Jerry Davich: Murder of two pregnant sisters still a cold case 38 years later
JERRY DAVICH jdavich@post-trib.com December 17, 2011 10:38PM
Larry Pope, left, and Pam Bottila release balloons at the gravesite of two of his murdered sisters at Calvary Cemetery in Portage Tuesday Dec. 13, 2011. Thirty eight balloons represented the years since the girls were found side by side, dead from shotgun blasts, in Gary. Bottila was the girls' cousin. | Andy Lavalley~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: January 19, 2012 10:39AM
Thirty-eight years ago this week, the bodies of two young women were found lying next to each other in what was then called East Gary.
Their bodies were found by a city worker in a dumping ground near a sewer lift station, fully clothed with jeans, black boots and red hooded jackets.
They were killed by single shotgun blasts at close range. They were sisters. And they were both pregnant.
After all these years, the case is as cold as the day I visited their adjacent gravesites, buried for eternity with their unborn babies.
“They were murdered in cold blood and cast away in the wind like trash or something,” said their cousin, Pam Bottila of Lake Station, as we stared at the sisters’ new headstones at Calvary Cemetery in Portage. “But their family has not forgotten them, and we never will.”
Sharon Pope DeJesus, who was 20, and Lillian Pope, who was just 18, were walking along U.S. 20 in Gary on the night of Dec. 13, 1973. DeJesus, who lived in Gary, had just left work at Calvin’s Grill on Dunes Highway, and the women were reportedly heading to the nearby 12-20 Bowling Alley, according to news accounts.
“The two homicides were ‘definitely not sex slayings,’ ” a Post-Tribune story stated, quoting a police detective. “The head of one of the victims apparently had been severely battered.”
The front page story ran with a sobering photo of the crime scene, as East Gary Police Chief Harold LaSage walked around the women’s face-down bodies.
“Somebody had to have seen or known something back then, but nobody ever did,” said Larry Pope, one of the sisters’ many siblings, earlier this week. “It blows my mind that still after all these years no one has come forward to help solve these murders. It’s a sad shame is what it is.”
‘We’ve waited long enough’
DeJesus, a sweet, quiet and child-like woman, according to her family, was already a mother of two boys at the time of her killing. Since her death, one of her sons took his life as an adult, Bottila said.
“The other son has had many problems, too, but maybe that wouldn’t have happened if Sharon wasn’t killed,” she said.
Lillian Pope was eight months pregnant when she was killed, and her baby was removed from her body and laid to rest at her feet in the casket, Bottila said.
“They may have been going Christmas shopping that night,” she said. “Instead, they were gunned down and their bodies were not even hidden, as if someone wanted them to be found.”
This past Tuesday, on the 38th anniversary of the sister’s deaths, Bottila and other relatives returned to the cemetery to decorate the gravesites with balloons, flowers and newfound hope.
“We’re still hopeful that someone will come forward,” Bottila said. “We’ve waited for closure long enough.”
Larry Pope, a younger brother of the sisters, has been visiting the cemetery for many years and he thought clues to the killings were being left at the gravesite in the form of trinkets, angels and carvings. But that was the handiwork of Bottila, whom he just met this past year.
He also sees the killings as four murders, not just two, considering both his sisters were pregnant.
“I’ve talked to three different administrations in Lake Station (formerly East Gary) through the years but the case is still cold as the day my sisters were killed,” Pope said.
He has his own theories of what may have happened, though. One involves a possible lover’s spat between one of his sisters and the killer. The other is following a lingering rumor that one of the sisters got pregnant from a police officer, and she would no longer keep quiet about his secret.
“It may sound far-fetched, but how else do you explain that not a single person has said anything for all these years? Until now, I hope.”
If anyone has information about the killings or this case, call the Lake Station police at 962-1186. If anyone has something to tell Pope or Bottila about this case, they can contact me. I will also be discussing this issue on my “Out to Lunch” radio show at noon Monday on WVLP, 98.3-FM, www.wvlp.org. Call in with any leads at 476-9000.
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