After 2-year search for her missing son, a Chicago area mother now wants to find his killer
CHICAGO (CBS) – A mother's two-year search for her missing son came to a tragic if not unexpected, end.
Almost 26 months after Eddie Gardner's mom reported him missing, workers found his remains in the basement of an abandoned building. His mother's focus has shifted from finding him to finding out who killed him.
Sandy Gardner said she had to see firsthand where workers found her son's body on March 20 in a Chicago basement, two years after she reported him missing.
"Where did you find him? Over here?" she asked
Reporter: "Is this helpful to you at all?"
Sandy: "Yeah. It helps me to know where he was dumped."
The workers had been hired by the owner of the abandoned two-flat to clean out the Englewood basement. They showed Sandy where they found Eddie.
"He was covered?" she asked them.
The discovery was so upsetting that they placed and light candles every time they need to work near the wall.
Eddie Gardner disappeared in March of 2022, shortly after renting a Dodge Charger from Hertz. Sandy reported him missing to Oswego police, where he once lived with her. Then, she asked Hertz to report the car stolen, so police could track it.
Hertz refused.
Two weeks of lost leads later, the Charger was involved in a hit-and-run in Hammond, Indiana. Police said another man was in the car, but Eddie was not.
That sparked Sandy's daily email crusade.
"I can't move on," she told CBS 2 last year. "So I send it out every night."
She begged police and others to do more to find her son. Sandy and her daughter Jessica also began their own investigation. They even hired private investigator Don Haworth and gave him all their information, including the names of people connected to the man involved in the hit-and-run.
"You can't tell me these guys don't know anything about it," Haworth said. "You just can't."
Oswego and Hammond police told CBS 2 they continued to work the case, but it went nowhere, until last April when Eddie's former girlfriend called Sandy to tell her his body may have been found in Chicago. It wasn't his, but Sandy called the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office and pleaded with a staffer to examine all unidentified bodies in the morgue.
"He said 'That's a lot of work,'" Sandy said. "'We have a lot of bodies.' And I just begged him. I said, 'Please ... I'm looking for my son.'"
Two weeks later, the Medical Examiner's Office staffer called her back. One of the bodies was Eddie's. Forensic dentist Howard Cooper, who works with the Medical Examiner's Office, made the match.
"As soon as I started looking at those x-rays, I realized I recognized them, and I knew immediately who it was," said Cooper.
Reporter: "Was the state of Eddie's body so severely decomposed though that dental identification was really necessary?"
Cooper: "Yes. It was definitely necessary in this case."
"The hope he would come back one day is gone, but I'm glad we know," said Jessica, Eddie's sister. "It's better to know."
Now, Jessica and Sandy are intent on finding Eddie's killer.
"The very next step needs to be the cause of death's determined a homicide, so that the official murder investigation can start," Jessica said.
Sandy added, "I'm sad right now, but I'm also angry, and I'm determined to make the people who did this accountable. I know who they are. They better watch their back."
Eddie's cause of death was still listed as pending by the Cook County Medical Examiner, but Chicago police said they're conducting an active death investigation.