John Jefferson
Top inset: Vanessa Ceja Ramirez (WLS). Bottom inset: Dakota Petrey (Cook County Sheriff). Background: The location where Ceja Ramirez’s body was found (WLS).
An Illinois man faces charges in the sexual assault and murder of a woman whose body was found partially burned and strangled in a nature preserve where she had been on a walk with her mother and her mother’s friend.
Dakota Petrey, 30, was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated criminal sexual assault in the death of Vanessa Ceja Ramirez, 22, Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart announced in a Tuesday press release.
Ceja Ramirez disappeared while walking in the Midlothian Meadows Forest Preserve on Nov. 2, 2020. She had returned to their car alone because she was tired, but when her mother got to the car, her daughter was not there.
Local The CW affiliate WGN obtained the final texts between mother and daughter translated from Spanish.
- 3:47 p.m. from her mother: “where are you?”
- 3:48 p.m. from Ceja Ramirez: “I went back because its too long of a walk.”
- 3:51 p.m. from Ceja Ramirez: “Where are you guys at?”
- 3:53 p.m. from her mother: “We are on our way back.”
- 4 p.m. from Ceja Ramirez’s phone: “Ha verdad”
- 4:21 p.m. from her mother: “Where are you”
- 5:34 p.m. from her mother: “The police are looking for you.”
Searchers found Ceja Ramirez’s body two days later in the preserve. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Her body had been partially burned.
The hunt for the killer dragged on for years until this week when police say they linked the murder to the suspect — who had been in jail on unrelated charges — through DNA.
The suspect, known to frequent Midlothian Meadows, allegedly lived in an apartment building where the victim’s cellphone pinged.
Citing court documents, Patch reported on cryptic text messages between him and his girlfriend at one point in 2021.
He allegedly told her in one message then “that something is wrong with him. … and it’s just who he is, and he can’t help it, that he’s a psycho or something, and that he’s evil.
“He stated he is sick in the head and can’t say anything more,” court documents said the girlfriend told investigators he allegedly told her. “He stated that if he told her she would not love him, and things can be bad, but he doesn’t want things to get bad.”
When pressed if he hurt someone, Petrey allegedly responded: “can’t say.”
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