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Police Serve Search Warrant After Death of Joliet Bartender

Just before police released news that a suburban bartender who went missing earlier this week was found fatally shot, police were serving a search warrant they say was connected to the case. 

At 10 a.m., the Will County Sheriff's office served a search warrant in the Joliet clubhouse of the Outlaws motorcycle gang, officials revealed. A spokesperson confirmed the warrant was in connection with the homicide of Kaitlyn Kearns, a 24-year-old Mokena woman who was found dead in Kankakee County Thursday morning. 

The sheriff's office said a 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee belonging to Kaitlyn Kearns was found in a rural part of Kankakee County during an overnight search. There, they say the 24-year-old's body was found dead at the scene with a single gunshot wound to the head. 

Police said Kearns "was the intended target of this homicide," adding that authorities don't believe there is any threat to the public. 

An autopsy was being conducted along with further toxicology and lab results, police said. 

Kearns, 24, was last seen after midnight early Monday morning at Woody's Bar, located in the 1000 block of East Washington Street, friends say.

She never made it home – where she lives with her father and sister – from her shift, Kearns’ friends said, and has not contacted anyone or posted on social media since.

Calls to her phone went straight to voicemail, they added, and she didn’t shown up to shifts at Woody’s or her other job at a restaurant in Orland Park on Monday or Tuesday.

Police said Kearns was reported missing Tuesday. 

Friends added that it was out of character for Kearns to go missing, as she’s often in communication with friends and family and has a dog that she likely wouldn’t abandon.

She was last seen driving a gray 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo with a Chicago Cubs World Series sticker on the rear window, her friends said, asking anyone with information to contact local authorities.

Authorities are asking anyone with information surrounding her death to call sheriff's investigation division (815) 727-8574 or sheriff's dispatch center (815) 727-8575. 

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