Desperate mother continues search for missing son for over a year
CHICAGO (CBS) – A mother desperate to find answers about her missing son refuses to let police sweep his case under the rug.
It's consumed her life for more than a year. She believes her family has given police all the information they need to actually solve the mystery. CBS 2 Political Investigator Dana Kozlov has her story.
In the day's darkest hours, for almost a year-and-a-half, Sandy Gardner sends an email about her missing son, Eddie.
"I can't move on," Sandy said. "So I send it out every night."
She sends it to remind people she's still looking for him, to push police to find him and to blame the Hertz rental company for why his case remains unsolved.
"It's tough," she said, before bursting into tears.
Sandy began her crusade after Eddie went missing in March 2022, shortly after renting a Dodge Charger from Hertz.
At the time, Sandy's daughter, Jessica, hacked into her brother's navigation app and found Eddie's last known location to be at the Altgeld Gardens housing project at 131st and St. Lawrence. Sandy then reported Eddie missing in Oswego, where he used to live with her, and began emailing Hertz.
"Begging them to track the car, or report it stolen, and Hertz wouldn't respond to me," Gardner told CBS 2 last year.
Two weeks later, Eddie's rented Charger was involved in a Hammond, Indiana, hit and run. Police said another man, not Eddie, was in the car. Because Hertz wouldn't initially track the Charger, there were more than two weeks of lost leads and little movement from police. So Sandy and Jessica hired private investigator Don Haworth. They all got to work.
"My guys in the last year, we've probably got about 300 hours into this," said Haworth.
Jessica said the effort was "Just in the hopes to find more information and find him."
They did find more information and learned that the day before the Hammond crash, two men took Eddie's rented Charger to a South Side Chicago tire shop. One of the men was the cousin of Eddie's girlfriend.
Kozlov: "After Eddie had already been missing?"
Jessica: "He had been missing well over a week and his girlfriend's cousin has his car? And he's getting the tire replaced? How does that happen? And I don't think the police have ever asked her that."
They also learned the names of the men involved in the Hammond crash.
"You can't tell me that these guys don't know anything about it," Haworth said. "You just can't."
Jessica said police also found a bullet in the Charger and, after Hammond processed it for evidence, something even more ominous.
"They did find my son's blood in the car," Sandy said.
They turned everything they learned, names, numbers, and information, over to police, but the case has gone nowhere.
"I would think they had enough probable cause to issue murder charges against all these guys that were involved, and maybe that might have made them talk at the time," said Haworth.
Kozlov: "What is the correct word to describe about how you feel about how Eddie's case has been handled?"
Jessica: "Disappointed."
But Hammond and Oswego police said detectives have done extensive work on the case, including searching Beubien Woods near Altgeld Gardens, conducting multiple interviews, in collaboration with the FBI, ATF, Chicago police, and more than a dozen other agencies. Yet, in emails, they would not answer why no charges related to the stolen car were ever filed. They declined interviews and they refused to turn over GPS information about the car to the family citing the "ongoing investigation." But Sandy and Jessica believe they could do more and should.
"Because we have a lot of information, clues, things to suggest foul play, unlike many families in missing persons situations," said Jessica.
Sandy added, "I don't want my son's case to turn into a cold case where we'll never find him."
Sandy Gardner pushed Oswego police to turn over her son's case to the Illinois State Police. ISP reviewed the case earlier this month but, according to Oswego's interim police chief, decided not to take it.
Sandy told CBS 2 she's hired another private investigator, one that focuses specifically on helping families find missing loved ones.
