Ann Bergman

Do you know who shot Ann?
Ann Emily Bergman was an energetic and beloved 18-year-old woman with a zest for life, remembered by her family for her love of dancing. The oldest of five children, she was "the boss" to her four younger brothers, who recalled her teaching them to dance to Elvis Presley songs. Ann was an honor roll student at East High School before leaving to get a job at Bishops Cafeteria and moving into her own apartment on School Street in Rockford, Illinois. In the summer of 1962, she was smitten with her new boyfriend, 32-year-old Octavio “Chico” Martinez, who was 14 years her senior. Ann believed Chico intended to marry her and take her to Mexico for their honeymoon.

On the evening of Tuesday, August 7, 1962, Chico arrived at Ann's apartment and convinced her to go out for a night of dancing. They went to the Town Lounge at 602 W. State Street, a site now occupied by the Winnebago County Justice Center, to compete in a twist dance contest. The talented pair won first place, taking home a bottle of pink champagne as their prize. Witnesses saw the happy couple leave the lounge at approximately 12:55 a.m. on what was now Wednesday, August 8. They began walking to Chico's car, which was parked about a block away, but they never made it. In a window of just seven minutes, Ann and Chico vanished.

About two hours after they left the lounge, a truck driver named John Stannard called the police at 1:20 a.m. to report a man's body on the side of Belt Line Road, near the Rockford Airport. Authorities arrived and identified the victim as Chico Martinez. He had been shot three times: once in the shoulder and twice in the left chest, with the bullets piercing his heart. Police theorized that Chico may have struggled with his abductors and was shot while trying to jump from their moving vehicle. Realizing he had been with Ann, a frantic search for the missing teenager began immediately.

For six agonizing days, Ann's family and friends searched for her, holding out hope that she had escaped her captors and was hiding, too frightened to come forward. The search ended in heartbreak on the evening of August 14. A man taking a walk with his children along a sparsely traveled gravel road near Byron in Ogle County discovered Ann's body in the tall grass. She had been shot once through the heart. In a devastating turn of events, her family learned the horrible news not from the police, but from a television news bulletin that interrupted the program they were watching.

The coroner determined that Ann had likely been killed on the same night as Chico. Investigators believed she witnessed his murder before she was killed, and her body was then driven to the location where it was later found. This theory was presented to the family in the hope it would offer some comfort that she was not terrorized for an extended period. The double homicide shocked the Rockford community. The local newspapers, the Register-Republic and Morning Star, offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, but the reward was never claimed.

The murders of Ann Bergman and Chico Martinez left a permanent scar on their families. Chico left behind two young children. Ann's parents went to their graves without ever knowing who killed their daughter. Her father never worked again after her death, and her mother cried all day on every one of Ann's birthdays. Her brother, Carl Bergman, kept a small picture of his sister by his bed for 50 years. "We would like to see the crime solved for both Ann and Chico," he said in 2012. "We missed out on her married life, her children and grandchildren." He recalled his father's saying: "You are not dead until you are forgotten."

Decades have passed, but the case remains one of more than a dozen unsolved homicides being investigated by the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department. The original detectives have long since retired or passed away, and some evidence, including scrapings from Ann's fingertips that might have contained her attacker's DNA, was reportedly discarded over the years. The motive for the killings remains a mystery, with some speculating it could have been connected to Chico's "playboy ways," with Ann simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As of August 2012, the 50th anniversary of the slayings, the case was still cold. The investigation into the murders of Ann Bergman and Octavio Martinez is ongoing. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Winnebago County Sheriff's Police Detective Bureau at 815-319-6400 or Rockford Area Crime Stoppers at 815-963-7867.