Molly Zelko Topic Of Joliet Area Historical Museum Zoom Meeting

JOLIET, IL — Joliet Area Historical Museum Director Greg Peerbolte was faced with a dilemma — how to keep the community engaged in local history when the museum is closed to the public. Part of Peerbolte’s solution was another passion of his, the story of Molly Zelko.

Zelko, a Joliet journalist and business owner, went missing in 1957. Her disappearance, or likely murder, has never been solved.

Peerbolte had already been working to resurrect the story of Zelko for a new generation of listeners through a podcast that launched in 2019.

“The Spectator: Who Killed Molly Zelko,” is eight episodes long and takes listeners through a number of possibilities including that Zelko is buried in a rural farm field that was owned by a private owner, but one that was dug up by Bobby Kennedy based on supposed lies by James Rini, who he pulled out of Stateville to pinpoint the burial site, Cain said. No body was found.

mob and the possibility that her body remains under Stryker Avenue. The podcast highlights the 1978 Joliet Herald News series researched and written by Lonny Cain and the late John Whiteside.

“(Whiteside) said everyone had a Molly story,” Cain said during the 2021 Zoom event. “It turned out to be the biggest story that either of us would have in our careers, a story that I am still working on.”

Through that newspaper exposure in 1978, many leads were investigated, but neither Zelko’s whereabouts nor her body was ever discovered. One major revelation then was a witness who claimed to have seen a woman’s body thrown in a ditch while a sewer line was being installed under Stryker Avenue. While that interview was included on the podcast, it was not enough for the Will County State’s Attorney in 1978 to dig up Stryker Avenue looking for her body.

Since that time, though, a number of other people have come forward and in various ways corroborated the story. Cain believes Stryker Avenue is the most likely lead and hopes that the city will eventually investigate it as a possibility.

The Zoom event on Jan. 29 featured Peerbolte, Cain and Dennis Enrietta all co-hosting an event that was attended by more than 250 people.

“I think it was 322 that registered,” Peerbolte said in a later phone interview. “About 250-260 consistently tuned in for the duration of the program.

“We said an hour and it was more like two hours.”

Titled “Where is Molly Zelko? Exploring Joliet’s Greatest Mystery with the Joliet Area Historical Museum,” the meeting featured discussion on the major players and where Zelko’s body might be. It was cosponsored by the Joliet Public Library and private donors.

The Zelko podcast was one of many that Peerbolte is planning while during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re at a couple a month,” Peerbolte said of the plans for museum Zoom events. “We’ll be doing unveiling some items in the collection and do an interactive can you guess what this item is. We have hundreds, maybe thousands of things in the collection that no one ever sees. We can’t bring hundreds of people into the collection room, but we can do it virtually.”

The next planned Zoom event is for Black History Month and will take place on Feb. 25. The event will feature local speakers and will focus on the Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1965 visit to Joliet. There are also plans for in-person exhibits, including one on Zelko and an African-American history exhibit. For more information on upcoming events, follow Joliet Area Historical Museum Facebook page.

As far as Zelko goes, Cain is working on a book, but would love to see her story help reveal the mystery — where is Molly?

“I think we’re still talking about Molly because there is a huge question mark over that story — what happened to Molly?” Enrietta said.

Editor's note: A detail about the farm field and Stryker Avenue have been corrected.