Times Staff Report

The family of a Chicago Heights woman found murdered in a forest preserve has put up $5,000 toward a reward for information that helps bring a resolution to the case.

Alma Mendez, 37, of the 300 block of West 14th Place, was reported missing Oct. 28 and found dead two days later in a preserve in South Chicago Heights.

The reward, which totals $6,000, includes $1,000 from Cook County Crime Stoppers, according to a Cook County Sheriff's Department news release.

Police are interested in learning more about a small pickup truck that witnesses saw in the area of the forest preserve about the time Mendez was last seen alive, Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart said. The truck is described as a two-door Chevrolet, Ford or Toyota pickup truck, and it could be gray or silver and had a yellow, temporary license plate. It had tools and debris in the truck bed.

"We are asking anyone who may have been in the area and saw something that day to contact police, Dart said. "Often, people believe something small they may have witnessed is insignificant. But it is the little things that often lead to successful breaks in these types of cases."

Mendez, a mother of three who worked as a receptionist at a Steger dental practice, was reported missing the same day as Bolingbrook's Stacy Peterson.

Mendez was last seen jogging about 1 p.m. in the Sauk Trail Woods near the intersection of 26th Street and Ashland Avenue in unincorporated Bloom Township.

When Mendez failed to return home, the family reported her missing. Authorities found Mendez's locked Ford Freestyle sport utility vehicle near the forest preserve about 5 p.m. that day.

Her body was discovered two days later floating about 15 feet from the bank of Sauk Lake and about 20 yards from a jogging path in the Sauk Trail Woods Forest Preserve.

An autopsy found Mendez had been beaten and her throat was cut multiple times. The medical examiner ruled the wounds were consistent with homicide.