Fellow SJ-R reporter Sarah Antonacci and I worked together on this piece about problems within the Springfield Police Department’s Major Case Unit and more specifically with former detectives Paul Carpenter and Jim Graham, whose methods had been called into question by local attorneys, a judge and a fellow detective.

This award-winning piece brought together all the issues with Major Case and helped readers understand what was at stake.

Detectives said to be loose with procedures / Allegations against Major Case Unit detail numerous investigation violations
Jan. 22, 2006

Allegations against the Springfield Police Department’s now-disbanded Major Case Unit apparently revolve around suspicions that unit detectives violated department procedures and legal requirements in connection with search warrants, suspect interviews and court testimony.

In one case, a panel of federal appellate judges said they believed detectives had not told the truth when testifying against an alleged drug dealer. Their actions, the judges said in a written opinion, cast “a dark cloud” over the conduct of all police officers.

Illinois State Police investigators for months have been looking into allegations against the unit, as well as reviewing some of its investigations and the unit’s policies.

The state police probe originally was expected to lead to, if anything, internal departmental discipline of any officers found to have acted improperly. However, sources inside and outside the Springfield Police Department now say the investigation could culminate in criminal charges against some city officers.

The Major Case Unit was disbanded as of Jan. 1 by Police Chief Don Kliment. Kliment said the move was [...] Read the rest of this entry »

Interstate 55 is a pipeline for many things, including smuggled illegal immigrants.

In monitoring jail booking sheets and federal court filings in 2005, I began to realize state troopers conducting traffic stops along the interstate near Springfield were finding a startling number of illegal aliens traveling in appalling conditions. Affidavits accompanying the federal charges told the stories.

Human cargo / Smugglers use I-55 as pipeline to Chicago for illegal immigrants
Nov. 13, 2005

Picture this.

A Chevrolet Suburban hits the highway with 17 people piled inside. Most of the seats have been removed to allow more people to be crammed in.

No one is wearing seat belts, and the passengers - mostly Mexican citizens - are forced to squat below window level so no other motorists can see them.

The driver refuses to stop for bathroom breaks, so passengers must urinate in milk jugs or plastic windshield-fluid containers. If their bodily needs are any worse than that, they’re out of luck.

There might be one stop for food during the 1,800-mile smuggling trip, depending on the driver’s mood. He will remain at the wheel from Phoenix to the passengers’ destinations without napping. If he finally gets sleepy enough, he might ask another passenger to drive for a while. Neither has a valid driver’s license, nor does either have much of a grasp of the English language.

Think it’s a scene from the American Southwest? Think again. Illegal aliens are being smuggled through central Illinois every day, and [...] Read the rest of this entry »

One behind-the-scenes aspects of the Springfield Police Department is its mechanics. A police official back in 2005 suggested I do a story on the state of the department’s patrol cars. Floors were rusting out, engines had a huge number of miles on them and interiors were falling apart.

In tough economic times, replacing police patrol cars is nearly impossible for local governments. Springfield was supposed to have a five-year plan for rotating cars in and out, but it had not adhered to the plan. At the time of this story, the department had not gotten new patrol cars in five years.

I spent an afternoon at the department’s garage and was struck by how hard the mechanics work and how creative they could be with replacing parts and making do with what was on hand.

Fleet weak / Police mechanics forced to improvise to keep aging cars on road
Oct. 3, 2005

If you can imagine a flock of buzzards picking at a pile of bones, then it’s not much of a stretch to visualize what the Springfield Police Department’s mechanics do every day.

A row of seven retired Chevrolet Caprices and Ford Crown Victorias are lined up in a corner of the garage property on Singer Avenue. They’re squad cars that, just since June, have been deemed no longer safe for officers to drive, primarily because of rust problems.

They will be joined by five more by March, mechanics estimate.

The cars are dead in [...] Read the rest of this entry »

This was one of my favorite research projects at the newspaper.

Robert Pope, a former managing editor at The State Journal-Register, read an article someplace about people who drive faster than 100 mph. He wanted to find out if there were locals who’d done it and ask them why.

The trick was finding them. I looked through circuit court records, but speeding tickets aren’t documented according to speed. One day I was on a ride-alone with a traffic deputy for the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, and the subject came up. He explained to me under what traffic law a 100-mph ticket would be issued (speeding 40+ mph over the limit). Now I had a starting point.

The folks at the Sangamon County circuit clerk’s office were kind enough to give me a workspace in their office, and I started combing through the ticket files. I made notes on a yellow legal pad as I went along. Voila! I had a story.

From there I tracked down locals who’d been ticketed for driving more than 100 mph, and the result was a unique story about the so-called “Century Club.”

Century club / Since 2003, 124 motorists in Sangamon County have been ticketed for driving more than 100 mph
Aug. 1, 2005

Jason Shephard doesn’t have a pilot’s license. But, man, can he fly.

Shephard, 21, drives a silver 1997 Chevrolet Corvette he’s had since April 2004.

He didn’t really set out to buy a Corvette, a car [...] Read the rest of this entry »

My editor in 2005 asked me to research and write about the history of black officers in the Springfield Police Department. The assignment stemmed from ongoing claims of racial discrimination and bias within the department and the civil lawsuits stemming from those allegations.

I spent no less than six months researching the topic. I pored through reels of microfilm of old city newspapers, picked up books on the history of the city, spent hours at the Sangamon Valley Collection and interviewed several retired and current black officers.

Black and Blue / African-American officers struggling with racial divisions in the Springfield Police Department is nothing new.
Sept. 4, 2005

Ask Harry Draper about his 25 years with the Springfield Police Department, and he’ll regale you for hours with tales of solved murder cases, department politics and officer shenanigans.

He’ll reach into his front pants pocket and show you the badge he still carries around, even though he’s been retired since 1981.

His eyes get a little misty when he recalls the day in 1963 when he was the only black officer chosen to guard Martin Luther King Jr., who spoke at an AFL-CIO convention at the Illinois State Armory.

But not all of Draper’s memories are fond ones. When he joined the police force, even though the modern civil rights movement was gaining momentum, racism was overt and accepted among Springfield officers. Many black officers agree that the discrimination they experienced was far worse among their [...] Read the rest of this entry »

This is one of my favorite stories ever. We’d just had Steve Buttry at The State Journal-Register to talk to reporters about writing. Two things I took away from the session were reminders to write good stories and that it’s OK to write short.

Within a few days I spotted an odd classified ad in the paper. A parent was looking for her child’s stuffed lion, which had been lost in Washington Park and was desperately missed. I called up the number listed in the ad and drove over to the Thuma home to find out more about Leo and how he came to be lost.

I wanted to write it in the style of a fairy-tale without overdoing it. This was the result:

little lion LOST … / …and found in Washington Park
May 7, 2005

Leo never intended to tumble out of a little girl’s stroller and onto the Washington Park jogging path when no one was paying attention.

And he certainly didn’t expect to spend the night in one of the park’s trees. But that was where he found himself Wednesday.

It wasn’t the first time the little stuffed toy lion - yellow, pink-tongued and matted from all the love and affection a little boy can offer - had become separated from his loved ones. There also was the sporting goods store and the gym.

His family always would come back for him. But this time, he was alone there on the path [...] Read the rest of this entry »

In 2005 I wrote about Eddie Hanson, a local homeless man who died in a fire. He and another homeless man were inside a vacant house on the city’s north end looking for food. Eddie lit a fire so they could see. The fire got out of control, and Eddie was overcome and died. The other man escaped.

Authorities seek fire victim’s family / Identified as 41-year-old homeless man
June 9, 2005

Authorities need help finding the family of a homeless man who died Tuesday night when fire tore through the abandoned house in which he’d been squatting.

People who knew him said Edward R. Hanson, 41, worked day- labor jobs but did not talk about his family, according to Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone.

Officials have determined that he was born in Hawaii and are contacting people in that state with the same last name.

One Web-based people finder shows 126 people in Hawaii with the last name of Hanson, while another shows more than 200.

“It’s only right and proper (that we try to find his family),” Boone said following Wednesday morning’s autopsy, which showed Hanson died of smoke inhalation and burns.

“We are going to pursue as much as we can. It’s almost like looking for a needle in a haystack with that many people by that name in Hawaii. Where do you start? We’re going to try, and anybody here who knows anything about his family, it would be helpful.”

Hanson’s body was [...] Read the rest of this entry »

In 2004, the city of Springfield claimed to be making strides in hiring more minority employees; however, it refused to provide the documentation to back up the claim, even though it was submitted to a governmental agency.

When the city did finally release the reports, they were heavily redacted — in spite of a state attorney general’s directive that the reports are considered public record. I wrote a series of stories about the issue and attempts to obtain the documents through FOIA.

City declines to reveal gender, racial data / County judge to decide if reasoning is right
Sept. 3, 2004

The city of Springfield has declined to make public data it compiles every other year for the federal government about the gender and racial makeup of the city workforce, saying it amounts to confidential personnel information.

It will be up to a Sangamon County judge to decide if that reasoning is right.

City attorney Jenifer Johnson and Mayor Tim Davlin refused to disclose the data, which was requested Aug. 23 by the legal assistant to Benton attorney Courtney Cox, who represents black police officers suing the city for racial discrimination.

The assistant, Judy Carson, filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking “copies of all documents in the possession of the City of Springfield which reflect the race, gender and/or national origin of current and/or past employees … including all EEO reports, Labor Force Analysis and EEO Utilization Analysis for each period for which such records have been kept.”

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission oversees [...] Read the rest of this entry »

In early 2004 I profiled Springfield Mayor Tim Davlin for an article about his first year in office.

SPRINGFIELD’S MAYOR REFLECTS: Davlin’s first year
April 4, 2004

Tim Davlin is obsessed with money.

The city’s money, that is.

Approaching the anniversary of his April 16 inauguration as mayor of the capital city, Davlin admits he has spent much of his first year consumed by financial matters - the budget, in particular, took over his life, he said.

“I really feel like about three or four Wednesdays ago, the day after the city council meeting where we passed the sales tax increase, I felt like that following day was my first day on the job,” he said Thursday.

“I felt like … literally, 10 months, 11 months into the job, I’m just starting. I’ve got a list of things I think we have accomplished along the way, but every day, it was two or three hours every day, Monday through Friday and a lot of times on Saturdays, where we just dealt with the budget.”

Davlin, a Democrat and an insurance and investment broker who previously held no political office, was elected mayor of Springfield a year ago April 1 in a come-from-behind win over Republican stalwart Tony Libri. His win was part of a statewide shift of political control from Republicans to Democrats.

The mayor and city council are officially nonpartisan.

“For the most part, he was unproven politically. He’d never been in office, never ran for any [...] Read the rest of this entry »

In 2004, I started covering Springfield city government for The State Journal-Register. A plan pushed by the mayor and Convention and Visitors Bureau called for spending $215,000 to land “hosting rights” for an amateur sporting event known as the Prairie State Games.

I decided to investigate further and learned the Prairie State Games organization had some financial issues in the past. I wrote a series of stories about the organization, and eventually the mayor withdrew an ordinance approving the expenditure to lure the games here.

City to compete for sports festival / Prairie State Games could bring profit
May 11, 2004

The city is considering paying $215,000 to ensure Springfield is host to the Prairie State Games in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Springfield is competing with five other Illinois cities in its bid to attract the amateur athletic competition and its estimated $12 million economic impact.

The Springfield City Council’s public affairs and safety committee will discuss an ordinance authorizing the bid at its meeting Monday. It could go before the full council the next day.

The $215,000 represents “host city fees” for three years: $70,000 for 2005 and 2006, and $75,000 for 2007.

The Prairie State Games, run by the not-for-profit Illinois Health and Sports Foundation, is the state’s largest amateur sports festival, according to the event’s Web site. Athletes from across the state compete in 28 Olympic-style events. The Web site indicates 7,000 athletes competed in 2003 and 13,000 people participated as coaches, officials, volunteers and spectators.

Interested cities requested bid packages from festival officials, and [...] Read the rest of this entry »

Jena Schuch’s death at first was though to be an accident. That’s what her boyfriend told police. He claimed she mishandled a .12-gauge shotgun and killed herself. After a two-month investigation, Springfield police arrested Schuch’s boyfriend for murder.

Schuch, a 28-year-old mother of two, had only been living in Springfield for six months. I talked to her mom and friends to find out more about her and what her life in Springfield and back home in Michigan had been like.

‘She always had a smile’ / Boyfriend charged with Springfield woman’s murder
Nov. 9, 2003

Jena Schuch came to Springfield in March hoping for a fresh start.

Eight months later, family and friends are mourning her death, shocked that her boyfriend, Phillip Peterson, is in Sangamon County jail charged with murdering the 28-year-old woman on Sept. 13.

Peterson has maintained Schuch’s death was an accident caused when she mishandled a shotgun inside the garage apartment they shared in the 1800 block of South Wirt Street. However, those who knew her said Schuch was a skilled hunter who learned how to handle a gun properly when she was 12 years old.

“I would really like to see him face to face and say, ‘Look me in the eye and tell me what happened.’ There’s just a part of me that wants to do that so bad,” said Schuch’s mother Sue Gustafson. “I have a lot of questions the more I stop and think about things. My mind keeps saying why would you do that? There is no [...] Read the rest of this entry »

Eric Culbertson and Krista Saputo were nice enough to tell me the story of how they went to Chicago for a romantic weekend, during which Culbertson was to pop the question to Krista. Trouble was, he accidentally lost the engagement ring — the $10,000 engagement ring — in a taxi.

Word of the fumbled proposal spread around the Windy City and eventually got back to Springfield. The Chicago Tribune and the Sharon Osbourne Show also found out about it. My editor asked me to find the couple and see if they would tell me their story.

‘I fumbled’ - fiance / $10,000 engagement ring is left in cab
Sept. 16, 2003

Suite at the Chicago Hilton and Towers, complete with a view of Lake Michigan: $300.

Romantic dinner for two at the Bandera Restaurant, perfect for popping the question: $150.

Losing the $10,000 engagement ring in a taxi on the way: priceless.

Chicago seemed like the ideal backdrop for Eric Culbertson to ask Krista Saputo to marry him this past weekend.

Instead, their unforgettable evening turned into a nightmare when Culbertson discovered the engagement ring he’d purchased two weeks earlier apparently had fallen out of his wallet when he paid the cabbie who drove the couple to a restaurant 10 minutes from their hotel.

“I fumbled. I was on the one-yard line, and I fumbled,” Culbertson said Monday. “I couldn’t begin to explain all the emotions I had.”

Culbertson, 28, and Saputo, 29, ran into each other about a year [...] Read the rest of this entry »

This piece is based on my first police ride-along on a prostitution detail. What an eye-opener it was.

Police use new approach to root out prostitution / Often-ignored problem fought with stings, outreach
June 15, 2003

He had a proposition for the pony-tailed woman in jean shorts and a T-shirt who’d been standing on the corner of Eighth and Enterprise streets Tuesday night.

He could drum up work for her if she agreed to give him $10 from every trick.

“What if I only make $10?” she asked, making eye contact with men who drove slowly past, several of whom circled back.

He’d let her keep it, he said, boasting that he’s good to all his girls.

A customer pulled up to the corner then, and she jumped in his car, promising she’d return in 30 minutes with $10 for him.

The alleged pimp - a 24-year-old man wearing a hockey-style jersey - strolled to a picnic table in the park nearby, lit a cigarette and waited.

Little did he know, the woman wasn’t a hooker at all. She was a decoy working undercover on a prostitution sting with a team of Springfield police officers. Her “customer” actually was another undercover officer.

Police, armed with two-way radios and binoculars, had watched the conversation take place. While the decoy and her “customer” waited a few blocks away, officers broke out law books to look up definitions for pimping and pandering. Pimping arrests are rare, they said, and they wanted to make sure this one held up.

Thirty minutes later, the woman [...] Read the rest of this entry »

I met some great kids in 2003 when photographer T.J. Salsman and I documented the Springfield Housing Authority’s Cobras boxing team, an after-school boxing program for youths looking for something productive to do or a safe, suitable outlet for their aggression.

The resulting story appeared in the Feb. 28, 2003, issue of Heartland Magazine in The State Journal-Register.

Off the street fighters / The Springfield Cobras boxing team offers structure and discipline to young people at risk
Feb. 28, 2003

Nine-year-old Keith Treadwell knows what it takes to become a good boxer.

“Practice,” said the Butler Elementary student, who is a member of the Springfield Cobras youth boxing team. “I practice here. I practice at my house. Sometimes I’ll be in bed at night and I practice.”

Any secret moves up his sleeve?

“There’s no secret to boxing!” he said, incredulous that someone would ask such a silly question. “You just have to have good punches and upper cuts and hooks.”

And with that, the boy with the sweet face who prefers to sit alone quietly if he loses a match smacked his gloved fists together and headed for the boxing ring, where his sparring partner waited.

Treadwell is one of about 23 kids who box for the Cobras, a team sponsored by the Springfield Housing Authority. The youngest boxer is 6 and the oldest is 23.

With a shoestring budget, a few dedicated volunteers and a lot of spirit, the team is taking impressionable youths off the [...] Read the rest of this entry »

I was working the night shift in February 2003 when the newsroom phones started ringing. Readers wanted to know if we knew anything about the odd-looking snow balls dotting the landscape in the rural areas around Springfield. Photographer T.J. Salsman and I set out to see for ourselves what people were talking about. Turns out they are a weather phenomenon known as “snow rollers.”

Wind causes snow ‘rollers’
Feb. 12, 2003

“Creepy” and “weird” were how some people described a Tuesday night weather phenomenon in which large snowballs formed in fields, yards and parking lots without human help.

More than one motorist paused to look at clusters of the snowballs - known in the eastern United States as “rollers” - that formed as strong gusts of wind from the west blew across snow that was already on the ground.

“It looks like a Mars landscape at night,” said Stacy Bowman, who noticed the unusual snowballs about 8 p.m. in fields west of Bradforton Road as she drove home from Springfield.

“At first I thought they were just clumps of sod being turned over in the field,” she said. “Then I thought maybe some kids were out, but I didn’t see any footprints around.”

The “rollers,” which were more log-shaped than round, left yards of trails behind them where newly fallen snow had rolled and picked up the snow on the ground.

Melissa Byrd, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Lincoln, said the agency received numerous reports [...] Read the rest of this entry »