(Council Bluffs) Council Bluffs police are asking for assistance in their investigation into the homicide of Lilia Maria Gonzalez Lainez, a 44-year-old Honduran woman whose skeletal remains were discovered in a field north of Veterans Memorial Highway on May 8, 2024.
Detectives and CSI Techs recovered the skeletal remains, which a forensic anthropologist determined belonged to an adult female. An autopsy was conducted by the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office; the manner of death was determined to be homicide. The body had multiple injuries evident upon examination.
A DNA profile was developed and was entered into the FBI’s CODIS database which resulted in the body being positively identified as Lilia Maria Gonzalez Lainez of Omaha, Nebraska. Gonzalez Lainez was a citizen of Honduras and had been living in the United States since January 2023.
Detectives were able to ascertain that the last known sighting of Gonzalez Lainez was on December 11, 2023 in South Omaha. The investigation has stalled and Council Bluffs police detectives are asking the public for assistance, in the hopes that someone may have knowledge of Gonzalez Laines’s whereabouts and/or circumstances leading to her death and body’s discovery.
Please contact Detective Benson at (712) 890-5113 or email at tdbenson@councilbluffs-ia.gov with any information. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling (712)328-STOP (7867) or on the Department’s website.
