Charred remains found in Illinois identified as 41-year-old woman who vanished in 2010 after she went on a mystery weekend trip with friend
Illinois State Police identified "badly burned" human remains found two years ago as those of a married mother-of-three after she disappeared more than nine years ago.
Benedetta 'Beth' Bentley, 41, of Woodstock, Illinois, went missing in May 2010 after a mysterious weekend getaway with a friend, reports Daily Mail.
In December 2017, Illinois State Police found the scorched remains in a rural area in Jefferson County where Bentley was last spotted.
The findings have now been forwarded to the county's state's attorney's office for their perusal.
That said, Bentley's cause and manner of death are yet to be established.
On May 20, 2010, Bentley told relatives she was traveling to Wisconsin for the weekend. However, she drove to Mount Vernon instead with her friend, Jenny Wyatt, who was also a colleague at Bentley's husband's law firm.
According to the report, Bentley and Wyatt met with Wyatt's boyfriend and their friends, and the group proceeded to spend the next three days dining and drinking at a lake nearby.
Wyatt said on May 23 she had dropped Bentley off at the Centralia Amtrak station upon her request. She had told them she was going to board a train back home to Woodstock. However, it was later found Bentley never made it onto the train itself.
Since that day, the victim's phone, bank account, and credit cards have seen no activity at all.
And so far no one has been charged for her disappearance.
That said, Bentley's friend, who dropped her off at the train station in 2012, was indicted on charges of obstruction of justice. She was also charged with allegedly making false statements about driving her to the Amtrak station. The charges were later dropped.
A judge granted Bentley's husband, Scott Bentley, and their three sons a request to have her declared dead in December 2017.
Speaking to the Northwest Herald at the time, Scott said they were trying to "be as normal as possible."
"Life doesn’t stop," he said. "We’ve been able to make it through."