The retirement of an Illinois State Police
lieutenant is normally noteworthy only to his family, friends, and
co-workers. But Lt. Michale Callahan, due to retire March 18,
already has a stack of interview requests ranging from the Decatur Herald and Review to the Chicago Tribune and, sources say, the network news show 48 Hours.
That’s because retirement will free
Callahan to elaborate on the ISP’s apparent refusal to
reinvestigate the 1986 murders of Dyke and Karen Rhoads, newlyweds
from Paris, Ill. Randy Steidl and Herbert Whitlock were convicted
of the murders in separate trials, but both maintain they were
innocent. Last year, Steidl was released from prison after a
federal court granted him a new trial and Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan
declined to prosecute. Whitlock will have a full hearing March 21
to request a new trial.
Callahan’s attorney, John Baker, says
his client will likely spend his first day of retirement testifying
at Whitlock’s hearing.
Callahan has spent much of the past five
years seeking permission to reopen and fully investigate the Rhoads
murder case. In an ongoing lawsuit against three of his ISP
superior officers, Callahan alleges that he was wrongfully
demoted in retaliation for his efforts to investigate a Paris
businessman whom evidence indicated might be involved in the crime.
This “person of interest,” not named in Callahan’s
lawsuit, was a major donor to the political campaign of former Gov.
George Ryan.
The supervisors have denied the allegations,
although other supervisors have testified in depositions that
Callahan’s disturbing version of events is true. On Monday,
U.S. District Judge Harold A. Baker denied the state’s motion
for summary judgment and set an April 11 trial date.
Callahan was initially assigned to
investigate new evidence presented by private investigator Bill
Clutter in April 2000. Almost immediately, Callahan received three
phone calls from retired ISP investigators asking him to not make
them look bad. But after reviewing Clutter’s evidence and
conducting his own interviews, Callahan became convinced that
Steidl and Whitlock were likely innocent, and that ISP should
launch a full investigation of the unnamed Paris businessman.
Callahan presented his findings to a meeting
of superiors who encouraged him to keep digging and promised resources to conduct a full
investigation. But by April 2001, word came down that the case was
“too politically sensitive” and could not be reopened.
Denied permission to “go fully
operational,” Callahan did get clearance to do
“intelligence-gathering.” He formed a task force
involving federal, state, and local law enforcement, but its
investigation was thwarted when someone apparently notified the
“person of interest” that investigators had placed
surveillance cameras on his property. Believing that one of his
superiors had compromised the project, Callahan took his complaint
to ISP’s internal affairs division. Weeks later, he was
transferred from his position supervising investigators to
supervising patrol officers.
Even though the transfer did not represent a
cut in pay or rank, it was “significantly less
prestigious,” Baker says.
“He had been responsible for running
several narcotics task forces . . . with a lot of investigators
working for him, working with prosecutors and federal and state
agencies,” Baker says. “Now his position is working
behind a desk doing not much more than counting up seat belt
violations.”
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2005.
