She was Peggy Lynn Johnson, 23, who had moved in with the suspect’s family in McHenry, Illinois, in 1994 at around age 18 after her mother died, leaving her alone when she went to a medical clinic looking for help.
LaRoche, a registered nurse at the clinic, “recognized Peggy’s disability and took her into her home,” said Schmaling.
What followed was five years of “long-term and horrific abuse at the hand of Linda LaRoche,” he said.
Linda Sue LaRoche.
“The arrangement was that Peggy would act as a nanny and housekeeper in exchange for living with the family,” according to the criminal complaint charging LaRoche with one count of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of hiding a corpse.
“Laroche’s children recall that Laroche was very abusive to Peggy and that it was not uncommon for Peggy to have signs of injuries from Laroche,” according to the complaint. “At times when not working for the family, Peggy would be made to sleep and stay in a crawl space under the home. Laroche was verbally and emotionally cruel to Peggy, at times screaming at her like an animal. One recalled Laroche stabbing at Peggy’s head with a pitchfork, one recalled Laroche slapping Peggy in the head and face.”
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“They all recalled seeing Peggy with injuries and one even asked Peggy what had happened to her after noticing a black eye,” the complaint said. “Peggy told the child, who was then an adult, that Laroche had punched her.”
LaRoche directed her husband to take their kids out for ice cream, and when LaRoche returned more than two hours later, she was without Peggy, he said.
He never saw the young woman again, he told investigators.
The body was discovered July 21, 1999, in a cornfield off a road in Raymond, Wisconsin.
No one had reported Johnson missing, the sheriff said.
source: people.com
