2 charged after body of infant found buried in beer box in Illinois

A man and woman have been charged after an infant was found wrapped in plastic and buried in a beer crate on a property in northeastern Illinois, authorities said.

Nicole Pokrzywa, 36, and William Cosmen, 38, were booked into the Will County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday afternoon on charges of abuse of a corpse, according to online jail records. Pokrzywa is the little girl’s mother, police said, although Cosmen’s relationship with the child was not immediately released.

An investigation into the incident began Thursday when officers received information about a possible baby buried at a property on Roberts Road in Wilmington, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago.

Investigators soon learned that Pokrzywa had given birth to the baby girl prematurely and that the child’s body had been buried and “marked with a makeshift headstone,” the Will County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

After securing the area on Friday, police and investigators located where the remains were buried. After digging about three feet into the ground, CSI found “what appeared to be an old-fashioned beer can,” the sheriff’s office said. “The remains of an infant were found inside the box, wrapped in a plastic bag and a cloth.”

The baby girl was reportedly born in October 2024, when Pokrzywa was six to eight months pregnant.

Pokrzywa and Cosmen were arrested and questioned by authorities on Friday, during which time they “both made incriminating statements regarding the cover-up of the infant’s death,” police said.

The two suspects allegedly told detectives that Pokrzywa gave birth at a separate residence in Manhattan, Illinois, and indicated that “the baby was born in the toilet,” cops said Saturday. Cosmen then attempted to flush the girl’s body “down the toilet drain with a plunger.”

When they realized the remains would not go down the drain, the duo “left the deceased baby in the toilet overnight” and then later wrapped her in a plastic bag and transported her to the Wilmington property where she was buried, according to police.

Pokrzywa and Cosmen were charged Saturday with one count each of desecration of a corpse, although authorities said additional charges could be filed pending the completion of autopsy and toxicology reports.

They were being held at the Will County Adult Detention Center, but were released later in the day on a court appearance.