Police have no body to go with severed foot
ELYRIA, Ohio — Five years after four teens found Darla Kustra's right foot and calf beside an abandoned train track near here, the case of the missing 56-year-old has not been solved.
She didn't show up for work March 26, 2010, and three days later teens walking to a friend's house found a piece of her near an abandoned train track over a road north of this Cleveland suburb. It was less than a mile from where she was working.
The rest of her body never has been found, so investigators have not determined whether her likely death was an accident or homicide.
"All they found was her leg." said her brother, Gary Kester. "There was no sign of any blood or body parts anywhere around the area. They searched the area with dogs and they didn't find anything."
The Lorain, Ohio, resident walked everywhere, and police at the time thought a car or truck might have hit her as she walked to work between 4:15 and 5:20 a.m. ET.
Daylight Saving Time had begun only about a week and a half before, so sunrise came late there, around 7:20 a.m. The weather was rainy with some fog and snow, according to a report in The (Elyria, Ohio) Chronicle-Telegram at the time.
She had been working for a few days at a plastics recycling plant through a temporary employment agency. The company called the temp agency to report that Kustra missed work, but co-workers didn't realize anything was wrong until they saw news reports about the severed limb.
They then called police, which led to a DNA test of Kustra's oldest daughter that determined the foot belonged to Kustra.
"It was a very narrow area, and it's possible that a truck didn't see her," Kester said. "It was early in the morning, dark (and) she may have gotten hit by a truck, got caught up into the truck and her body may have traveled with the truck for miles. Part of her body could be laying anywhere around Ohio or some place else even."
In 2010, her ex-husband told The Chronicle-Telegram that he last spoke to Kustra two or three weeks before she disappeared and saw her two months before when he drove her to the grocery store. They had divorced in 1995.
He told the paper that Kustra was mentally ill, had no close friends and was estranged from her four daughters and two brothers. She also had a grandson he didn't believe she had ever met.
"She was very reclusive," Frank Kustra said.
Other people that a reporter talked to five years ago also called her a loner who kept to herself.
Kester is hoping that continuing to talk about his sister's disappearance will generate leads for the Loraine County Sheriff's Office Detective Bureau, where the case remains open.
"We just want to know what happened," he said.