KEVIN G. HEINL - 19 yo - Covington (I-74; IL border) IN

Search for missing teen under way in western Indiana


Photo by: Provided

Kevin G. Heinl, 19, of Schaumburg is reported missing. His car, a
silver Honda Civic, was found on the side of Indiana 341 in a rural area
just north of Newtown.

COVINGTON, Ind. – The Fountain County, Ind., Sheriff's Department is
looking for a 19-year-old Schaumburg man, who went missing from his
Chicago-area home several hours before his car was found abandoned in
Indiana.
Sheriff William Sanders said Monday that one of his sergeants
interviewed a witness, whom he identified as a female juvenile, who
claims to have seen Kevin G. Heinl in Newtown, Ind., on Saturday night.
The sergeant also recovered Heinl's cell phone from the girl.
The girl told police "someone walked up to her, said, 'Here's a cell
phone,' and turned around and walked off," Sanders said. "Whether that
actually happened or there's more to it, that's what we're delving into
now."
Though family members originally thought he may have been in Danville,
Ill., over the weekend, Danville police said they aren't involved in the
search.
Heinl's family and friends have been searching for him since the
afternoon of March 8 when they last saw him at his home, where he lives
with his parents, said his sister-in-law Laura Heinl. She said her
brother-in-law was supposed to start a new job at the Rainforest Cafe in
Woodfield, Ill., that day but never showed up.
She said family members worry that her brother-in-law may have
experienced a bipolar episode. She added that he has never been
diagnosed with the illness, but a couple of relatives suffered from it.
"He's had some emotional problems," Laura Heinl said, adding family
members alerted the police to that. "On (March , he was saying that he
just wanted to get out of here and go to Miami. He was being really
erratic and confusing. Later, (his parents) thought he was going to
start his job. But then they got a call from the police in Indiana that
they found his car in Fountain County."
Sanders said a deputy found a silver Honda Civic on the side of Indiana
341 in a rural area just north of Newtown. When he approached the car,
it was vacant but still running, and the keys were in the ignition. The
deputy also found a driver's license belonging to Kevin Heinl inside.
Sanders said authorities have searched for Kevin Heinl along roads,
under bridges, in vacant buildings. He added that a police officer from
Vermilion County, Ill. reported to the 911 dispatch center on Saturday
night that he saw a young man, who matched the teen's description,
walking along Indiana 25 in Tippecanoe County toward Lafayette.
"We're going to continue looking to see if he's out there," Sanders
said, adding authorities continue to work the cell phone angle.
He said that one of his sergeants interviewed the juvenile after
learning that she placed him in Newtown over the weekend. When they
showed her Kevin Heinl's picture, she acknowledged seeing him on
Saturday night.
Laura Heinl said when her brother-in-law's friends and family called or
texted his cell phone, it was answered by a 14-year-old girl from
Newtown. She said they originally were led to believe that the girl
bought his cell phone from him in Danville.
"But she's changed her story," Laura Heinl said. "First she said she
got it at a party, then found it on the street, then got it from a
friend."
Laura Heinl said her brother-in-law is about 6-foot tall and weighs
about 175 pounds. He has short brown hair and brown eyes, wears earrings
and used to have a goatee, but recently shaved it for work.
She said he hasn't made any contact with his parents, girlfriend or
other friends or relatives. She said he had about $200 in cash on him
the day he disappeared, but that he doesn't have any credit cards. She
also said the family believes he took his snowboard, Xbox, iPod docking
station and possibly some other items to pawn.
She added that the family is worried and just wants to hear from him.
"I feel like he probably feels like he's in trouble," she said. "We just
hope he's safe, and we want him to come home.
"http://www.news-gazette.com/news/courts-police-and-fire/2011-03-14/search-missing-teen-under-way-western-indiana.html

Missing man's auto found near Newtown

Posted: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 1:15 am
| Updated: 6:49 am, Wed Mar 16, 2011.

Tommy Conroy
Journal Review Online

NEWTOWN — Fountain County Sheriff’s Office is looking for a
missing 19-year-old from Cook County, Ill. after a deputy found his
car last week.

Sheriff William Sanders said the deputy found Kevin Heinl’s car,
a silver Honda Civic, running with the driver’s door open Tuesday
night on S.R. 341 near Newtown.

His license was in the car and the deputy searched for Heinl in
the police database. When nothing came up, Sanders thought that was
it — a deputy had found an abandoned car, which isn’t uncommon. He
said there were no signs of a struggle or anything else to suggest
that the car wasn’t simply abandoned.But a few days later the Cook County Sheriff’s Office called and
asked why Heinl’s name had been ran. Sanders said that’s how his
office found out the man was missing.Fountain County Sheriff’s Office has received a call during the
weekend from a person who claimed to have seen a man who matched
Heinl’s description in Newtown.

Sanders said deputies searched abandoned houses and barns in
Newtown as well as fields and under bridges in the area.“They checked the area really good just to make sure no one was
hurt, no one was out,” he said. “I don’t know anything, I wish we
could find the kid, find out why he left the car there ...
Hopefully something will turn up in the next day or two.”He said a deputy spoke with Heinl’s family who said he wasn’t
from this area and didn’t know anyone from the area either.Heinl is described as being about 6 feet tall and weighing about
175 pounds. He has short, brown hair and brown eyes.He wears earrings and used to have a goatee, which family
members told police he recently shaved off.


http://www.journalreview.com/news/article_d3707926-4f77-11e0-abc9-001cc4c002e0.html

The dental records of a missing Illinois teen could help identify human remains found in Fountain County.

The
dental records of 19-year-old Kevin Heinl of Schaumburg, Illinois,
should arrive Wednesday morning at the desk of Fountain County Deputy
Coroner Wally Hooker, according to Fountain County Sheriff Bill Sanders. Sanders
said they located Heinl's vehicle in the county during the first week
of March. He said it is possible that the remains are Heinl's. The
human remains were found Tuesday morning off County Road 650 North near
US 41. Sanders said a person spraying weed killer in a field found
bones and clothing. He said they spent hours collecting what appeared to
be human bones, a pair of tennis shoes, pants, and sunglasses from the
area. Sanders said the bones were not in a grave, but lying on the
ground. He said he expects to have the results from the dental records
test by Friday.
http://www.wlfi.com/dpp/news/local/Human-remains-could-be-missing-teen

Although human remains found Tuesday in Fountain County may belong to
a missing Illinois teen, questions linger over his disappearance and
death.Testing is being done to determine
whether the bones found in a field along Fountain County Road 650 North
are those of Kevin Heinl, a 19-year-old from Schaumburg, Ill., who went
missing in early March.Fountain
County Coroner Joe Gritten was still waiting for dental records to
compare and for a Lafayette pathologist to conduct an autopsy to
determine the cause of death. Fountain County Sheriff Bill Sanders said
the dental records were en route as of Wednesday night and should be in
the coroner's office this morning. Sanders said the testing will likely
be completed by Friday.Heinl
was supposed to be starting his new job at a Woodfield Mall restaurant
in Schaumburg, Ill., when he left home on March 8. Instead, his car was
found that day abandoned in Fountain County a couple of miles from where
remains were found on Tuesday.Gary
Heinl, Kevin's father, said Wednesday morning that this is the first
significant lead the family's heard in the case in the past two months."It's been silent since his disappearance," he said. "We've heard nothing. His friends have heard nothing."Heinl's
car turned up in Fountain County under strange circumstances. Police
monitoring the scene where a vehicle crashed into electric pole near
Newtown were surprised by the silver Honda Civic belonging to Heinl when
it drove through the group at a high speed, said Sanders."There
was never a chance to see who was driving. It was pouring down rain
that night," Sanders said. "One of my guys took off after the car to ask
why (the driver) had not even slowed through all these people."The
officer found the car parked a short distance down the road in front of
an old grain elevator. The car was still running, with headlights on
and windshield wipers running, but the driver's side door was left open
and no one was inside.Police
searched the immediate area and impounded the vehicle but could not
locate the driver. Sanders said sheriff's officers were out the next
couple of days checking under bridges and around that area to locate the
driver, but it wasn't until two days after the car was abandoned that
Heinl's family reported him missing.
But Chris Heinl, Kevin Heinl's brother, said the family reported the
teen missing to the Cook County Sheriff's Department on March 9, the day
after his car was found.Sanders said police renewed the search when a 14-year-old girl from Newtown turned up with Heinl's cell phone on March 12."The
officer working on it then looked in every outbuilding and abandoned
house near that area," Sanders said. "We looked everywhere."The
girl told police that a man walked up and handed her the phone, but
Sanders said the girl never positively identified Heinl from photographs
that officers showed her. It's possible, he said, that someone else
found the phone and gave it to her.No
messages were sent or calls made from the cell phone after the
afternoon of March 8. But the night before his disappearance, Heinl sent
conflicting text messages to his parents reading, "I can't wait to
start my new job," and "I'm taking off."Gary
Heinl said the global positioning system in his son's car indicated
that he was headed to Florida, where he had friends. However, Sanders
said the car was headed north when police encountered it on March 8.Heinl
may have been suffering from a bipolar episode, his father said. He was
never diagnosed with the mental illness, his father said, but there's a
family history and family members noticed erratic behavior leading up
to Heinl's disappearance.In
the months since the case began in Fountain County, officers there have
met with Heinl's family members and a private investigator. Missing
person fliers posted around the area elicited numerous tips, but none
ever panned out, Sanders said."Everything turned up nothing," he said. "We still don't know if this is him."
http://www.jconline.com/article/20110519/NEWS/105190329/Family-missing-Ill-teen-awaits-word-ID-remains?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

Authorities confirmed midafternoon Thursday that the remains found
Tuesday in a field in Fountain County, Ind., are those of a missing
Schaumburg man.

Fountain County Coroner Joe Gritten matched the dental
records of 19-year-old Kevin Heinl, who has been missing since early
March, with the bones found in a field along County Road 650 North, a
few miles away from where Heinl’s car was found abandoned March 8.

Kevin Heinl’s wallet was found with identification inside along with his body.

An autopsy is scheduled Friday to determine the cause of death.

For Heinl’s family, this news offers some closure.

“Obviously, we’re devastated,” said Heinl’s brother, Chris
Heinl of Streamwood. “The hardest part right now is we don’t know what
happened to him. A 19-year-old kid just doesn’t turn up dead in a
cornfield.”

Chris Heinl said his family is upset it took the Fountain
County Sheriff’s police so long to come up with any leads on his
brother’s disappearance.

“I’m so disappointed and frustrated with the way they
handled the case from day one,” he said. “There is no reason my brother
had to lay out there for two-and-a-half months. They should have gotten
dogs. They should have done a helicopter search. They never really made
any kind of attempt to do that.”

Fountain County Sheriff Bill Sanders could not immediately
be reached for comment Thursday on the criticism, but he did say at the
time the car was found that police combed the area, checking fields,
bridges, abandoned barns and houses.

Heinl’s family took a variety of steps in their own search.
“My family hired a private investigator. We spent $10,000,” Chris Heinl
said, adding that the family also reached out through social networking
sites and fliers seeking clues.

Heinl left his parents’ home in Schaumburg the afternoon of
March 8, supposedly for a new job at Rainforest Café at Woodfield
Shopping Center. He never showed up.

The Conant High School graduate’s 2003 Honda Civic was found
abandoned about 9 p.m. that night half-mile north of Newtown, Ind., a
small town about 35 miles east of Danville, Ill., by sheriff’s police.

Police in Indiana initially followed Heinl’s car after it
passed the scene of an accident at high speed. Officers found the car
abandoned off Hwy. 341 between a large cemetery and grain elevator, with
its engine and windshield wiper blades still running and the driver
side door open.

Heinl’s cellphone was located four days later in the hands
of a 14-year-old girl from Newtown, who identified Heinl from a
photograph as the man who approached her on the street the morning of
March 12, handed her a cellphone and walked away, authorities said.

That was the last anyone saw Heinl.
Read more: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110519/news/705199858/#ixzz1MrTVoGTW

Comment section has a wide variety of responses over two pages.

Article updated: 5/19/2011 4:06 PM

Missing Schaumburg man’s remains found in Indiana

Kevin Heinl

Read more: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110519/news/705199858/#ixzz1NlygvOSM