I’ve done two stints as The State Journal-Register’s morning-after-Thanksgiving Black Friday reporter, and they probably won’t be the last time you’ll find me shivering in front of Best Buy or Toys R Us, talking to bargain-driven shoppers Thanksgiving night.

I have to admit, though, it’s a pretty fun assignment. Photographer T.J. Salsman photographed the fun and he produced this great video. It’s one of my all-time favorites at the paper.

Early Birds / Some deal-seekers stake out stores overnight to get goods
Nov. 24, 2007

Little can come between a serious bargain hunter and the come-hither allure of a $200 desktop computer, an $800 big-screen high-definition television or a $15 DVD player - not a shower of icy snow, sub-freezing temperatures or even long lines.

Let the seduction begin.

Springfield stores were flooded as early as 4 a.m. Friday, as day-after-Thanksgiving holiday shoppers began their search for reduced-price televisions, computers, game systems and other items.

Many shoppers lined up Thursday afternoon and earlier. Some skipped Thanksgiving dinner with family for the chance to land $2 DVD movies and board games for Christmas gifts.

Those waiting in line chatted with each other, made new friends, plotted their in-store strategies, played board games, ordered pizza, drank coffee, talked on their cell phones and shivered in the chilly November darkness.

Like most years, near chaos was narrowly averted after Johnny-come-lately “line jumpers” did what they do best - cut in line.

Some shoppers walked out of [...] Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t believe the family of this Girard teenager ever got the answers they were searching for about how this crash happened. The mother wore her son’s class ring on her finger as she took me and photographer Shannon Kirshner to the crash site in October 2007. I’ll never know how she managed to keep herself together.

Mourning ‘Munchy’ / Girard teen died when car he was driving was struck by train
Oct. 29, 2007

GIRARD - To his friends, Matt Munchalfen was “Munchy,” a shy, all-around good guy who had a secret crush on a popular schoolmate. To his neighbors, he was the dependable young man who showed up to cut their grass, rake their leaves and put up riprap at their lakeside homes.

His younger brother and sister could count on Matt for rides and advice. Matt’s father expected his son to take over the family electrical business. He already could fully wire a garage.

And Matt was his mother’s first-born child. Despite being a busy 19-year-old, he often stopped by her bedroom to chat whenever he returned home from a night out with his friends.

“I didn’t know how many people Matt touched, how many people he knew,” Joanne Munchalfen said last week. “This is something that hits close to home for all parents.”

Matt, a senior at Girard High School, died Oct. 13 when an Amtrak train struck his sport utility vehicle as he crossed a track on Greenridge Road two [...] Read the rest of this entry »

Lincoln Library, the public library in Springfield, became an unauthorized homeless shelter of sorts the summer of 2007. For some reason, numerous homeless people began spending their days and nights hanging around and sleeping on the sidewalks outside the library instead of at the shelters downtown.

Things came to a head one night in July, when one homeless man beat and stomped to death another homeless man outside the library. I learned that the victim, Timothy Ryan, hadn’t always been homeless and that he, in fact, had family here in the city.

I attended Tim’s funeral and remember looking at all the photographs of him as a child and a teenager, wondering how he got into the situation he was in and thinking about how difficult it must be for a parent to watch it happen.

Homeless man beaten at library / On life support; suspect in custody
July 28, 2007

A 45-year-old homeless man on Friday remained hospitalized in critical condition after having his head stomped on, allegedly by another homeless man, outside Lincoln Library Thursday night.

The victim was on life support at St. John’s Hospital, authorities said.

Robert B. Jones, 45, was arrested a short time after the attack.

He was charged with aggravated battery and is being held in the Sangamon County Jail on $200,000 bond.

The attack happened about 8:40 p.m. Thursday on the north side of the library, 326 S. Seventh St. Police have not said if they know what prompted the attack.

For more than a year, the library has been the [...] Read the rest of this entry »

Jerry Gaston became a quadriplegic after an unlicensed, uninsured driver fleeing from police crashed into the car Gaston was riding in and paralyzed him.

Gaston sued the driver and the city of Springfield in circuit court and won the largest verdict in Sangamon County history. The money should have been enough to take care of all his medical and personal needs for the rest of his life.

Gaston has never seen a penny and probably never will.

Of all the work I’ve done at The State Journal-Register, this is the story I’m most proud to have told. I wish I could have done more for Jerry and his family.

Photographer T.J. Salsman documented Jerry’s life in photos. This was my first attempt at narrative writing on a significant news story.

Broken life / Reckless driver forever changes Jerry Gaston’s world
Aug. 27, 2006

Jerry Gaston’s eyes flutter open about 4 a.m. most days.

He wishes he could sleep longer, but painful muscle spasms jar him awake. Four to five hours of sleep a night is all he can manage.

He can hear his fiancee, Minnie Blue-Bond - his wife for all intents and purposes - breathing heavily next to him. Occasionally, he hears one of the children stir in the next bedroom.

He can’t see out the window behind his head, but he can tell dawn is breaking from the way the hues in the room change and from the furious chirping of birds outside.

He orders his [...] Read the rest of this entry »

You can’t live in Springfield without writing at least one Simpsons-related story. In my case, I staked out the line outside the local convention and visitors bureau in July 2007 when they handed out a limited number of passes for a special screening of the new Simpsons Movie opening that summer.

‘Simpsons Movie’ passes go quickly / Each one good for two admissions to special screening
July 24, 2007

Adam Stogdell, 19, kept an eye on the office of the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau all weekend, looking for signs of life.

Had he seen a line of “Simpsons” fans forming outside the front door, he was prepared to park and stake out a spot for himself in line.

By 10 p.m. Sunday, however, the anticipation had become too much. There still was no line, so Stogdell parked in front of the Seventh Street office, pulled out a chair and cooler and started a line himself.

“Honestly, there just is not much to do on a Sunday night,” said Stogdell, an engineering student home for the summer from Berea College in Kentucky.

By 8:20 a.m. Monday, a line of 90 fans eager for a pass to see a special Thursday night screening of “The Simpsons Movie” stretched down the street and around the corner.

At 8:30 a.m., officials at the convention and visitors bureau started handing out 75 passes, each good for two admissions to the screening, and 500 special-edition posters touting the film and declaring [...] Read the rest of this entry »

The things I learned about snakes living on the shores of Lake Springfield while reporting on this story make me want to, well, stay away from Lake Springfield.

This was a fun distraction from crime reporting. They never did find the monster snake.

Snake in the lake / Unusual sighting intrigues officials, experts
June 25, 2007

Rumor has it, there’s sssomething suspicious ssswimming in Lake Ssspringfield.

But experts don’t believe there’s any reason to be alarmed.

In April, a woman who lives near Lake Springfield snapped a very Loch Ness-quality photo of what appears to be a large, yellow-colored snake in the water near the rocky shoreline.

The photo shows the snake’s head sticking out of the water and its body beneath.

Rumors have been swirling about the photo and exactly what kind of serpent is pictured. Some have speculated it is a python, but most seem to believe it is some kind of water snake that lives in the lake.

No one else has seen the snake, or at least had the presence of mind to take a photo if they did. As a result, City Water, Light and Power officials have no way of determining if the snake is something one would expect to find in Lake Springfield, or if it is something that doesn’t belong there.

Even snake experts are puzzled, mainly because there are only two photographs and the quality of them is too poor to make a positive identification.

“It’s tough. I really can’t tell what it is,” said Chris Phillips, a snake expert with [...] Read the rest of this entry »

Three-year-old Cameron Cleeton had to be in a partial body cast after his mother’s boyfriend badly beat him on Father’s Day in June 2007. I was invited to Cameron’s grandmother’s home, where the boy was staying, to talk about how he was doing and how the family was coping. They mentioned how the Cameron had been looking forward to going to an upcoming monster truck rally in town but now they weren’t sure they would be able to go because of his injuries and mobility issues.

SJ-R readers came through again with offers of help, and the organizers of the monster truck rally arranged for Cameron to meet the driver of his favorite truck, “Grave Digger.”

Stepfather allegedly beats 3-year-old boy / Child undergoes surgery, has broken leg, cuts
June 19, 2007

A 3-year-old boy was hospitalized Sunday night with a broken leg, bruises and cuts after his stepfather allegedly beat him on Father’s Day.

The boy required surgery Monday, and his condition was unknown late in the day.

Jessie S. Fishburn, 20, of the 3200 block of East Enos Avenue was in Sangamon County Jail, charged with aggravated battery to a child. Bond was set Monday at $75,000.

The incident happened between 9:30 and 10 p.m. Sunday at the family’s mobile home on East Enos Avenue. Authorities were sent to St. John’s Hospital about 10 p.m. after emergency room workers notified them a boy there had injuries consistent with child abuse.

The boy suffered a [...] Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of the “Victim of circumstance” series was about Jerry’s life now, what unfolded the night of the crash and Derek Brown’s history as a reckless driver and his brushes with the law.

Part 2 examined the relationship between Jerry and his fiancee and caretaker, Minnie Blue Bond, as well as the legal battle, Jerry’s injuries and his prospects for the future.

Spinal cord injury leaves Gaston with few options
Aug. 28, 2006

Snap a pencil in half, and you’re left with two pieces of wood with a lead core running through the center. Firmly bind the two pieces back together, and there’s a good chance you can continue using the pencil with no trouble.

Now imagine your spinal column with the spinal cord running through the center - something like a pencil with a piece of licorice inside.

Had Jerry Gaston’s vertebrae simply fractured as a result of the crash in May 2002, he might have walked away. But in his case, three bones in his neck broke and dislocated from each other, stretching and pulling and putting pressure on his spinal cord.

Doctors rushed to stabilize the injury when Gaston got to the hospital. They used a device that applied traction and allowed them to realign the bone to prevent further damage to the cord. His surgeon, Dr. Stephen Pineda, then performed surgery to repair and stabilize the fracture with a series of plates, screws and rods.

Despite doctors’ [...] Read the rest of this entry »

Part of my job as police reporter for the SJ-R is to thumb through media copies of police reports each day, looking for serious and unusual crime. In July 2006 I found a theft report where the stolen item was a backyard swimming pool. I did a little investigating and learned the victim was a 9-year-old boy who’d saved up his money for months to buy that pool for him and his siblings to play in.

The story ran on a Saturday. I checked my work messages from home that morning, hoping that someone in town would want to help Marcus Fearson out by finding him a new pool. There were dozens of messages by day’s end. One man went to the store promptly at 9 a.m. and brought a brand new pool for Marcus and had already dropped it off.

The police, by the way, nabbed the thief three days later.

Nine months of saving thwarted / Thieves steal pool from 9-year-old
July 15, 2006

Nine-year-old Marcus Fearson saved his allowance for months to buy himself something special.

At first he had his eye on a video game system but, after talking it over with his mom, decided a swimming pool would be just the ticket - a little indulgence to help him, his brothers and his cousins wile away steamy summer afternoons.

So on July 3, Marcus and his mother, Tiffany Fearson, went to Kmart and bought a $120 metal-frame pool. It was [...] Read the rest of this entry »

I was at lunch with fellow reporter Sarah Antonacci one afternoon in July 2006, when we started noticing a few cars with numbers on them speeding south on Interstate 55. We saw more of them whizz by and began hearing unusual animated state police chatter on the scanner. Then we realized most of the numbered cars were luxury sports cars.

We pulled over at the Taco Bell on Toronto Road after finding a Lotus parked in the lot. The driver came out of the restaurant and talked to me about what was going on. Turns out it was a cross-country rally for the rich and famous known as “Bullrun.”

Passing through / Rally routes rich and famous down I-55
July 25, 2006

Joe Talbot’s customized metallic blue Lotus looked a little out of place parked in the lot of Taco Bell on Toronto Road Monday afternoon.

After all, there aren’t many Lotuses in these parts. Same goes for Lamborghinis, Porsches and the multitude of other sports cars cruising down Interstate 55 Monday - a few of which reportedly were going faster than 100 mph, sometimes on the shoulders, and had state troopers scrambling to track them down.

Talbot’s was among the dozens of high-end luxury cars that raced through the Springfield area on Monday’s leg of Bullrun 2006, an invitation-only coast-to-coast rally that attracts the rich, the famous and a cast of “petrosexuals” - people obsessed with cars and motor sports.

Entry fees for the [...] Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the unsolved murders in the area, this is the one I most wish police would solve. I think part of what bothers me about this case is that there doesn’t seem to be anyone fighting on Julia Testa’s behalf, rattle the police department’s cage or pounding the pavement themselves in an effort to find her killer.

No one even ran an obituary in the newspaper for her. I have no idea what she looked like, who her family is or what she did in life.

The case remains unsolved.

Police reopen ‘02 death case / Initial investigation into woman’s probable homicide stalled
July 17, 2006

Springfield police have reopened their investigation into the 2002 death of a woman whose remains were found in her bed at a group home on MacArthur Boulevard.

Julia M. Testa, 39, was found Aug. 29, 2002, inside her room at 702 S. MacArthur Blvd. after a mental health worker went to check on her because she had missed several appointments.

While police investigated Testa’s death as a possible homicide after receiving autopsy results, the probe stalled for some reason.

Testa’s autopsy report shows she died of a stab-cutting wound on the front of her neck “and possibly additional blunt-force trauma.” The wound was to her larynx, not the veins or arteries of her neck, a detective testified at the coroner’s inquest Oct. 2, 2002.

However, evidence that typically would point to homicide was not present in Testa’s apartment.

The door to her top-floor apartment was locked from the inside with a [...] Read the rest of this entry »

In June 2006 I was able to profile Gerry Castles and his daughter Rikki Castles-Zajicek, the Springfield Police Department’s first father-daughter cops. My favorite quote is when Gerry told me about seeing his daughter in her uniform for the first time and he flashed back to when she used to dress up in his uniform as a child.

The photo, taken by former SJ-R intern Dave Albers, is a favorite of mine, too. I love how Gerry is all buttoned up and seasoned-looking, and Rikki is young and fresh-faced.

Like father, like daughter / Two Springfield police officers form first pairing of its kind
June 18, 2006

Springfield police officer Gerry Castles was taken aback the first time he saw his daughter, Rikki, in a police uniform.

“It was as if, ‘Why are you playing dress-up in my uniform again?’” he recalled thinking when he saw her standing with other cadets at graduation from the police training academy. “There’s just an overwhelming sense of pride. It’s really crazy. It’s strange, and I like it.”

Gerry Castles and his 25-year-old daughter, Rikki Castles-Zajicek, have the distinction of being the first father-daughter officers with the Springfield Police Department. There have been numerous fathers, sons and brothers on the force at the same time, but this is the first time the department has had a father and daughter, according to police officials.

Police work runs in the Castles family - Rikki married Springfield police officer Tim Zajicek on [...] Read the rest of this entry »

After learning that a Springfield girl had been mauled by a pit bull, SJ-R photographer Justin Fowler and I set out to find the girl and learn more about how the girl was doing and what happened. We found 8-year-old Leticia Starks at her home with her mother. Starks’ ear was visibly injured, and she was visibly out of sorts from the traumatic incident.

‘Traumatized’ / Stitches alone may not heal girl attacked by pit bull
May 11, 2006

Eight-year-old Leticia Starks is a shadow of her usually rambunctious self.

That’s to be expected, her mother said, considering the trauma the second-grader suffered Tuesday night when a pit bull attacked her, mauling both ears, her right arm and her upper back.

“It’s not good. I have to look at my baby and see the pain that she’s in,” said Mondai Myers. “To be honest, I wish it was me who was mauled. I’d trade places with her in a minute. My baby is very traumatized.”

Doctors stitched up the wounds, and Leticia is taking pain medication. She returned home early Wednesday after spending several hours at Memorial Medical Center.

Myers said she’s unsure when Leticia will return to her class at Matheny Elementary School. She’s also unsure if the girl’s badly mauled right ear can be rebuilt, or if the attack damaged her hearing.

What is certain is that her little girl is alive and the pit bull is dead.

No one has stepped forward to claim [...] Read the rest of this entry »

It gave me great joy to be able to write a touching and well-received farewell piece about Springfield police officer Brenda Thompson, who died unexpectedly in April 2006.

City police lose one of their best-known / Death ends Brenda Thompson’s long career
April 6, 2006

Springfield police officer Brenda Thompson, a highly regarded member of the force for 27 years, died late Tuesday at St. John’s Hospital after a series of medical complications, friends and family members said.

Thompson, who turned 50 last month, had the highest seniority of any officer in the Springfield Police Department, based on the number of years she worked there.

She joined the force in February 1979 and worked as: a patrol officer; a Drug Awareness and Resistance Education, or DARE officer; Crime Stoppers coordinator from 1994 to 1999; crime prevention officer; and organizer of the department’s Neighborhood Watch and Beat Cop programs. She also worked in the narcotics section, was a field training officer and was a member of the department’s honor guard.

“She was kind of the matriarch of our department. What a wonderful woman,” said Sgt. Pat Ross, who knew Thompson for years.

“You can’t explain or put into words how much an individual like Brenda is going to be missed. I was asked how do you replace a Brenda Thompson. Well, you don’t. She was probably the most widely liked person down here. She just had a heart of gold. She was an outstanding officer and had inside [...] Read the rest of this entry »

I was a relatively new mom when this story unfolded, and it had a profound effect on me. My son was almost the same age as the tiny victim in this incident, and I could not imagine ever harming my son’s little body. I remember going to the ladies room and crying in the middle of the reporting process — both out of sympathy for the boy and anger toward the mother.

Child abuse prevention is an issue that became more important to me the more I reported on abuse cases, especially after I had children of my own.

Toddler scalded; mother arrested / Boy allegedly put in hot water after soiling his diaper
April 1, 2006

A Springfield woman was jailed Friday after she allegedly punished her 15-month-old son by scalding him in the bathtub with hot water, causing second- and first-degree burns, police and prosecutors said.

The burns were severe enough that some of the baby’s damaged skin fell off when he was lifted out of the bathtub by a witness, police said.

Brea N. Reese, 20, of the 1700 block of East Clay Street is charged with one count of aggravated battery to a child. Reese also goes by the alias Sherika M. Smith, according to jail officials.

The boy is being treated in the burn unit at Memorial Medical Center for deep second-degree burns on his feet, legs and bottom and first-degree burns on his lower back. Police said the injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, though he is expected to [...] Read the rest of this entry »