Paula Crouch faces primary opponent 

The woman appointed as the new Sangamon County sheriff in the wake of the July 2024 murder of Sonya Massey says her experience, education and determination make her worthy of being elected to a four-year term.

“I just feel like we started moving in the right direction for improvements,” Paula Crouch told Illinois Times when explaining her decision to seek a four-year term for a job that pays $175,460 per year.

“By choosing to run,” she said, “that just gives me the opportunity to give some of the changes that I put in place time to set. And then, obviously, there are some other things that I’m looking forward to for the future that really need more time than the two years I would have been allotted with just the appointment.”

To achieve that goal, the first electoral challenge for Crouch, 52, who lives in rural Sangamon County between Williamsville and Sherman, will be prevailing in the March 17 Republican primary. Early voting begins Feb. 5.

Republican voters will choose between Crouch and David Timm, 51, a retired Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy from rural Pleasant Plains.

The winner of the primary will face off in the Nov. 3 general election against Democrat Marc Bell, 62, a retired Illinois State Police master sergeant and Springfield resident who is running unopposed in his party’s primary.

Crouch retired as a lieutenant in the Springfield Police Department in 2023 after 24 years in a variety of roles. Timm worked for the sheriff’s office for 25½ years, including as a field training officer and a member of the SWAT team, before retiring in January 2025.

The sheriff’s office employs more than 200 people, including those in the county jail, and operates with an annual budget of $25.5 million.

Based on recent history, the winner of the GOP primary could have an edge in November. A Democrat hasn’t been elected sheriff in Sangamon County since Martin Gutschenritter in 1974. 

In 2024, former Republican sheriff Jack Campbell retired at age 60, in the middle of his term, amid calls for his resignation in the weeks surrounding Massey’s shooting death.

The 36-year-old Black single mother of two teenagers was unarmed and dealing with mental illness when she died at the hands of a white sheriff’s deputy, Sean Grayson, on July 6, 2024.

Campbell condemned Grayson’s actions but defended the 2023 hiring of Grayson, a Riverton resident, because Campbell said he wasn’t aware of questions raised about Grayson’s ethics and competency when Grayson worked at the Logan County Sheriff’s Office and other central Illinois police departments.

Grayson, 31, was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder on Oct. 29. The trial was moved to Peoria County because of pretrial publicity surrounding the nationally publicized case. Grayson is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 29.

County Board chairperson Andy Van Meter’s proposed appointment of Crouch was ratified by the GOP-controlled County Board on Sept. 18, making her the county’s first female sheriff.

She has the support of the Sangamon County Republican Party and many prominent local Republicans. They include State’s Attorney John Milhiser, Coroner Jim Allmon, Springfield Ward 7 Ald. Brad Carlson, state Rep. Mike Coffey, County Clerk Don Gray, Circuit Clerk Joe Roesch, former Springfield mayor Karen Hasara and former sheriffs Campbell and Neil Williamson.

But Crouch is trailing in campaign fundraising behind Timm, who said Crouch’s endorsements are part of “the old guard system that’s been in place that’s still trying to control what’s going on there.”

The two Republicans’ campaign committees filed reports with the Illinois State Board of Elections showing Crouch with $32,252 and Timm with $62,025 at the end of the fourth quarter of 2025. Bell’s committee reported $9,385 at the end of the reporting period.

Timm said his campaign fundraising indicates his grass-roots support and outreach to voters and community groups. He has been endorsed by the union representing Sangamon County deputies, correctional officers and court security staff – Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 55 – as well as Illinois Troopers Lodge 41, Illinois FOP Corrections Lodge 263 and the Illinois State FOP. 

Even before a state law was enacted to increase communications between police departments about potential issues with new hires, Crouch said she took steps to improve the sheriff’s office’s employment practices to prevent another deputy with Grayson’s flaws from being hired.

Those improvements, she said, included in-person visits to applicants’ previous employers and more involvement in the screening process by her office’s five-member merit commission.

After a request from the Massey Commission, a citizens’ group formed after Massey’s death, Crouch agreed to not consider applications for deputy positions if the candidates had a DUI conviction within the past five years. Grayson had two previous misdemeanor DUI convictions by the time he was hired by the sheriff’s office, though those convictions were more than five years earlier.

Both Timm and Crouch said they want to see pay increased for deputies and correctional officers to help recruit and retain high-quality employees. Negotiations are under way between the county and the unions representing those workers on contracts that deal with pay and working conditions.

Since becoming sheriff, Crouch said she has worked to improve communication with the community.

She said she and her command staff have quarterly meetings with the Faith Coalition for the Common Good, Black Lives Matter Springfield and the Springfield branch of the NAACP.

Her office’s recent release of a smartphone app, The Sheriff’s App, is designed to streamline communications with the public and the dissemination of information, she said.

Crouch was a neighborhood police officer during her career with the Springfield police, “and then I was a sergeant over the neighborhood policing division, so that opened my eyes to how communications can really improve relationships with the community.”

She said her education and experience set her apart from Timm, who graduated from Pleasant Plains High School and earned an associate’s degree in criminal justice from Lincoln Land Community College.

Crouch, who graduated from Auburn High School, earned her associate’s in criminal justice from Lincoln Land, a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Benedictine University and a master’s in criminal justice administration from Western Illinois University.

“It’s not just about being book smart,” she said, “but it shows your ability to commit, to be dedicated to starting and finishing stuff, and then there’s the knowledge that comes with that, as well.”

Crouch said she has expanded training of staff on how to deescalate tense situations involving the public and got the training paid for by the Decatur-based Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

She also has put deputies and correctional officers through specific training on how to maintain and improve their mental health, and she improved training of jail staff on the use of tasers.

Timm said he would work to upgrade the surveillance camera system in the jail to increase accountability for the staff; Crouch said improvements in camera equipment are ongoing.

Both Crouch and Timm said they support a bill sponsored by Coffey that would tweak Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act, which eliminated cash bail in September 2023. House Bill 4275 would give judges the option to detain anyone charged with a felony while they await trial. Current law  allows detainment only for people charged with certain felonies unless the defendant is likely to flee prosecution or be a danger to the community.

Crouch opposed a bill sponsored by state Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, that hasn’t progressed in the General Assembly that would give voters the opportunity to put binding referendums on the ballot to recall Sangamon County officials. The idea for the bill came from Sangamon County residents upset with Campbell’s initial refusal to leave office after Massey’s murder. 

Timm said he supports the bill, but Crouch said recall votes are unneeded because regular elections give voters the opportunity to oust someone they don’t like.

Crouch noted that she has never been charged with a crime and hasn’t been suspended from work. 

Timm said he pleaded guilty to a Mason County misdemeanor charge of criminal trespass to a vehicle when he was 18. He said he spent a few hours in jail after the arrest in the early 1990s, later paid a fine of several thousand dollars and completed probation.

“I was a kid, and I made a mistake,” he said.

Illinois Times previously reported on a three-day suspension Timm received from the sheriff’s office in 2006 that was negotiated down to 1½ days by his union. The newspaper also reported that former sheriff Williamson’s 2008 firing of Timm was overturned in 2009 after an appeal by the FOP Labor Council.

Timm has said he wants to change a culture of internal squabbles and personal disputes within the sheriff’s office that led to some disciplinary actions against him over the years.

He said he talks about his past – both the good and bad – when he is campaigning  and has received positive responses.

“People are saying, ‘Finally, finally, we have somebody who isn’t afraid to tell what they’ve done,’” he said.

Timm said people tell him, “‘We’ve all made mistakes. At least you’re talking about it.’”

“I’m trying to encourage others that maybe they’ve made a mistake and they want to give up on their life,” Timm said. “I say, ‘No, you do have a chance. Look at where I am now.’”

Timm said he has the support of the staff of the sheriff’s office and will restore public trust in the sheriff’s office. Crouch said her outsider status makes it easier for her to hold the staff accountable and improve the office.

“I have working relationships with a lot of these people, but they don’t have to like me,” Crouch said. “I don’t need the popularity vote. My job is to run the sheriff’s office, to keep the community safe, and to make sure that we are following the rules that are in place for law enforcement.”  

This article appears in January 29-February 4, 2026.