The mother of a missing Illinois State University student was braced for the worst Wednesday–and it came with police identifying a body found in Mississippi as that of her daughter, Olamide Adeyooye.
Dental records identified the 21-year-old senior from west suburban Berkeley who was majoring in laboratory science and due to graduate in December.
Her body was badly burned and found in the remains of a chicken coop east of Jackson, Miss., in the vicinity of Interstate Highway 55, which runs through Normal and the ISU campus.
Newton County, Miss., authorities believe Adeyooye was killed in Illinois. It takes about 12 hours to travel from ISU to where the body was found in Mississippi.
“We believe that she was already deceased,” said Newton Sheriff Jackie Knight. “… I believe that the day they found her missing was around the time of her death.”
Adeyooye was reported missing Oct. 15, a day after she failed to show up for work at a Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Normal. The fire on the farm occurred on Oct. 17, but her body was not discovered until workers on Friday were cleaning up after the blaze.
Normal police Lt. Mark Kotte said investigators have interviewed “persons of interest,” but are not calling any of them suspects. Still, “Finding Olamide’s body leads our investigation in a specific direction,” he said.
He previously has said investigators do not believe that Adeyooye was murdered by someone “preying on college students.”
Police continue to seek Adeyooye’s car, a 1996 green Toyota Corolla with Illinois registration LBG 927.
The Adeyooye family had feared the news. Adeyooye’s mother, Oluwayinka, had prayed the body discovered Friday was not her daughter’s. The fact that the body was burned only compounded her agony.
She said her daughter was a gifted student who wanted to pursue a career in genetic research, working in a laboratory. She recalls her daughter always taking school seriously, sometimes staying up until 3 or 4 a.m. to complete a class project while at Proviso West High School.
Oluwayinka Adeyooye said she immigrated to the United States from Nigeria because she wanted to provide her children with a good education and a better life. Olamide Adeyooye was 8 when the family moved to Berkeley.
“She worked hard, hard to be successful in her life and when it comes time to enjoy the fruits of your labor and somebody does that [to her],” Oluwayinka Adeyooye said, staring blankly at a muted television.
Just a little over 5 feet tall, and weighing around 100 pounds, Adeyooye probably stood little chance of defending herself, her mother said.
Adeyooye moved to an off-campus apartment the second semester of her junior year, despite her mother urging her to remain on campus in a dormitory where it was safer.
“But you know children,” her mother said, “they will do what they want to do.”
Adeyooye had just moved to the small apartment on the second floor of a two-story building in September, her friends said.
She was strong in her Catholic faith. Two years ago, while other students partied on Florida beaches, Adeyooye spent her spring break volunteering at a homeless shelter in Miami, recalled her close friend Samantha Troha, 21, of Hillside.
“She just loved it,” Troha said. “She had a wonderful time just helping people.”
ISU President Al Bowman said a memorial service is planned on campus next week. “During this troubling time for our campus community, it is more important than ever that we come together as a family,” Bowman said.
Adeyooye touched many lives on the ISU campus. Many of her friends had participated in a search to locate her over the last weeks, with several posting concerned messages about her on online blogs that circulated around the country.
Adeyooye jumps off the page of her personal blog as a vibrant young woman with a passion for science, learning, music and a good party.
“A woman of high caliber,” she says in the opening of a profile of herself. “I love school,” she continued. “… It’s extremely marvelous to be educated,” calling herself a proud “science geek.”
Childhood friends described Adeyooye as a lively personality who lit up a room with her spirit and good humor.
“We liked to laugh and have a good time. We just would have a good time no matter what we were doing–if we were going out to dinner or to class,” said Julie Chaudhary, a friend of Adeyooye’s since elementary school.
Chaudhary and Adeyooye worked together on the Key Club, a community volunteer organization at Proviso West High School. Adeyooye was the club’s president for a time, and the two helped set up for a breast cancer walk, sold peanuts on street corners for community fundraisers and gathered food for food drives, among other efforts.
“She just wanted to help with service groups and to help people,” said Charles Jalove, a guidance counselor at Proviso West and the Key Club moderator.
Proviso West Principal Alexis Wallace said Adeyooye was a National Honor Society member and a standout student.
“She was going to find a way to help people whether it was going to be through discoveries in science or eventually something in medicine,” Wallace said. “… She had a purpose, and she was fulfilling her purpose.”
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