Military honors bestowed on Illinois veteran identified nearly a decade after death
July 2, 2025
A veteran who died in Chicago without any recollection of their life has been memorialized in a funeral service with military honors. Investigators in Cook County identified the body through post-mortem fingerprints as Reba Caroline Bailey in 2023. However, they also unearthed a deeper mystery in how the veteran who served in the Women’s Army Corps in the 1960s became homeless and ended up at a Chicago shelter with no memories aside from identifying as a man named Seven. Along with military honors, investigators last year installed a gravestone with Bailey’s birth name and military rank.