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October 21, 2005
Search Continues For Missing Berkley Woman
Student's Personal Items Found Outside Her Apartment
NORMAL, Illinois -- Police launched a criminal investigation Wednesday into the disappearance of a 21-year-old Illinois State University student who hasn't been seen since she rented a movie nearly a week ago.
Police said they haven't yet concluded foul play was involved in the disappearance of Olamide Adeyooye, a senior from Berkeley in suburban Chicago. But new evidence and interviews with friends, family and others point to a possible crime, police said.
"The signs lead us to believe there very well could have been a crime committed," said Normal police Lt. Mark Kotte.
Police had considered the disappearance a missing-person case until a search on Wednesday turned up personal items belonging to Adeyooye near her off-campus apartment, Kotte said. He said evidence collected at her apartment and interviews also led police to suspect possible wrongdoing. He declined to elaborate.
Adeyooye was last seen renting a movie about 9 p.m. last Thursday at a store in Normal, according to a Web site about the case posted by the 20,000-student university. Her family reported her missing Saturday after she missed classes and her weekend job as a waitress. Police say her green 1996 Toyota Corolla also is missing.
Kotte said canine and aircraft searches will continue and that the FBI and Illinois State Police will help with the investigation.
Adeyooye was to graduate in December with a degree in criminal laboratory sciences and planned to return to the Chicago area to work at a hospital lab, said Samantha Troha, 21, a longtime friend and spokeswoman for Adeyooye's family.
Troha said she saw Adeyooye when she was home for the weekend nearly two weeks ago, and talked to her on the phone daily the week she disappeared. "There were no signs of any problems. She had the normal college stressful life, no stress out of the ordinary," said Troha, of Hillside.
ISU police Capt. Don Knapp said his department receives occasional missing person reports, but Adeyooye's disappearance is the first case to be elevated to a criminal investigation since two ISU coeds were killed in unrelated incidents in the 1970s.
Posted by Nealus at October 21, 2005 08:21 AM
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