
STREATOR, Ill. (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- It has been 20 years since the murder of a 7-year-old boy whose body was found in a river not far from his home in downstate Streator.
His mother tells WBBM she is confident someone will ultimately be arrested.
"I'm positive somebody will be. How about that?"
WBBM spoke with Michelle Mesarchik as she was making posters for a memorial service in Streator Sunday - 20 years to the day after her son, 7-year-old Dalton Mesarchik, disappeared from his front yard.
"We were planning his 8th birthday party and he was writing down all the things he wanted to do," I keep that in my Bible - his little handwritten note card of all the things he wanted to do on his birthday coming up."
Dalton's body was found in the Vermilion River the next day. He'd been beaten with a hammer.
"Twenty years and no arrests. That's 20 years my child didn't get to have a life and this other person does, so it's time for justice," Mesarchik said.
She said Dalton would've turned 28 next month.
"Every day that I'm here, I'm one day closer to being with him. We don't know when our time is up."
The FBI has put out a notice - asking for information from the public, just as authorities did 20 years ago.
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