Remains found in car pulled from River by Chicago Police Department

Human bones were in the maroon 1992 Buick LeSabre pulled from the Chicago River by the Chicago Police Department on Saturday. The car's vehicle identification number matches that of a car believed to have been driven by Michael Dean Jansson when he and the car went missing in the early hours of Mar. 9, 2001. 

It is believed that DNA testing will prove that the remains found in the vehicle will be those of Jansson. According to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office, the results will not be known for sometime.

New sonar equipment being used by the Chicago Police Department's Marine Unit, during some testing late in November, is what located the vehicle in the same area as two previous incidents. In April 1992 Richard "Rick" Roman, who was an improvisational comedian and actor, drove down Blackhawk and into the River while driving his taxicab on the west side of the River. In May 2011, on the east side of the River, twenty-seven year old Irma Sabanovic , a model, plunged into the river from Blackhawk.

"The car was discovered upside down, buried with only about 2 feet of the vehicle jutting out of the mud, silt, and weeds of the river, according to a law enforcement source," reported the Chicago Tribune. "The new "side scan" sonar took photos and hit paydirt within hours, as compared to the weeks it would have taken to find with the old equipment."

The Jannson case was extensively chronicled by the Chicago Reader's Mike Sula in 2001. Jannson, 21 at the time from suburban Lincolnwood, was just beginning to turn his life around when he chose to spend an evening at the Biology Bar, 1520 N. Fremont, with friends. Friends since kindergarten, Joe Chollampel; Chollampel's girl friend, Magaly Lind who owned the Buick LeSabre; Chollampel's cousin Fari Padavil; and Jansson went to the Biology some time around midnight.

Exactly what happened in the following hours will probably never be completely known for sure. Everyone from Jannson's friends to the club's bouncer and security officers had conflicting stories or different versions of their stories over time. The police department, as described in Sula's article, appeared to not pursue the case very vigorously because of Jansson's petty case of drug offenses. The detectives appeared to presume that Jansson's disappearance was "voluntary." 

Complicating the stories were the facts that Chollampel gave his cell phone to Jannson and it was subsequently in the hands of people in "K-Town," an area in North Lawndale. When some of the numbers called by the phone were linked to the club's security staff, the situation appeared more complicated. What is possible is regardless of how others may have gotten the phone and who the calls were made to, it may have had nothing to do with Jansson's disappearance.

Jansson's mother Lynda and other family members worked doggedly to attempt to uncover information and help law enforcement to connect the dots. But in the long run, the story did not capture the imagination of the press and the detectives considered it to be a "non-case." So though there were two open cases, one for the missing person and the other for a missing car. When the missing person case was closed, the detective handling the missing auto said that since Jansson was handed the keys, it was not a theft and therefore that case was closed.

If DNA tests come back positive, at least the family can have closure on the loss of their loved one, said a statement from Chicago Police Department's Media Affairs.

Editor's note: Following an early morning tip on Saturday, I went over to Blackhawk and Elston before the arrival of the crane and thus before the action really started. The officer in charge of "gate-keeping" said that it was so early that they didn't know what they were going to do with the press but no one could go east of Elston. When 32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack showed up and wasn't allowed in, I didn't feel so bad!