Police wonder if body in creek is that of missing girl

COLUMBIA, Ill. -- Police were trying to identify the skeletal remains of a female discovered in a suburban St. Louis creek.

An autopsy was scheduled for Friday, a day after the remains were found in a creek bed in Columbia. Investigators will try to identify the remains through dental records.

Late Thursday, detectives from the Major Case Squad and Richmond Heights Police Department showed color photographs of the muddy, green T-shirt and khaki shorts found with the skeletal remains to Christine Kullorn.

Her daughter, Heather Kullorn, was 12 when she disappeared from an apartment in Richmond Heights in July 1999. Police suspect she was murdered.

Richmond Heights police Major Rick Vilcek said Kullorn did not recognize the clothing, though he said that did not necessarily rule out the possibility that the remains were those of Heather.

Detectives plan to show the photographs to other families with women and girls missing. The Major Case Squad also planned to call in an anthropologist to help in the identification.

A crew from the Illinois Department of Transportation discovered the body Thursday afternoon in Wilson Creek along Illinois Route 3.

The cause of death was unclear, and investigators have not ruled out foul play, Columbia police chief Gene Henckler said.

The body was the third discovered this year along busy highways in the Metro East area. The first, which authorities now believe to be a black woman in her 20s, was found Jan. 31 near Mascoutah. The second was found March 11 in Madison County.

Neither has been identified.