Body Identified and Arrest Made in 1999 Cold Case
Tuesday, November 12th, 2019 -- 12:42 PM
(AP) -A 63-year-old nurse has been charged in the beating death of a 23-year-old cognitively impaired woman whose battered body was discovered at the edge of a cornfield in southeastern Wisconsin in July 1999.Linda La Roche was arrested recently in Cape Coral, Florida, Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said during a news conference. According to a criminal complaint, La Roche was charged with first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse in the killing of Peggy Lynn Johnson. La Roche has waived extradition to Wisconsin. Johnson met La Roche at a medical center in McHenry, Illinois, where La Roche worked as a registered nurse in the 1990s. Johnson went there seeking help after her mother died, the sheriff said.
Johnson subsequently moved in to La Roche's home in McHenry and the nurse "barbarically" brutalized her over a long period of time, Schmaling said. Johnson lived with La Roche for the last five years of her life, and was never reported as a missing person, he said.
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