From what I was told it was reported stolen around the same time our JD crashed the vehicle. Apparently the gentleman who owned the vehicle started his workday rather early in the AM; from what I was told....the vehicle was reported stolen around 4am; the detectives feel JD stole the car around 3am based on the approximately 1hr drive between Gurnee and Delafield.
I thought about Gacy earlier a connection. I did find a John Mowery who was a victim of Gacy, but from my understanding he has been identified. I may be WRONG....but I thought I found out that he didn't match the physical description at all...but again I could be wrong!
To masnitram and cubby: Wow we are all on the same page! I have been thinking the same thing, that this JD was possibly thought to be a victim of Gacy. And cubby, you said it sounds like a long shot-- I truly think that this is what happened, and that's it is not a long shot AT ALL. I think we are onto something. Gacy struck in the Illinois and Wisconsin area. In fact, he killed a boy on September 16, 1977 I think it was (if I'm not mistaken, or it could have been off a few days)... and JD died on the 14th, just a couple days prior. Word was probably flooding the local areas of a serial killer, and when JD went missing, perhaps his family was told by authorities he was likely a Gacy victim. In fact, I feel that the entire Gacy case should be re-examined. The thing is, Michael Marino was misidentified! A body, for years, was told to be Michael and years later it was told it was not Michael. Michael Marino was said to be a Gacy victim for plenty years... not anymore! The media seems hush hush about this. But it's true. So that makes me wonder how many other bodies are misidentified in general, but particularly in this Gacy case. I think it's likely there are other misidentified bodies in this case. ALSO, another HUGE factor is that of Gary Lowell. He went missing around that time , and his family was told by authorities he was likely a Gacy victim, so no missing person report was filed! And then, 30 years later, Gary Lowell was found ALIVE. He was indeed NOT a Gacy victim, as suspected. There are still other Gacy victims' bodies laying unidentified, which means that anyone who went missing (esp young men) during that time, esp in that area, is probably "assumed" to be a victim. I truly feel this is what happened. I've looked into the Gacy case extensively, and there are a few of the supposed-victims who resemble John Doe. Also, I've watched an interview in which Gacy insisted he did indeed kill 3 boys but didn't kill the 1 John Butkovich. However, JB went missing in 75 so it's likely Gacy did kill him, or perhaps since he was a serial killer, Gacy's crimes were over-extended, or applied to any case during that time and area. There is so much flawed in the Gacy case. However, I know about the priority factor, and authorities can't just up and re-examine a case, due to funding, budgets, etc. But I hope they can fit it in someday soon. Because NOT ONLY Gary Lowell re-surfaced ALIVE, but there was yet another man who was found alive who was supposedly thought to be a Gacy victim! Two people went missing from the late 70's and no missing person report was filed for either one. This also makes me wonder if it was even a known thing to file a report back then. I wasn't alive in the 70's so I don't know. But nowadays of course we have amber alerts, and when someone goes missing it's like it's all over the media (well for some people, that is!... for some, they never make it to the media). But at least nowadays I think almost everyone knows to file a report. There was also the case of Tawni Mazzone in which the family supposedly filed a report, but it was never "filed" into the police station's system or records. So the report was never really created. So much of this relates to erred practices. We cannot avoid error, and I'm not criticizing the system, because we're always going to have error- it's inevitable. But I truly think something went wrong here along the lines... there was either an error in his case , perhaps the file wasn't actually entered in the system, or maybe it was entered with the wrong date so no correlations were found to match, or maybe the error was made that he was told to be a Gacy victim, or maybe even another body was misidentified of this John Doe's identity. Otherwise, if it's not error, then that would just be even sadder- that would mean that no one is truly looking hard enough for him. If his family member or friend typed online " missing since 1977 " this case would come right up. Either that or perhaps his fam / friends don't know how to search online, or never considered it. Or what if he was from another country and his people ARE searching for him, just in another language? I have typed in google in other languages but yielded no results.