A Marengo man has been charged with killing his ex-girlfriend from McHenry County and hiding her body, which was “partially mummified,” in a storage unit for several months.
Jonathan J. Van Duyn, 33, of the 400 block of Locust Street in Marengo, has been charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of concealing a homicidal death, according to court records.
Michelle Arnold-Boesigner, 33, of Harvard, was reported missing to the Holiday Hills Police Department on January 3.
The Holiday Hills Police Department later turned the investigation over to the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office on January 26.
Through the course of the investigation, probable cause was established to obtain a search warrant at the U-Haul Storage of Roscoe, 12522 North 2nd Street in Roscoe, the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office said.
The McHenry County Sheriffโs Office, Winnebago County Sheriffโs Office, Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigations and Roscoe Police Department executed the warrant search on March 2.
Officers found a deceased body inside the storage unit at the facility, according to the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office.
The Winnebago County Coronerโs Office identified the body as Arnold-Boesigner.
Winnebago County State’s Attorney J. Hanley said that Arnold-Boesigner’s body was found in the storage unit inside a black Jeep Renegade registered to Van Duyn.
Arnold-Boesigner’s body was “in a state of purification and was partially mummified.”
Hanley said phone records placed Van Duyn with Arnold-Boesigner at the storage facility in mid-November.
Hanley also said that the woman’s debit card was used to purchase “odor eliminating products” along with heavy-duty garbage bags and Gorilla tape, which were found in Van Duyn’s Jeep.
Van Duyn used Arnold-Boesigner’s debit card multiple times for several weeks after he is alleged to have killed her, Hanley said.
Van Duyn was charged in December 2019 in McHenry County with aggravated domestic battery by strangulation, two counts of domestic battery and one count of criminal damage to property.
Van Duyn, who was Arnold-Boesigner’s boyfriend, was accused of stealing the woman’s pain medication and strangling her in July 2019, according to an order of protection petition that she filed shortly after that incident.
Arnold-Boesigner claimed that Van Duyn bit her lips to get her to stop yelling and continued to strangle her until she nearly blacked out, the order of protection petition said.
“I am afraid of what Jonathan may be capable of, especially now that the police and courts have become involved. I am afraid for my safety,” Arnold-Boesigner said at the end of her petition.
Van Duyn was arrested in Indiana in December. He was transported to the McHenry County Jail on the domestic battery charges and later extradited to Wisconsin for an unrelated criminal case
Van Duyn remains held in Wisconsin pending extradition back to Illinois in the murder case. He will be held on a $5 million bond.