Cold case: 1999 Wisconsin homicide victim identified, Florida woman arrested

RACINE, Wis. (WITI) -- Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling on Friday, Nov. 8 revealed the identity of the young woman whose brutally abused body was found in a cornfield in the town of Raymond in 1999.

Jane Doe has been identified as Peggy Lynn Johnson.

Linda Laroche, 64, has been taken into custody in connection with her death. She is facing one count of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of hiding a corpse.

Johnson had been tortured, murdered and her body dumped in a field. Her remains were discovered in a cornfield near the town of Raymond in 1999 by a passerby walking his dog. An autopsy showed Johnson has suffered several suspicious marks, burns, abrasions, and lacerations from head to foot. The cause of death was ruled a homicide.

Johnson grew up in Illinois and was never reported missing. Her mother, father and brother are all deceased.

After her mother died, Peggy Lynn Johnson, who was approximately 18 years old, cognitively impaired, and on her own, went searching for help at a medical clinic in McHenry, Illinois. There she met a registered nurse named Linda Laroche, who recognized Johnson's disability, and took her into her home. Johnson lived with Laroche in McHenry for the last five years of her life.

Linda Laroche was taken into custody in Cape Coral, Florida on Tuesday, Nov. 5. This, after the Racine County Sheriff's Office received a tip from a concerned citizen that a woman, identified as Linda Laroche, of Cape Coral, Florida, was telling people that she had killed a woman back when she lived in Illinois.

In 2019, through the use of Familial DNA testing, members of Peggy Johnson's family were located and her identity confirmed.