On Wednesday, Linda La Roche, 66, was found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse. She was accused of killing her nanny and taking and leaving her body in a Wisconsin cornfield in 1999.
23-year-old Peggy Lynn Johnson was cognitively impaired. When her mother passed away, when Peggy was 18, she was left alone.
After going to a medical clinic for assistance, she met La Roche, who knew she was disabled and took her into her home in McHenry, Illinois. There, she was the nanny and housekeeper.
Johnson’s body hadn’t been identified for over twenty years. She had only been referred to as Jane Doe until advances in DNA technology occurred.
After La Roche was named as the prime suspect, detectives went to her home in Florida. She is said to have made incriminating comments about Johnson prior to being apprehended.
There had been allegations that La Roche had physically abused Johnson for a long time. An autopsy indicated that Johnson died from sepsis pneumonia because of an infection that resulted from injuries she had from the continuous abuse.
Documents note that Johnson’s bruised body was found when someone was walking their dog. She was malnourished, suffered a skull fracture, a broken nose and ribs. It was also said that some of her bones were broken after she died, and she had burns on 25% of her body.
Prosecutors argued that La Roche was envious of Johnson who was adored by the family.
In 2020, people in the community worked together to move Johnson’s remains to her relative’s burial plot. A funeral home even provided a donation of a headstone.
