04-09-2014, 08:16 AM
Gotchya!
![[Image: amber_creek_split.jpg?ve=1&tl=1]](http://a57.foxnews.com/global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/U.S./876/493/amber_creek_split.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Pictured: 14-year-old Amber Creek and her suspected murderer, James Eaton
In January 1997, Amber Creek was a troubled 14-year-old who was a ward of the state after spending the first half of her short life with her mother and the second half with her father. She had struggled with depression, drugs and alcohol.
She ran away from her juvenile detention facility but was not reported missing for 15 days. Her body was found by hunters near a stream in a wildlife refuge area in Wisconsin in February 1997. It took Racine County investigators 16 months to identify Amber.
Amber had been raped, beaten and suffocated with a plastic bag. Her body was posed and the word “hi” was written on her palm, which was turned upward.
DNA evidence was extracted from Amber’s body. Fingerprints were taken off the bag used to suffocate her and sent to LE agencies across the country, but no match was made…until, Stacy Hirschman -- a criminalist at the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation -- was working on cold cases and came across the finger prints that had been sent to OSBI nearly two decades earlier. She ran them through the upgraded version of the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System or IAFIS and got a hit.
The fingerprints belonged to James Eaton, 36, of Palatine, Illinois – the same town where Amber had been living. Two Racine County investigators then began surveillance on Eaton, and they matched DNA found on Creek's body to Eaton after picking up a cigarette he discarded while waiting for a late train in the Chicago metro area.
Eaton had not previously been a suspect, nor was he even mentioned in any investigative reports. He would have been 19 at the time of Amber’s brutal murder.
Eaton is in custody in Racine County, and a $1 million bail has been set for him. He's facing charges of first degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse.
Ref: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local...6673.story
Pictured: 14-year-old Amber Creek and her suspected murderer, James Eaton
In January 1997, Amber Creek was a troubled 14-year-old who was a ward of the state after spending the first half of her short life with her mother and the second half with her father. She had struggled with depression, drugs and alcohol.
She ran away from her juvenile detention facility but was not reported missing for 15 days. Her body was found by hunters near a stream in a wildlife refuge area in Wisconsin in February 1997. It took Racine County investigators 16 months to identify Amber.
Amber had been raped, beaten and suffocated with a plastic bag. Her body was posed and the word “hi” was written on her palm, which was turned upward.
DNA evidence was extracted from Amber’s body. Fingerprints were taken off the bag used to suffocate her and sent to LE agencies across the country, but no match was made…until, Stacy Hirschman -- a criminalist at the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation -- was working on cold cases and came across the finger prints that had been sent to OSBI nearly two decades earlier. She ran them through the upgraded version of the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System or IAFIS and got a hit.
The fingerprints belonged to James Eaton, 36, of Palatine, Illinois – the same town where Amber had been living. Two Racine County investigators then began surveillance on Eaton, and they matched DNA found on Creek's body to Eaton after picking up a cigarette he discarded while waiting for a late train in the Chicago metro area.
Eaton had not previously been a suspect, nor was he even mentioned in any investigative reports. He would have been 19 at the time of Amber’s brutal murder.
Eaton is in custody in Racine County, and a $1 million bail has been set for him. He's facing charges of first degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse.
Ref: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local...6673.story