Diamond Bradley: 16-Year-Old Illinois Teen Stabbed To Death, Left On Roadside

Diamond Bradley, 16, was found dead in a ditch on January 27, 2018 near Spring Valley, Illinois. Police are looking for suspects.

Diamond Bradley was a young teen trying to make it to adulthood in Illinois. She disappeared on January 24, 2018, worrying her family and friends.

She went missing for more than two days, before authorities on January 27 found Diamond's body on the side of the road. The corpse was in a  Granville Township ditch and had "multiple injuries," from stab wounds.

Now authorities have made an arrest in the case. A man known to people in the area as “The Russian” has been charged in connection with the teen’s death. Richard A. Henderson, 26, of 1is charged with concealing a homicide, according to local reports.

Henderson has a criminal record and “seemed to (have) multiple personalities where he would have different interests and different accents if you will go that route,” one source told the News Tribune.

Police said that they found cell phone messages between Diamond and Henderson and believe that he picked her up around 7 a.m. on January 24.

When the girl vanished, people close to her did what they could to find her. Diamond's high school immediately sent its condolences. “Our entire Hall High School community has been deeply shocked and saddened to learn of the tragic loss of one of our recent Hall High School students, Diamond Bradley,” Hall district officials said in a release.

Her relatives said she was a special girl who lit up the room when she entered.

“She had a very, very bright personality,” her cousin Domonique Jolly, 32, of Tennessee, told NewsTrib. “I'm just at a lost for words. I just hope they find out who did that. She didn’t deserve that, whatever happened.”

Diamond's death has shocked the Spring Valley community, so much so that a local restaurant tried to raise awareness. Grandma Rosie's restaurant offered a reward in the case. The eatery posted this on Facebook: "It breaks my heart to post this, but Grandma Rosie’s is offering a Cash Reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for what happened to this young member of our community. Please contact the Putnam County sheriffs office or Spring Valley police with any information that you have, or if you're not willing to do that you can contact me and I will pass the information on to them. We will not allow someone to treat a beautiful human being like this and get away with it! The community has to rally to support them, even if you don’t know the family, because that’s what we do and that’s what makes small town living great. Please share this to spread the word."

Police are still asking anyone with information to come forward.

“We also ask that if anyone was in the area of Casey’s General Store or Shell station in Spring Valley on Jan. 24 between the hours of 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. to contact the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office or the Spring Valley Police Department. These individuals may have seen Diamond in that area,” a press release from the sheriff’s department says.

Anyone with information that may be pertinent to the case is asked to call the sheriff’s office at (815) 925-7084 or Spring Valley police station at (815) 663-2351.