Family of victims in Indiana cold case look to TV show for justice

Relatives of two pregnant sisters who were killed decades ago in northwestern Indiana are hoping a television program on the cold case will finally bring justice.

Sharon Pope DeJesus and Lillian Pope were 20 and 18 when they were fatally shot in 1973. Their bodies were found lying next to each other near a sewer lift station in Lake Station. No one has been charged in their deaths.

“They were last seen leaving work together on a cold December night,” said Larry Pope, the victims’ brother. “They had each other, that’s all they had.”

The family of the sisters took the case to Lisette Guillen of “Case Files Chicago,” the (Northwest Indiana) Times reported . The program highlights unsolved homicides, violent crimes and missing persons in and around Chicago.

Guillen taped interviews Thursday with the sisters’ family and Lake Station detective Mark Adkins. An episode on the case will air sometime in September.

“I have pestered everybody in this world to have it solved,” Larry Pope said. “It really blew my mind that no one, in all these years, has come forward.”

Adkins said he believes the sisters’ case can still be solved.

“I think there is somebody out there that knows what happened 45 years ago and they may want to ease” their conscience, he said.

DeJesus had two sons with her estranged husband and was six months pregnant when she died. Lillian Pope was carrying what would have been her first child. The two unborn children were buried with their mothers at Calvary Cemetery in Portage.