Unsolved Cases | 'I think of her as someone that fought'

CHAMPAIGN — Helen Melchi’s family members still show emotion in their voices upon recalling what the family matriarch meant to them. A pillar of support that her children were always able to lean on. A loving grandmother who kept up with her grandkids during water-balloon fights well into her 70s.

A skilled, active gardener who had a penchant for growing thriving plants. Those close to the longtime community fixture cherished all these qualities and more until July 1, 2003. That’s when Melchi, just two days shy of her 85th birthday, was found dead in the bathtub of her Champaign home, bound and gagged after a robbery gone terribly wrong.

“She would have done anything for anyone, and I think she got taken away too soon,” said her daughter, Sandy Hammershmidt. “But hopefully things will change and someone will actually realize — I realize it’s been 20 years ago and I need to probably think that they’re not going to come forward. But I keep hoping that maybe they will.

” ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ Mrs. Melchi spent much of her life in the small, two-story house at 1301 N. Hickory St.

just north of downtown Champaign. She lived there for some 40 years, many of which came well after her husband, Charles, passed away in 1980 and her children, Sandy and Ed, had moved out to start families of their own. Generations of family members have warm memories of visits to that house, including Sandy’s two children, Jared and Keil, and Ed’s four kids, Megan, Page, Adam and Qui.