Missing Army Veteran Identified as 'Seven' in Cold Case Breakthrough

Reba C. Bailey, missing since the 1970s, was identified through post-mortem fingerprints, prompting potential changes in Illinois law.

Using post-mortem fingerprints, investigators have identified an elderly person known as 'Seven', who died in 2015, as Reba C. Bailey, a Women’s Army Corps veteran missing since the 1970s.
Reba's identification brings closure to generations of relatives and friends, but also raises questions about how she became homeless with no recollection, aside from wanting to be identified as a man called Seven.
Reba was born in 1940, served in the military in Alabama, Texas and California, and was briefly married to a fellow veteran, John H. Bilberry, who passed in 1989.
Reba spent decades at the St. Francis Catholic Worker House in Chicago, where she became the house cook and was known for her hearty casseroles and rice and bean dishes.
The Cook County sheriff’s office is pushing to amend the state’s Missing Persons Identification Act to require postmortem fingerprints be checked against all available state and federal databases, a change that could have identified Reba sooner.