Arrest made in Wis. cold murder case

MILWAUKEE — A woman known for two decades simply as “Jane Doe” after her battered remains were found on the edge of a Wisconsin cornfield was a cognitively impaired 23-year-old who sought help from a nurse now accused of “barbaric brutality” and charged in her death, investigators who worked the case for years without a lead said Friday.

Linda Sue La Roche, 64, was arrested Tuesday in the death of Peggy Lynn Johnson, a homeless woman whom La Roche took into her home in McHenry, Illinois, five years before her body was discovered on July 21, 1999. According to a criminal complaint, La Roche, who now lives in Cape Coral, Florida, admitted that she abused Johnson for years, and she was charged Thursday with first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse.

Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said she waived extradition to Wisconsin.

“All of us here who have investigated the deaths of individuals during the course of our careers have seen many troubling things. However, the utter barbaric brutality inflicted on this young woman is something none of us will ever forget,” Schmaling said.

According to the criminal complaint, a passer-by found Johnson’s beaten body while walking his dog. An autopsy showed she was malnourished, had been struck in the head shortly before death, and had a broken nose and broken ribs, some of which were broken after death and some of which had been previously broken and were healing.

Johnson had also been burned, possibly with a chemical, over 25 percent of her body and had branding marks. The autopsy report shows she died from sepsis pneumonia due to infection from injuries she suffered during chronic abuse.

In September, authorities received a tip that a woman living in Florida, La Roche, was telling people she had killed a woman when she lived in Illinois.

Last month, authorities interviewed one of La Roche’s children, who said Johnson had been homeless when La Roche took Johnson in, and Johnson provided nanny and housekeeping services in exchange.

Court and legal documents spelled the defendant’s name variously as La Roche, LaRoche and Laroche, and it wasn’t immediately clear which was correct.