A suspected serial killer linked to a 1992 Mahoning County homicide has been arrested and charged in Illinois.

Lake County Illinois Sheriff John Idleburg announced through a collaborative effort with multiple law-enforcement entities, the arrest and capture of suspected serial killer Samuel William Legg III, 52, of Chandler, Arizona.  

The investigation into the case by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office stemmed from the 1997 murder of Julie A Konkol, when Konkol was 39 years of age.

The Lake County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Chicago Field Office, Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations (BCI), authorities in Medina County, Wood County, Lorain County, and Mahoning County Ohio, collaborated throughout the extensive investigation.

On October 23, 1997, Konkol's body was discovered deceased behind an abandoned truck stop located in Russell Illinois. Following an autopsy, Konkol’s death was ruled a homicide caused by asphyxiation by manual strangulation. The sheriff’s office conducted an extensive investigation and after all leads were exhausted, her case went cold.  

In 2006, the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) linked DNA collected from Konkol’s homicide with a 1996 homicide in Wood County Ohio, and again in 2012, with a 1992 homicide in Mahoning County, Ohio.  

Legg was charged in February in the 1992 murder of Sharon Lynn Kedzierski whose body was found near the Universal Truck Mall parking lot in Austintown, Ohio. A judge as twice found Legg incompetent to stand trial for Kedzierski's murder.

Legg’s DNA was not logged in CODIS because he had not been arrested in or convicted of a felony since collecting began, which resulted in the collected DNA samples being labeled as that of an unknown male contributor.  

In 2018 the unknown male contributor’s DNA was tested looking for a familial or a direct connection. A familial connection was found. This connection was investigated, and the link steered investigators to a break in these cases, which led to Legg being identified as the primary suspect.

Legg was subsequently found to be a one-in-one-trillion match as being the source of the DNA found on Konkol.  

At the time of these homicides, Legg was an over the road truck driver primarily working in the Midwest and living in Ohio. 

In January 2019, Medina Ohio authorities obtained an arrest warrant for Legg for a separate 1997 sexual assault case.  At this time, Legg was living in Arizona, where he was arrested and subsequently extradited to Ohio where he was interviewed by Lake County Sheriff’s Detectives and Ohio authorities regarding the homicides.

After reviewing the facts and evidence in the murder investigation of Konkol, the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office approved two counts of first-degree murder for Legg on July 29, 2020, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit appeared in Lake County Court where a Judge approved the arrest warrant for.

Legg is currently being held in the Medina County, Ohio, Jail.

He will eventually face extradition to Lake County on the charges of murdering Konkol.