Mary Ann Hayes was found dead in her suburban Northfield home in 1996.
Authorities determined she used an extension cord to strangle herself.
Her death was ruled a suicide.
But now, a team of criminal justice experts is pushing to reopen her case. They believe evidence shows that Hayes was killed and staged to look like a suicide.
“We believe the Mary Ann Hayes case is a hidden homicide,” said Casey Gwinn, co-founder and president of Alliance for Hope International.
Alliance for Hope is an advocacy group that trains law enforcement throughout the U.S. to identify and investigate strangulation assaults and staged suicides.
They reviewed Mary Ann’s case, at the request of Hayes’ oldest daughter Robin Altman.
“I know my mother was murdered,” Altman said. “I don’t know who. I don’t know who came into that house. All I know is that these were the events that took place.”
At Altman’s request, Northfield Police reopened the case in 2018.
Police asked Dr. Ponni Arunkumar, Cook County’s Chief Medical Examiner, to review the findings as part of that process.
At the time, Dr. Arunkumar declined to change the ruling in Hayes’ death, from suicide to homicide or undetermined.
Records state that Dr. Arunkumar related that “after further research into this manner of suicide that she was able to confirm one other case of a suicide by self-strangulation.” She told police her finding “provides confirmation that this form of suicide is possible.”
WGN Investigates asked the medical examiner’s office for the name of the “other” case, referenced by Dr. Arunkumar.
But the office was unable to provide it.
“It doesn’t surprise me that Cook County couldn’t find it – because it doesn’t exist,” said Dr. Bill Smock, a forensic physician who works with Alliance.
In its research, Alliance has never seen a case where someone died by self-strangulation, using a ligature without a knot or locking mechanism, or without the use of leverage.
“The reason is that once you go unconscious in [six to eight] seconds, the pressure on that ligature is going to release and blood flow will begin flowing to the brain – and you don’t die,” Smock said.
Through a spokeswoman, Dr. Arunkumar declined to be interviewed on camera because she said the office doesn’t discuss specific cases.
“The office stands by the findings in this case,” the spokeswoman said in an email. “But should additional forensic evidence be presented…we would review that evidence to determine whether the case should be reopened and cause and/or manner of death should be amended.”
More recently, Alliance met with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Cold Case Unit. During that meeting, Smock told attorneys he had identified additional injuries on Hayes’ neck, separate and apart from the ligature mark.
“There would be no other explanation for [the additional injuries] in a self-strangulation,” Gwinn said. “There has to have been other pressure applied to her neck and it has to have been applied repeatedly.”
“There was something else going on here unrelated to the ligature on the neck,” Smock said. “And the most common would be a hand being applied up around the neck – squeezing, causing that trauma…and then the ligature is put on afterwards.
Despite those findings, the state’s attorney’s office wrote to Altman and Alliance last year, saying, “We have determined that there is no new evidence sufficient to change the case’s original disposition of suicide.”
In an email, a state’s attorney’s office spokeswoman said, “As this is still an open case, we are not able to comment.”
Alliance said it plans to continue fighting to reopen the case, believing the evidence is clear.
“Hopefully, they will understand the science, the medicine that says this is a homicide, not a suicide,” Smock said.
In the meantime, Alliance is working on legislation in Illinois that would require an independent law enforcement agency to review a suspicious death, at the request of a family member.
They plan to call it Mary Ann’s Law.
Northfield Police also declined to be interviewed on camera.
In a statement, Northfield Police Chief Bill Lustig said, “After a review of all the investigative information with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, the case was closed with a determination that it would remain classified as a Suicide. The Northfield Police Department has not been provided with any additional information or evidence since that time.”