A cold case from 1959 involving a missing 7-year-old came to a conclusion last week through DNA identification, decades after charges against the boy’s adoptive parents were dropped for lack of physical evidence.
A human skeleton was discovered on the side of the road in Mequon, Wisconsin, on Oct. 4, 1959, which investigators determined to be the skull of a 6- to 8-year-old child.
At the same time Mequon police officers were following leads about the skull, deputies in nearby Houghton County, Michigan, were looking into the disappearance of an adopted child, Markku Jutila, whose parents fled to Chicago.
Relatives of William and Hilja Jutila became suspicious of the child’s whereabouts after the Jutilas relocated from the Michigan area to Chicago. The Houghton County Sheriff’s Office began working with the Chicago Police Department on the matter.
According to the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office in Wisconsin, the couple were interviewed in Chicago and admitted dumping their adoptive son’s body in a ditch in Mequon.
“The mother, Hilja Jutila, confessed to physically beating her son to death,” the sheriff’s office said.
Case files from the original investigation were not available to authorities, the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office said. Much of what they know from the investigation relies on newspaper articles and some court records.
The Jutilas were charged on March 28, 1966, in Chicago and extradited to Michigan. William and Hilja Jutila had psychological exams in which they claimed that their adopted son was sick for several days before they found him dead in his bedroom.
“They claimed they were afraid of what happened and made the decision to leave their home for Chicago, dumping Markku on the side of the road along the way,” the sheriff’s office said.
The skull found in Mequon had features similar to Markku Jutila, but the charges against the Jutilas were later dismissed because prosecutors lacked corpus delicti — the legal principle that there must be sufficient evidence a crime occurred, such as a body, before someone can be prosecuted for it.
And since prosecutor’s could not definitively identify the skeletal remains as Markku’s, the charges were dropped.
The case was dormant until last year, when agents with Wisconsin’s Justice Department began working with the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory to identify the remains.
“It was determined that investigators would attempt to identify the individual utilizing DNA extracted from the skull and conducting investigative genealogy,” the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office said.
A DNA profile was completed in May, but it did not match any profiles in the national Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS. Additional skeletal remains in the possession of the University of Wisconsin were found to match the skull, however, leading to more evidence.
“Further examination was completed on these remains and it was determined the individual most likely suffered from significant neglect based on their dental health and new bone formation that was a result of infection, trauma to the periosteum, or bleeding,” the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office said.
Investigators were able to piece together some of the case with the help of Michigan State Police, who found Markku’s adoption records.
He was born Chester Alfred Breiney in 1952 and lived in Good Will Farm, an orphanage that has since been renamed. He was presumably named Markku when he was adopted.
During the genealogy investigation, the DNA profile extracted from the remains had “several matches to family members of the Breiney family,” the sheriff’s office said. His birth mother, Josephine Breiney, died in 2001.
Both of his adoptive parents, William and Hilja Jutila, died in 1988.
Authorities have decided to hold a funeral for Chester in Port Washington, Wisconsin, on Friday. He will be buried at St. Mary’s Parish Cemetery just off Lake Michigan.
“Although no one will be prosecuted for Chester Alfred Breiney’s death, Chester may now rest in peace as the truth of his death is known,” the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office said. “No child should leave this Earth like Chester did.”