Susie Ovington & Eyvonne Bender

Warning, this episode contains graphic crime scene detail. Please listen with discretion. All witnesses, suspects, and persons of interest are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now on true crime, and then together, we're gonna work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hi, guys. Welcome to this week's episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. I have been fighting a sinus infection issue losing my voice all week long. My voice still isn't great. So we are not going to do a right now and true crime for this episode because I really struggle to talk without having to clear my throat or cough. And it is just so, so frustrating. Luckily, this episode is pre-recorded, so you don't have to listen to me sound hoarse the whole time because my voice is very up and down right now. Yesterday, I had no voice at all, hardly. And it's better, but not great. So we will catch up on any right now and true crime things on next week's episode. And we're going to go ahead and get into this week's case. Alrighty, guys, today we are jumping in to a brand new unsolved case. In this week's episode, I'm going to be telling you about the September 1979 double unsolved homicide case. of two 17-year-old girls out of Morton Grove, Illinois. The murders of Susie Ovington and Yvonne Bender are still unsolved, and 47 years later, their families and loved ones are left with more questions than answers. This case is solvable, and it very much deserves a second look, and it deserves our attention. Let's go ahead and dive into this week's case. Susan T. Ovington was born on June 7th of 1962 to her parents, Richard Ovington and Florence. Susie is described as loving animals and children and dreaming of growing up one day to be able to work with children. She's described by her sister Judy as a sweet and wonderful, happy kid. Susie had also recently learned how to sew and had began to make her own clothes, which is something she very much took pride in and she loved doing. Susie was also very reliable. If she said she was going to be home at a certain time, she was always home. She was pretty much a creature of habit. Susie's best friend was a girl named Yvonne Lynn Bender, who was born on April 18th of 1962 in Chicago, Illinois. I could only find a name for her mother. Her mother is named Irene. I was not able to find a name for her father. She is described as nice, lovable, and very dedicated to her church, which is a place that she went two times a week. She loves disco and was always having a good time and enjoyed cooking. She especially enjoyed cooking for her boyfriend Larry and his family. Like I said, Yvonne and Susie were best friends, and people very much described it as if you saw one of them, you would likely see the other. They did spend a lot of their time together. Both Susie and Yvonne were 17 years old and attended Niles West High School, where they were about to enter their senior year. They are both described as good students and good kids. Yvonne was dating a guy named Larry. He was 22 years old, and they were in a serious, committed relationship. They had even spoken about getting married in the future. Susie was dating a guy named Joe, who also happened to be best friends with Larry. So Yvonne and Larry essentially introduced Susie and Joe. So it was like best friends dating best friends, which is really, really cool. And I love that dynamic. Now, off the record, I have seen a lot of pushback on any conversations I've seen around this case about how The girls had these older boyfriends and basically people just talking about how the older guys are dating these two young high school girls. And while I agree in present day, it would be extremely weird. In 1979, it was very, very normal for older guys in their 20s to date girls in high school. This was not unheard of. This is something that was very common. And like I said, different time, different place. So when you're listening to the story, listen to it in a 1979 context and not a 2026 context. So on Wednesday, September 5th of 1979, Susie and Yvonne had planned to go shopping for their back-to-school clothes at a local store called the EJ Corvette Shopping Mall. It was located at the intersection of Waukegan Road and Dempster Street, operating as a two-story Corvette City discount apartment store. The following year, in 1980, the entire chain closed. Now, this store was. Part of the Prairie View Plaza, and it opened in 1963. So, this place had been open for a long time, by the time 1979 came around. It was your typical department type of store that sold apparel, records, household goods, and appliances. Now, the girls were originally supposed to start school on that very same day, but there was actually a teacher strike going on. So that meant that they had another day left to summer break, which means that they had another day left to go shopping and get everything ready for school. Yvonne had told her mom. that the girls had plans and that they were going to go shopping and that they would plan to be home by 5 p.m. For dinner. So a little before 2.30 p.m., the girls took Yvonne's family car from Susie's house, located at 840 West Oakton Street, and headed off for the mall. What happens after that is very unclear, because 5 p.m. came and went, and Yvonne and Susie did not return home. Yvonne had told her mom that she would be back by 5 o'clock for her family dinner, and she missed it. And obviously that did worry her family some because Yvonne was always very prompt, but they didn't want to jump to conclusions. But Yvonne did follow her schedule very promptly. If she was out doing something, she would always be home for 5 p.m. Dinner. And then after she finished dinner, she would call her boyfriend Larry and they would chat. And it was a Wednesday, so she always attended church on Wednesday evenings. When Larry, who is Yvonne's boyfriend, didn't hear from her at their typical time, he became concerned because this was very unusual for her. He called her house around 6.30 to check in. And at this point, Yvonne's mom had answered the phone and told him that Yvonne hadn't come home yet. Larry was immediately concerned and had a gut feeling that something was wrong. And what did he do? He called his best friend, Joe, who had been dating Susie. So right away, he wasn't able to get a hold of Joe, but he was able to call him back and later get a hold of him around 8 o'clock. Now, Joe said he hadn't heard from either one of the girls, but that he had seen Yvonne's car around 6 p.m. parked in the lot by the Parking Mini Golf Place. Now, the parking mini golf was located at 6711 West Dempster Street, and this was very close to where the girls had planned to go shopping that day. The mini golf place didn't open until 7 o'clock, so Joe was a little confused as to why Yvonne's car was there, but again, he didn't really put a whole lot of thought into it. And again, I have to say, remember, this was 1979 and cell phones were not a thing. So Larry not being able to get a hold of. Joe just means that Joe wasn't home or wasn't directly by his phone. It was a landline phone. So you actually had to be home to answer the phone. And the area in which the parking golf course was and the Corvettes was, was pretty much a main drag through town. that Joe would have had to drive by in order to pass through town, go towards his home. So him being in that area and seeing the car wasn't really out of the realm of possibility. And he likely drove by, saw the car, didn't really think anything of it and just went home. And that is where Larry got in touch with him. And that is when they realized that something possibly could be wrong. Because Joe and Larry very much realized that this was super out of character for Susie and Yvonne. So Larry went to Joe's house and they knew that they had to do something. So they ended up calling some of their family and they organized a search party to go to try and find the girls. Now, this day and age, things would be a lot different. If somebody doesn't show up where they're supposed to be or you don't know where they are, you try to call them on their cell phone. But back in the day, there was no. Way to do that. So if you wanted to find somebody that you couldn't get in touch with, you had to go physically find them. So they decided to start at St. Paul Woods in Cook County Forest Preserves, which was extremely close to the mall where Sue and Yvonne were going shopping. Now, this was an area that honestly didn't have the best reputation even back then. It was a huge teenage hangout spot where teens would go to smoke pot and drink, and it was often a place where people would go to buy or sell drugs. So Larry, Joe, and their crew of seven split into two groups to search the woods. This was roughly around 9 p.m. It was dark. There was also kind of a small river that crosses into the area. And Larry had walked towards the river. And when he walked towards that river, he had spotted a pool of blood and a hairbrush. And obviously this alarmed him. But they continued to walk and search. And it was then that they came across the bodies of Yvonne and 25 feet away, the body of Susie. They immediately called the police to report what they had found. Once investigators got to the scene, it was noted that each girl was shot in the head and also they had been shot several other times. Investigators also found the pool of blood and the hairbrush about 50 feet away from the girls. Now, both girls had wounds that were consistent with them being dragged to the spot where their bodies were found. So it is very much believed that they were attacked and shot in the spot where the blood was found, and then they were dragged into the brush area. In reports, they are described as partially clothed, but that is really as far as it goes. The area that the girls were found was on a trail behind the Goldblatt's department store. On September 6th of that year, autopsies were conducted, and the gunshot wounds were said to have come from a larger caliber gun. Susie had been shot in the chest and her leg, as well as her head, and Yvonne was shot in her arm and her head. There was a total of five shots between the two girls. And it was a larger caliber gun. So these shots would have been significantly loud. And it wasn't in the middle of the night. It wasn't anything like that. This happened, likely. during the daytime, during a time when there would have been people around, and five gunshots would have set off alarm bells for a lot of people if they were in the area. It is believed that the murder happened around 3 p.m., which isn't long after the girls had arrived at the mall. So currently, we don't really know very many details about the crime itself. We, like I said, do know that the girls were shot with a high-caliber gun. We know that there. Is DNA evidence, but we don't know exactly what that DNA evidence is. It was not reported if the girls were sexually assaulted or not. The details of the investigation have been kept very private over the years, and there isn't really a lot that is publicly known. And I'm sure investigators have their reasons for this, of course. It's also interesting to note that both Susie and Yvonne's purses were found in Yvonne's unlocked car. It is unclear if they ever even made. It to Corvette's to go shopping that day. With the timeline of them possibly being killed at 3 p.m., they really wouldn't have had much time to do so. A report in 2008 shows the first mention of a suspect whose name was redacted. An RC cola bottle and two cheek swabs were compared to DNA that was found under Susie's fingernails. It was not a match. The reports show, again in 2011, there was more activity on this case. Morton Grove police sent clothing, fingerprints, and hair samples to the state lab. Again, no hits. So since there has been so little progress over the years in this case, one of Susie and Yvonne's classmates, decided to submit a Freedom of Information Act request for the case files. And this, of course, as we know, was denied. And we hear this a lot. The case is still technically open. Although they may not be actively investigating anybody, the case is still not closed. So they will not release the case files to anybody. And at this point in time, when this classmate submitted this request, they said that it would be detrimental to their investigation to release it. And at this point in time, when this request was made, there was only a $ 1, 000 reward. Being offered for information. In 2023, right ahead of the 44th anniversary of the murders of Susie and Yvonne, a former classmate and friend of the girls who wished to remain anonymous contacted the Cook County Crime Stoppers, and offered to increase the cash reward for information leading to an arrest from $ 1, 000. To $ 10, 000. And obviously, this did kind of reinvigorate the case, and it was back in the media again. And law enforcement shared at this point that beginning in 2020, they had begun to go back through everything in the case. They said that they were re-interviewing witnesses and talked to those that were close to Susie and Yvonne. Now, the victims' families obviously have been on this journey since 1979. They have also been super open about the fact that they haven't really gotten much communication from law enforcement during the investigation at all. 44-plus years of not much communication and They have gone through many detectives over the years with little to no communication from anyone about the case, where it stands, potential persons of interest, suspects, anything like that. In the 2020 reinvestigation into the case, investigators did state that they did question about 45 people and that they had planned to interview 62 more in the quote unquote near future. So that was as of 2023. And they had a list of these people that they were going to be going through and interviewing. And the families of the victims were very encouraged by this. And they had been kept in the dark for so long. So they had reached out to see if they could maybe look at the list of the people to be of some assistance to investigators. Obviously, their families knew them best. Susie and Yvonne's siblings knew them well, knew their circle of friends, and thought that looking at this list could possibly offer investigators a little bit of assistance into how people may possibly be connected to Susie and Yvonne, and it could help them, obviously, in their investigation as they were going through this list of people. So they had scheduled a meeting with them so they could look at this list, but last minute it was canceled and investigators would go on to say that they were not going to be sharing anything publicly or with the family. And this is. Where my frustration lies when it comes to these older, colder cases. It has been so long. The families have received very little from them over the years, and these murders are still unsolved. Give the families what you know within reason, of course, and maybe they can find a way to help. Maybe they know something that they don't even realize they know until they see something in a case file. Because obviously there has been no success up until this point in solving this case. So what really do you have left to lose? So there really isn't anything publicly known about any persons of interest or any known suspects in this case. Now, there was the one that was redacted, but that person was allegedly ruled out. Now, I know what everyone is thinking. The boyfriends, were they cleared? Did they have alibis? What is their story? Larry and Joe were reportedly cleared by law enforcement in the beginning stages of this investigation, and it is said. That they had nothing to do with Susie and Yvonne's murders. Now, like I said, there is no information that is shared with the details of this, what their alibis were, anything like that, but it is reported that they were in fact cleared, along with the remainder of the search party that found the girls that evening. Now, there is something interesting. About a month before the murders, there was a teenage girl who was sexually assaulted in the exact same woods where the girls were murdered. So she was held at knife point and assaulted. This girl was able to get away, but the perpetrator was never caught. Could this have been related? Could this have escalated from a possible sexual assault to murder? the girls getting attacked and murdered. So that is kind of where the case stands today. Unfortunately, Susie's parents have both passed away. Florence passed away in 2007 and Richard in 2019. Both of them passed away. Before ever getting answers as to what exactly happened to their daughter. Yvonne's parents, as far as I know, are still living, and both girls have siblings who fight for their sisters and want resolution in their cases. This case deserves to be solved, and whoever is responsible for their deaths needs to be off the street. I just personally feel like with the DNA evidence that they have, this one is very much solvable. I wish that the police department was a little more open and transparent, not necessarily with the public, but with Susie and Yvonne's families, because if anyone deserves to know what is going on in their cases, it's them. And like I said, they might be able to offer some insight into who potentially could have done this if they see the list of people that they want to question, they want to go through. I know law enforcement wants to protect the integrity of the investigation, and I do understand that, but it has been such a long time. Since these crimes occurred. And I truly do not believe that anybody in Susie Orovan's family would ever do anything to harm this case or ruin any investigative leads. I simply just think transparency is what they are asking for. And I think that that's fair after they have been kept in the dark for such a long time. Every single day, cold cases are being solved via DNA evidence that was left behind because back in 1979, they weren't really able to do anything with that DNA. But DNA advancements are rapidly changing. Every single day, we are hearing of a new cold case that is being solved via investigative genetic genealogy or any other type of DNA testing. But that only happens when law enforcement is actively pursuing leads and actively keeping their foot on. The gas of a case. And I hope that that is what is happening behind the scenes and we're just not privy to it. But I do think that it is entirely possible to solve Susie and Yvonne's case in 2026. There has to be something somewhere. There has to be a hit in CODIS. There has to be something that they can do with that DNA to tie it to a suspect or suspects because it's not out of the realm of possibility that there is more than one suspect here. We don't know that for sure, of course, but it is something that is worth looking into. Despite all of this, there is no reason at all for Susie and Yvonne's lives to have been taken that day. Whoever did this was a heinous, heinous monster. And does not need to be on the street. They need to be apprehended and they need to be charged and tried and all of the things so they can no longer harm anybody else. Because 1979 to 2026 is a heck of a long time. And these girls didn't even get to enter their senior year of high school. They didn't get to go to college. They didn't get to get married, start families, have their careers. And live their lives. And the world was robbed of what sounds like two very special girls who had their whole future ahead of them. And then I also sympathize with Larry and Joe because their girlfriends were viciously taken. And I'm sure they, at the time, were thrust into the spotlight and shadow of suspicion. And they've probably lived their life under this microscope, so to say, because this case has not been solved. So I'm sure, like I said on Reddit, there's a lot of people that have a lot of things to say about the age difference and the circumstances there. and so on and so forth. But none of that stuff really matters because I do believe that the day will come that this murder will be solved and there will be an actual suspect and they can start figuring out how everything played out that day in 1979. Anyone with any information about this double homicide case If you have any information connected, please contact the Morton Grove Police Department tip line at 847-663-3828. I really do appreciate you guys tuning in to listen to Susie and Yvonne's story. Their case is important. Their story is important. And who they were as people, very important in the grand scheme of things. At the end of the day, exposure is key, and talking about these victims is what is going to help get their story out there, keep their story out there, and hopefully put some pressure on law enforcement to keep looking into it, keep fighting, keep going back over evidence until they have something that possibly could crack this case wide open. I appreciate you guys as always. Please, if you are not following me on whatever platform you're listening on, please hit that follow button. It really helps push my podcast out to other people. And also, if you're enjoying the show, please leave a five-star rating or review wherever you are listening. Again, it helps push the podcast out to more people who may be interested in the unsolved cases and also helps exposure on the cases, which is exactly what we need to keep growing. and get the message out to more people that we are trying to propel these cases forward one podcast episode at a time. I hope you guys have a great weekend. Please stay safe, and I will see you next week. Bye.