Member-only story

Two Parties, Two Missing Women, Ten years Apart: Where Are Heather and Jamie?

Their cases are eerily similar and even police say the person of interest is the same — but they don’t seem to be able to prove it.

Verity Partington
4 min readJan 23, 2023
Heather Zimmerman (l) and Jamie Harper (r) (Images: Cook County Sheriff’s Office)

One missing woman is always too many, but the small town of Rantoul in Illinois holds the dubious honour of being the location of two very similar cases involving suspicious disappearances.

Heather Zimmerman vanished in 1997 and Jamie E Harper was last seen in 2007. What’s more, there is more than a proximity link at play here. With the name of the person of interest the same in both cases — and apparently a poorly-kept secret among locals — will police ever be able to officially connect them and bring the person who probably took them both to justice?

Heather Zimmerman

Heather Zimmerman was married to a Marine in the spring of 1997, but he was regularly stationed abroad and she was living with her parents during his time in Japan. Unfortunately, the couple’s marriage was undergoing some difficulties, but her mother Ann Mullins nevertheless remembers Heather as being a happy young woman in a later interview with the News Gazette.

--

--

Verity Partington
Verity Partington

Written by Verity Partington

A writer and author of crime thrillers living in the UK. Partial to books, stationery, papercrafts and walking. You can find her books on Amazon here: https://a

Responses (2)