An Illinois law intended to help people with mental illness avoid confrontations with police had been on the books for three years when Sonya Massey was shot by a Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy. The Community Emergency Services and Supports Act, or CESSA, requires mental and behavioral health calls to 911 be handled by mental health […]
Beth Hundsdorfer
Beth Hundsdorfer joined the Capitol News Illinois team as a full-time reporter in November 2021.
Hundsdorfer is a veteran investigative reporter who spent nearly 20 years at the Belleville News-Democrat, 13 of which were spent on the investigative beat.
Her resume includes two John Jay College Journalism awards for excellence in criminal justice, a National Headliners Grand Award, a George Polk Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for local reporting among other accolades.
Prior to joining Capitol News Illinois, she had a brief stint at St. Louis Public Radio, and she spent two years as the public information officer at the Illinois State Police, fielding news media inquiries on issues ranging from traffic crashes to policy and procedure.
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Attorney seeks class-action status in funeral home lawsuit
As many as 800 families across the country who patronized a Carlinville funeral home may never know if the remains on their mantles belong to their loved ones, according to an affidavit signed by Sangamon County Coroner Jim Allmon. The affidavit was filed in a lawsuit pending against Carlinville-based Heinz Funeral Home and its director […]
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Governor names new DCFS director
The troubled state agency charged with the protection of abused and neglected children will have new leadership in the new year. Gov. JB Pritzker announced Jan. 3 that Department of Juvenile Justice Director Heidi Mueller will take over the embattled Department of Children and Family Services starting Feb. 1. “The work Director Mueller has done […]
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Funeral home failures
State regulators allowed a Carlinville funeral director to operate for months despite a complaint filed by a local coroner who found a decomposing body in his funeral home and alleged the care of the remains was “unacceptable and criminal in nature.” While trying to assist a local family with retrieving cremated remains in March, Morgan […]
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DCFS, director face federal lawsuit filed on behalf of jailed wards
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services on Jan. 19 was named in a federal class-action lawsuit on behalf of children in state care who have been held in juvenile detention centers after a judge ordered their release. Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert is a plaintiff in the 32-page lawsuit in the Northern […]
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Brutal beatings, abuse plague state-run mental health facility, investigation reveals
As Blaine Reichard rose from a breakfast table at the Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in southern Illinois, a worker ordered him to pull up his sagging pants. A 24-year-old man with autism and developmental disabilities, Reichard didn’t obey. “I’m a gangsta! This is how we do it where I am from!” responded Reichard, […]
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FOID, red flags and restraining orders: How state laws regulate firearm purchases
A mass shooting in Highland Park at a Fourth of July parade prompted questions about how the suspect was able to obtain a gun in a state with some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. Law enforcement officials have said that the Highland Park shooting suspect, Robert Crimo III, 21, legally purchased and […]
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Found: Death certificates of 5 killed in East St. Louis riots
It was a tale told by older generations to the younger generations, of men shot and killed and their bodies tossed into a creek during one of the fiercest race riots in the country. That tale was carried across the Mississippi River by those trying to escape the violence and through the generations of African […]
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DCFS keeps teenager locked in psych ward
Leah is a 13-year-old girl under Department of Children and Family Services care who lives in a psychiatric ward in a Chicago hospital. Capitol News Illinois is using a pseudonym to protect her identity, but has confirmed she’s been held for months behind locked doors, despite a doctor saying she was well enough to leave […]
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DCFS director held in contempt for 7th time in 10 weeks
For the seventh time in 10 weeks, a Cook County judge found Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Director Marc Smith in contempt for failing to comply with a court order. DCFS was ordered by a judge in March 2021 to move a 16-year-old boy who has low intellectual functioning and cognitive delays from […]
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Man who pleaded guilty to arson named fire chief
Jerame Simmons got his long-held wish in December 2021 when he became the chief of the fire department that dismissed him 24 years ago after he was charged with setting fire to a vacant house and attempting to burn down his high school. It took a prosecutor’s dismissal of a serious felony arson charge, a […]
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IDOC makes plan to close units at Vandalia and Pontiac prisons
The Illinois Department of Corrections is making plans to downsize – plans that a major public employee union claims have not been shared with its members. With statewide inmate population dwindling to 28,000 and mounting maintenance bills on prison buildings at correctional centers across the state, DOC developed a plan which may include significant downsizing […]
