Tag Archives: Crime reporting

Double-murder/suicide in Carlinville

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This is one of the first major crime stories I wrote. I will never forget seeing from Interstate 55 the black smoke curling into the sky from the home George Setzekorn set on fire 10 minutes after the school bus dropped off his 14-year-old daughter there.

3 die in Carlinville / Double murder, suicide suspected; house set afire
Wednesday, April 24, 2002

CARLINVILLE – George Setzekorn wanted his ex-wife back and resented her parents for allowing her to live with them, authorities said, speculating that is what prompted the man to set the couple’s house on fire, shoot and kill his ex-sister-in-law and then kill himself with the same gun Tuesday afternoon.

Dead are Setzekorn, 53, of Centralia, who also goes by the name George Young; his former sister-in-law, Janie Goesmann, 45; and a third person found in the basement of the burning home of Neal and Margaret House. That body was believed to be that of Setzekorn’s 14-year-old daughter, Skylar Young.

Skylar was seen getting off the school bus at the House residence about 10 minutes before the fire was reported.

Setzekorn’s ex-wife, Patricia Young, was not injured. The parents of Goesmann and Young, Neal, 78, and Margaret, 74, House were treated for smoke inhalation and released.

The Houses were taken to Carlinville Area Hospital, where they were treated for smoke inhalation. Stone said Goesmann’s husband and three children were not home at the time of the shooting.

The ordeal began at 3:38 p.m., when authorities received a report of a fire at the House residence, which is on Illinois 108 just east of Carlinville.

According to Carlinville Police Chief Steven Stone, an ambulance responding to the fire was waiting to make a turn near Boente’s Shell at Center and South streets when rescue personnel heard gun shots.

They searched the area and found Goesmann lying in the back yard of a house at 115 S. Center St. She had been shot in the head.

About that time, Setzekorn was seen running toward his car, which was parked near the Shell station. He got into it, pointed a gun at his head and shot himself, Stone said.

Goesmann and Setzekorn were taken to Carlinville Area Hospital about 4 p.m., where they died in the emergency room, a hospital official said.

Stone said evidence led authorities to believe Setzekorn set the House residence on fire. Patricia Young was living with her parents and was unharmed Tuesday. Stone was unsure how many children she had had with Setzekorn, but a family portrait showed them with two children.

“We have reason to believe this shooter had set the fire because he’d made threats before to cause trouble for Janie’s folks,” he said, adding that an order of protection had been filed to keep Setzekorn from his former family.

Setzekorn had a prior criminal record: Stone said he shot and killed another ex-wife, in northern Illinois about 15 years ago.

“It makes me wonder why he was out walking around,” Stone said.

Stone was unsure how long Setzekorn and Young had been divorced.

“I know it was since at least ’97 because that’s when it first came to our attention that he was a problem,” he said. “From what I understand, he wanted her back, and the family was helping her out, and he didn’t like that. He wanted her to be desperate and come back to him.”

Despite the order of protection being in place, Stone said the police had no record of Setzekorn causing trouble – beyond threats – prior to Tuesday.

“He never had a violation that we could hang our hat on,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen the man. I’ve only seen his picture.”

Goesmann was a registered nurse at Carlinville Area Hospital, where she worked primarily in the emergency room, said Art Knippel, the hospital’s director of administrative services.

Knippel was not sure what year Goesmann started working at the hospital but said she’d worked there for several years and had many friends.

It was the same emergency room where Goesmann was pronounced dead Tuesday.

Mayor Brad Demuzio, 37, cannot remember a murder happening in Carlinville since he was a child. The community was celebrated as a great place to live in the 1993 book “The 100 Best Small Towns in America” by Norm Crampton.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Demuzio said after hearing the news of the shootings.

A clerk who was working Tuesday night in Boente’s Shell station across the street from Janie Goesmann’s house said customers were coming in and talking about the shootings.

The clerk, who started work at 4 p.m., said he did not witness the shootings but had heard a passerby’s report of a man with a gunshot wound being pulled from a car. The car was on the street between the house and the Shell station on the corner of Center and South streets.

A patron of Rookie’s Tavern on the square, who asked to not be identified, said, “It’s a shock.”

“We’re a very small community. Everybody here is considered very close,” he said. “It touches everybody when this kind of thing happens. Everybody feels sorrow for the family. We wish them all well.”

Body found in refrigerator

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The story of Paulleen Godoy, a homeless prostitute with no family locally, will always stick with me.

Paulleen was murdered and her body stashed in a nonfunctioning refrigerator on the city’s near west side in August 2002. It took local authorities weeks to track down her next of kin, a grandmother who lived in Washington state and could not come to Springfield to retrieve Godoy’s ashes or pay for a funeral.

Through Paulleen’s story I met a local woman named Margaret Best, a somewhat eccentric person who often took pity on those who live on the fringe of society. Margie quietly offered to pay for the funeral expenses to give Paulleen a proper funeral and burial. I went to the funeral, where several of Paulleen’s friends and acquaintances — prostitutes, homeless people and social service workers — showed up to pay their respects. There were flowers, a minister and a burial services for Paulleen’s ashes, thanks to Margie.

Margie lived alone, never married and had no children. She stepped forward an untold number of times with similar offers of money to pay for a funeral or at least make sure a lonely person had flowers at their funeral.

Margie died on Jan. 22, 2009. There were more people at Paulleen’s funeral than there were at Margie’s. I think she would have wanted it that way.

These are the stories I wrote about Paulleen’s murder:

Body found in refrigerator / Call brings police to garage on West Washington Street
Monday, Aug. 19, 2002

A badly decomposed body was found early Sunday inside a refrigerator in a West Washington Street garage, and authorities said the person might have been dead a month or more.

Authorities said the gender, race and approximate age of the person could not be determined because of the advanced decomposition. It also could not be determined whether there were wounds to the body.

Sangamon County Sheriff Neil Williamson said deputies received a call that there was a dead body in a refrigerator in a garage behind an apartment house at 814 W. Washington St. Deputies who went to the address at approximately 6 a.m. found the remains and alerted the Springfield Police Department.

Williamson said the two agencies are conducting a joint investigation of the death. Sangamon County Coroner Susan Boone said an autopsy was scheduled for today.

Williamson said the person apparently had been dead for some time.

“It appeared the body may have been there perhaps a month or so. It’s hard to say,” he said. “We have a lot more questions than we have answers right now. We’re moving backward in the investigation to try to backtrack to the people we need to talk to.”

It was not clear whether the body had been in the refrigerator much of the time or was placed there recently. Detectives were searching Sunday afternoon for a woman who was wanted for questioning in connection with the investigation.

The garage in which the body was found is on the east side of an alley that runs between Glenwood and State streets. Deputies taped off an area of driveway and overgrown yard behind the multi-unit apartment house.

There is another house just south of the apartment complex that has a front entry on the alley. The property where the body was found also is behind several homes on Glenwood Street.

A large, blue trash receptacle was inside the taped-off area. On Sunday, a parked patrol officer was guarding the crime scene.

A man who lives in an apartment building west of where the body was found said he first noticed police in the neighborhood around 7 a.m. when he was getting ready for church, but he said had no idea why they were there.

“I’ve been smelling something for a while, but I thought it was garbage. Obviously, I was wrong,” the neighbor said, adding that he did not know who owns the property where the body was found or who lives there.

“It’s a pretty good neighborhood,” the man said. “At least, that’s what I thought.”

No one answered the door at any of the apartments at 814 W. Washington St.

Another resident who lives nearby on Glenwood Street said several homes in the area have been converted into apartments, causing the neighborhood to become more transient.

He said people often use the alley where the body was found to get through the neighborhood.

The man also said the residents of a house at the corner of Washington and Glenwood were evicted recently. A wet mattress and other belongings were heaped in a pile near the sidewalk in front of the house Sunday.

Families await word from missing relatives / Body found in refrigerator raised fears
Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2002

When Linda Persinger read in the news two weeks ago that a badly decomposed body had been found inside a refrigerator on West Washington Street, she immediately feared it was that of her nephew, Duane Grant.

Grant turned 28 on Aug. 25. His family has not seen or heard from him since late November. Though he has an alcohol problem, according to his family, they say he has never wandered off for months at a time.

While the body in the refrigerator was not Grant’s, that has done little to allay his family’s worst fears.

“I thought, ‘That’s going to be my nephew. That’s going to be my nephew they pull out of that refrigerator,’” Persinger said, bursting into tears. “When you put something like that in the paper about somebody being found in a refrigerator, you don’t know what I went through. It was a relief when I found out it wasn’t Duane. I prayed to God that wasn’t my nephew.”

Persinger was not the only person who had fears about the body in the refrigerator, which turned out to be that of a Springfield woman named Paulleen Godoy. Authorities received numerous calls from people wondering if the body could have been that of a missing loved one.

As of last week, the Springfield Police Department had between 30 and 40 people on its missing persons list.

Missing persons remain on the list indefinitely until they are found or until someone calls police to say they’ve returned home.

“The number fluctuates daily as those who are missing come home and others are reported missing,” said police department spokesman Sgt. Kevin Keen.

The problem with reporting adults as missing, Keen said, is that adults are free to come and go as they please.

“We still treat every missing report as a valid and legitimate missing person. We actively pursue them,” he said. “We don’t list an adult as missing unless foul play is suspected or they have a diminished mental capacity.”

Police place more emphasis on looking for people who are considered “missing critical,” which includes children who have disappeared, people who might have met with foul play and those who are suicidal or who suffer from diminished mental capacity.

If police need to, they might ask television and radio stations to broadcast a description of the person. The police department also can make use of its “City Watch” system, which is a computer program that allows officers to call everyone in the area where the person was last seen.

For Persinger, the hope that police will find her nephew fades a little each day. She filed a missing persons report with police in February, but she hasn’t heard anything from authorities since then.

Police say there at least two outstanding warrants for Grant’s arrest, which could account for his disappearance. But Persinger said Grant never could stay away from his family for long and often came around for money.

“We still have his tax forms that he’s not come around to fill out. He would have gotten back a thousand bucks,” Persinger said.

In the meantime, she’s been checking homeless shelters and talking to people Grant knows. Most have been little help. In fact, she said, one person told her Grant is dead.

Grant is 5 feet 9 inches, 160 pounds, with blue eyes and brown hair. His last known address was the 200 block of Sangamon Avenue.

His family said they last saw him Nov. 30 at Big R, 2804 N. Dirksen Parkway. His sister gave him a ride to a cafe on North Grand Avenue, where he was supposed to have a job interview that day.

Funeral fund set up for victim / Body found in refrigerator one month ago
Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2002

A fund has been set up for donations to pay for a funeral service, burial site and headstone for a Springfield woman whose remains were found in a refrigerator one month ago.

No family members have come forth to claim the now-cremated remains of Paulleen Godoy, a 31-year-old prostitute who police believe was murdered. Authorities have had difficulty locating Godoy’s grandmother, who was last known to live in Eugene, Ore., or her ex-husband and daughter, who are believed to live somewhere in the Southwest.

Donations can be made to the Paulleen Godoy Memorial Fund at any branch of Marine Bank.

“Really, the purpose is to get her in the ground and get her a headstone,” said Paul Carlson, a retired counselor who knew Godoy because she and other street people used to stop in at his former office on South Eighth Street seeking food, money and other types of assistance.

Services will be announced but tentatively are set for later this month. Kirlin-Egan and Butler Funeral Home will handle the arrangements, Carlson said.

“She thought she was such an insignificant person. She really believed that. It wasn’t part of her game,” Carlson said. “She just really thought of herself as a nonentity in this world.”

Authorities had to use an enhanced fingerprinting process to positively identify Godoy, whose badly decomposed body was found early Aug. 18 stuffed into a refrigerator in a garage behind an apartment house in the 800 block of West Washington Street.

Authorities have refused to say how she was killed.

Robert Reynolds, 35, of the 900 block of North Eighth Street remains jailed on $50,000 bond for allegedly failing to register as a sex offender. Police have not called Reynolds a suspect in the Godoy murder, but they have said they wanted to talk to him as part of their investigation.

Reynolds reportedly lived in the house in front of the litter-strewn garage where Godoy’s body was found.

Springfield police said Tuesday they have no developments to report regarding their investigation of the murder.

Carlson said that Godoy, whose street name was “Spooky” and was called Paula by those who knew her, arrived in Springfield in either 1995 or 1996 on a bus from Florida after she had gotten into some kind of trouble there. He first met her in 1997 when he found her sleeping in the back of a van that was parked behind his office on Eighth Street.

Carlson said prostitutes, who have been known to frequent that area, often stopped in at his office seeking food or other types of help.

“I always told them if it’s cold outside, you can come in and have a cup of coffee as long as you don’t disrupt anything going on inside,” he said, adding that Godoy, who was homeless, made his office into her base of operation as far as getting phone messages from family members and leaving important documents there for safekeeping.

He said Godoy sometimes talked about her personal life with his office workers, and she once mentioned that her mother died of a heroin overdose when Godoy was 13. She went to live with her grandmother, eventually took up with a man named Fernando Godoy and gave birth to a daughter named Monica. Godoy apparently had no contact with her biological father, though she did attempt to contact him once while she was living in Springfield, Carlson said.

Godoy’s daughter was believed to be about 13 in 1998 and lived with her father, who may be American Indian and living on a reservation. Carlson said a girl named Monica called his office once looking for Godoy and left a phone number with a 602 area code but couldn’t be reached after that.

Godoy’s drug of choice was cocaine, though she was known to use many types of illegal substances, Carlson said.

“In her heart, I think she really wanted out of where she was at. But the demon that is cocaine had her,” he said. “She was like a sweet 13-year-old kid. She was very needy. There were moments when you got to see through the veil and see the real person.”

Carlson said he last saw Godoy in August 2001, but she called him on the telephone about once a month after that. Then the phone calls stopped.

“Paula was always scamming somebody. ‘Can I borrow 10 bucks? I’ll pay you back tonight.’ Writing bad checks. That’s how she lived her life, literally day to day,” he said. “And she had an interesting sense of humor. When she was straight, she was very funny.”

Carlson said he believes Godoy deserves a proper burial.

“My wish for Paula is that she is at peace now because she was always struggling to survive,” he said.

Van’s IGA destroyed by fire

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I was working the night shift Aug. 23, 2001, and was on my way to a meeting in Enos Park when I heard some police scanner traffic about a fire on South Grand. Something about the tone of the dispatcher’s voice prompted me to head to South Grand to see what was going on.

As I got closer to South Grand, I began to see black smoke in the sky. By the time I parked and walked toward the Van’s IGA, a longtime neighborhood grocery store, large flames were shooting from the windows and firefighters were everywhere.

Photographer Kristen Schmid-Schurter and I stayed at the scene several hours and documented what was happening as firefighters battled the blaze. Store employees and neighbors could not believe what they were seeing.

Van’s IGA destroyed by fire / East side loses neighborhood grocery store
Friday, Aug. 24, 2001

Hundreds of Springfield residents watched in disbelief Thursday evening as a treasured neighborhood grocery store went up in flames.

Van’s IGA at 1230 South Grand Ave. E. was destroyed in the blaze, which began about 6:15 p.m. while eight to 10 employees and customers were inside.

All who were inside made it out of the building unhurt, but one Springfield firefighter was taken to St. John’s Hospital with minor injuries he suffered while battling the fire.

The fire apparently started in the back part of the roughly 20,000-square-foot building, according to Springfield Fire Department spokesman Greg Bestudik. Investigators were at the scene late Thursday, trying to determine the exact cause of the fire.

Anthony Milford, 15, a stock clerk who worked at the store about two months, was in the building when the fire began. He said he had swept to the back of one aisle and was shaking out his dust mop when he saw smoke coming through some vents above the meat counter.

“I dropped the mop and told Jean (Milford’s boss),” he said. “She threw me the keys and said, ‘Lock the front door.’ Then we all just ran out.”

A customer who was in the store when the fire began, who asked that his name not be used, said his aunt had sent him to Van’s shortly after 6 p.m. for soda, Kool Aid and some other items. He said he didn’t notice smoke in the building while he shopped for about 10 minutes.

“I was in there paying for the stuff,” the customer said. “Then a checker told me to get out of the store. I saw a fire. I dropped everything and took off. I even left my $20 bill on the counter.”

The store’s owner, Gary G. Van Hise of Riverton, was not at the scene when the fire began, but he arrived soon after. He watched helplessly from the southeast side of the property as firefighters tried to bring the blaze under control.

Van Hise, who has owned the store for seven years, said he was relieved everybody got out safely.

“It’s just an old building,” he said, declining to speculate on what may have started the fire.

When firefighters first arrived, smoke was billowing out the rear of the building. Battalion Chief Tom Faulkner said the first firefighters to arrive tried to battle the fire from inside the building for about 20 minutes.

“It erupted into a big ball of flames,” he said. Because of the heat and the threat of the roof falling in, firefighters worked from the outside.

Bestudik, who also was fighting the fire, said large ventilation fans on the roof fanned the flames.

“We tried to make entry. It was just way too hot,” he said. “This fire had a way far advanced head start on us.”

Adding to the challenge was a lack of water pressure coming from nearby hydrants. City Water Light and Power workers were able to boost the pressure in the area for firefighters, which Bestudik said helped a lot.

“That’s just the way it is with older mains,” he said. “We can only get so much water out of the pipe.”

The fire burned strong for three hours. It took firefighters about an hour and a half to get the blaze under control.

Large flames shot through the roof, and a series of explosions caused many bystanders to gasp and take several steps back from where they had been standing.

Two aerial trucks were at the scene, as well as six engines and other vehicles. Firefighters poured water into the building through the roof and in through a rear door.

The front of the building was built of brick. Two additions appear to have been built onto the structure, one of which was made of cinderblock and the other of wood. All the windows of the structure were broken out. Several plastic signs on the front of the building were damaged from the heat.

An orange glow inside the structure could be seen through the smoke that billowed out from the roof and exterior doors, windows and vents of the building.

About 30 firefighters were on the scene, and Bestudik said many would stay until this morning to keep an eye on the fire, which gutted the building and destroyed on all its contents.

Two firefighters had minor injuries, Faulkner said. Jay Lovelace, 44, was one of the first on the scene, and he injured his leg while laying a hose line out. He was taken to St. John’s Hospital and was treated and released. He later returned to the scene of the fire and was walking on crutches.

Bill Kruger, 41, pulled a muscle while he was inside the building fighting the fire. He did not immediately seek medical attention, Faulkner said.

Because of the intensity and duration of the fire, a five-person team from the American Red Cross arrived at the scene about 9 p.m. to provide water and snacks for firefighters. The workers also helped evacuate families from three houses in the 1400 block of Loveland Avenue whose houses either abutted or were very close to Van’s.

Clarence Moore, who lives in one of the evacuated houses, said his mother called him from work to tell him the store was on fire and that he should get his belongings out of the house.

The rear of Moore’s house shares a wall with the grocery building. He ran inside to bring out a suitcase full of clothing and a bag of golf clubs. He said he was not sure if the wall his house shares with the store is a firewall.

“My cousin, who’s a firefighter, told me it wasn’t hot,” he said. “There was a lot of smoke inside when I went in. By the third trip in, there really was not that much smoke. The firefighters were concerned about our house catching on fire. They turned their water hoses and concentrated on the back of our house.”

Moore’s grandmother, Blanche Taborn, lives next door and also was evacuated.

Mary Ogle with the Red Cross said Taborn was with her relatives nearby.

“We worked with her to make sure she had her medication with her, and she did,” Ogle said. “We’re working with the other two families that are still there. Right now we’re taking care of their emergency needs – making sure they have shelter, food vouchers for tomorrow and toiletries to get them through the night.”

None of the nearby structures was damaged, firefighters said.

Traffic was blocked much of Thursday night on South Grand from 11th Street to 15th Street. Police also blocked off parts of Brown and Pine streets and Loveland Avenue.

Bystanders said they could not believe the store, which had stood since about 1915 and been operated as Castor’s Supermarket, Kent’s IGA and Mr. B’s IGA, was destroyed.

“I was headed over here to get something to eat for supper,” a woman said. “I said, ‘Oh man! Mr. B’s is on fire!’ I just can’t believe it.”

Blaze guts Springfield grocery / Neighbors lose more than just a food store: ‘They were family’

Some loyal customers of Van’s IGA on South Grand Avenue cried as they watched a fire roll through the grocery store Thursday night.

Some approached store owner Gary Van Hise to offer words of support.

Others simply stared in disbelief as firefighters struggled to bring the blaze under control.

Rebecca Houston and her 9-year-old daughter, Steffany, watched from behind a line of police tape as thick, black smoke billowed hundreds of feet into the air.

“I’ve been coming here for 30 years. I’ve lived in this neighborhood since the store was Castor’s,” she said. “Anytime you needed anything, you could go to the IGA.”

Van’s IGA was one of Springfield’s few remaining neighborhood grocery stores. The building was gutted in the fire, and VanHise said he was unsure whether he would rebuild.

The building has a long history in Springfield and changed ownership numerous times.

The store originally opened May 15, 1915, as Castor’s Grocery Store. Owned by William F. Castor, the store was operated by three generations of the Castor family until it was sold in 1972 to Bob Kent. The store became Kent’s IGA.

From 1977 until 1994, the store was owned by Art Bennett, who changed the name to Mr. B’s. Van Hise then bought the business and changed the name to Van’s IGA.

With Van’s IGA gone, many residents of this east-central part of Springfield find themselves without convenient access to a grocery store. Many of Van’s customers do not have vehicles, and others who are older do not like to fight the crowds and traffic at Springfield’s larger grocery stores.

Besides selling affordable produce, meat, penny candy and other merchandise, the store also cashed payroll checks, took utility payments and made grocery deliveries to Springfield residents.

The store employed as many as 20 to 25 people.

Houston said the fire left a void that will be felt throughout the community.

“It’s going to mean a lot of people are going to Shop ‘n Save or Save-A-Lot, which is a great distance from here,” Houston said. “A lot of people will have to get cabs to get to the store. It’s a shame. This is widespread devastation here, especially for this neighborhood.”

Marqueta Stewart lives in the Van’s neighborhood also. Her sister works at the store and was inside working when the fire started. She and the other employees and customers got out of the store uninjured.

Stewart said she was at home and realized something was wrong when she heard fire truck sirens. She looked out her back door, saw the lights and went to see what was wrong.

Stewart said she often stopped in at the store in the morning on her way to work. “I always grab chips or a snack and say hi to everybody. They were like a family.”

Wiping tears from her eyes, Stewart said people kept asking her why she was crying.

“I just can’t believe it’s gone,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll probably get up and say, ‘I gotta run over to the IGA’ without even thinking.”