Exactly 44 years after two teenage girls were found murdered in a forest preserve in Morton Grove - a crime that shocked and terrified the northwest suburbs - the case remains unsolved, and the family of one of the victims says police haven’t done enough to bring the killer to justice.
Niles West High School seniors Susie Ovington and Eyvonne Bender, both 17, were headed to a shopping mall on the afternoon of Sept. 5, 1979, when they went missing. Hours later, a search party found their bodies in a nearby Cook County Forest Preserve. Both girls had been shot multiple times.
As their families grieved, they waited and waited to learn who could have committed such a horrific crime. Years passed – and the answers never came.
Susie’s siblings Judy Sanfilippo and Dick Ovington both said they remember that day like it was yesterday - and their baby sister’s death changed their family forever.
“She just was probably the most wonderful, happiest kid you ever want to hang around with,” Sanfilippo said. “She’ll always be 17 years old. She will never, never be older than that. And we miss her still. Still.”
“Somebody like that is taken away from you, in the way she was taken from us - it rips a part of you away,” Ovington added.
Sanfilippo said the Morton Grove Police Department’s response frustrated her family from the very beginning. That frustration only grew as time went on, and as the case passed through generations of investigators.
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“When you talk to the police, they say, ‘We'll keep in touch. We'll keep you informed.’ And they don't,” she said.
“It got to the point where they just were talking in circles,” Ovington said. “It's like they all read off the same script. You get the same answers. And they walk away. And that's what it's been like for 44 years.”
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“We just started realizing that they're not doing a thing,” he continued. “They’re telling us the same old story.”
Morton Grove police declined NBC 5’s request for an interview, but Commander Dennis Johnson said via phone that he understood the family’s frustration.
Police said in a statement that the case was reviewed by forensic specialists in the early 2000s, then again with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office Cold Case Unit in 2005.
That statement said police have been “actively working” on the case since 2020. Johnson said that was when investigators started fresh with reinterviews and DNA analysis. But he couldn’t speak to what happened over all those years in between.
“Why is it taking this long?” Ovington asked. “I mean, you've got evidence, you've got DNA, you've got people that you've talked to through all these years. Why is it taking this long?”
Earlier this year, a high school friend of the girls filed a public records request with Morton Grove police, looking to understand just that. That request was denied in May, as police said the release of any reports would be “detrimental” to the active, now decades-old investigation. Investigators wrote in a letter on the denial that they had an additional 62 interviews they planned to complete “in the near future.”
“Now all of a sudden, what, they're telling us they have 60 more people to interview and it's 44 years later? And you have more people to interview?” questioned Sanfilippo.
Cook County Crimestoppers is now offering a $10,000 reward – paid for by an anonymous high school classmate of Susie and Eyvonne – for information leading to an arrest. Morton Grove police said they need the public’s help in order to solve the case.
“We really encourage anybody that can remember anything or has any information - even if they think it’s not important - I’d rather they just call and give us that information,” Johnson said. “You never know. It just takes one person, one small thing, that can push a cold case, or any case, over the finish line.”
Sanfilippo and Ovington said they hope this renewed push will finally bring them justice – even if it will never bring back the baby sister they love so dearly.
“There will never be closure. I don’t believe in the word closure,” Sanfilippo said. “But it's getting churned up again. And we're more than willing to churn it up. Because now we're mad. Now, we’re mad.”
“You walk through the house, you see her picture and boom - you start thinking of when she was around and being without her for 44 years, it’s what could have been, what should have been,” Ovington said. “Even if it comes to an end, it never will.”
Anyone with information on the case can call (847) 663-3815 to speak directly to a detective or submit a tip anonymously via the hotline at (847) 663-3828. Tips can also be shared by emailing tipshotline@mortongroveil.org or tips@cookcountycrimestoppers.org.
