EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. – A 54-year-old Jerseyville, Illinois man will spend the next 65 years in state prison for the 2010 murder of an Alton woman.
According to the Madison County State’s Attorney’s Office, Bonnie Woodward vanished June 25, 2010 from the parking lot of the Alton nursing home where she worked. A missing person’s report was filed the next day when she didn’t show up for work.
At the time, investigators suspected Roger Carroll to be responsible for her disappearance. They conducted several searches of the area, including Carroll’s property, and did not find anything.
The case went cold for several years.
In April 2018, authorities went back to Carroll’s property, using backhoes and hand shovels to search a very specific area in rugged and hilly part of the land.
On April 12, prosecutors charged Carroll with three counts of first-degree murder.
The case was reopened after Carroll’s son testified to the Madison County grand jury. He told the grand jury his father forced him to hide Woodward’s remains on the property.
Prosecutors said Carroll shot and killed Woodward the same day she went missing in 2010. Carroll then made his son mow over the grass where Woodward’s body was left. Carroll burned Woodward’s body and forced his son to shovel and scatter her ashes around the property.
When investigators searched Carroll’s land in April 2018, they recovered and identified 25 pieces of bone fragments belonging to Woodward, as well as the shell casing from the gun Carroll used to kill her.
Carroll was convicted for the murder in March 2020.
