Yet another lawsuit has been filed involving Renatta Frazier, Springfield Police Lt. Rickey Davis, and their attorney, Courtney Cox. This time, however, these three are defendants, and the plaintiff is “Jane Doe,” the young woman whose rape in 2001 resulted in a scandal that led to the departure of Frazier and several top police and […]
Dusty Rhodes
Posted inNews
Three strikes
This week’s meeting of Springfield City Council had the air of a lopsided baseball game. Aldermen threw a series of breaking curve balls, and the mayor went down swinging on a 3-0 count. First, the 4.5 percent rate hike requested by City Water, Light and Power failed 4-6. That request — the first of several […]
Posted inOpinion
Final chapter
Imagine for a moment that you can’t breathe. You have asthma, but it’s been more than a year since your last real attack, so you’ve left your inhaler at home. You’re at the police academy, running a drill, learning all about discipline, integrity, teamwork, brotherhood in blue, yadda yadda, and, sure enough, when you suddenly […]
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Crime story
One of central Illinois’ most notorious murders will be the subject of an hour-long television show this weekend. Guilty or Innocent?, a new program on the Discovery Channel, will examine the murder of Karyn Hearn Slover, the 23-year-old Decatur Herald & Review sales representative whose remains washed up on the shore of Lake Shelbyville in 1996. […]
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Jackpot
Springfield developer and political power broker Bill Cellini may have to pay for his shrimp cocktail next time he boards the Alton Belle riverboat casino. Last week, stockholders in his Argosy Gaming Co. — owner of the Belle and five other casinos — approved the sale of Argosy to Penn National Gaming Inc. Cellini, chairman […]
Posted inOpinion
My humble opinion
Sometimes it seems I spend half my time fixing toilet paper. Nobody around here hangs it properly, with the paper rolling away from the wall. Instead, everybody hangs it with the paper rolling toward the wall, which makes no sense whatsoever — at least that’s my opinion. Another problem is double doors. There must be […]
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Hedging his bets
After years of asking for the establishment of a citizen panel to review complaints against the Springfield Police Department, Ward 2 Alderman Frank McNeil believes he finally sees light at the end of the tunnel. He’s just not sure whether it’s the floodlight he hoped for, the fragile glow of a single candle, or a […]
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Dead reckoning
Brandon Overton was leaving the country with his girlfriend, their baby, and new pal J.D. Bagley when police stopped them in Michigan, just shy of the Canadian border. Intending to buy milk for the fussy infant, Overtoneased into a gas station without thinking twice about the cop pulling in behind him. The next thing he […]
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The comeback kid
Lt. Col. Andre Parker will have a family reunion Sunday. That’s when he returns to the Illinois State Police, the agency he joined days after he was discharged from the military and served for the next two dozen years. In an interview with the Richmond Times Dispatch, Parker described his close relationship with the state […]
Posted inOpinion
Mother always said
My mother used a vast repertoire of pithy proverbs in her attempts to raise me right. I shudder when I hear myself repeating them to my kids, but only because it shows I’m getting old. The aphorisms themselves are, as Mother would say, good as gold. “Let sleeping dogs and babies lie,” was one of […]
Posted inOpinion
Christmas wish
Demarcus Holmesdoesn’t have to work. He lives in a nice house with his mother, older sister, and two brothers, all of whom dote on 21-year-old Demarcus. He spends his days with his grandmother, often joining her friends for morning walks at the mall, where everybody seems happy to see Demarcus. And he doesn’t even need […]
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The gift
Darlene Anderson has every right to feel sorry for herself. The cruelest fate any mother can endure — the death of a child — has befallen her not just once but twice. This time last year, her own mother died, leaving Darlene to take care of her sister, who lives with HIV. And this year, […]
