M.I.A.T.; why not in Feldkamp/Bloom case?

M.I.A.T. - Major Investigations Assistance Team

In McHenry County how does this Team function?

I invite officers and chiefs of the police departments, who have hands-on knowledge, to weigh in.

An anonymous commenter offered up that M.I.A.T. is a :subsidiary of MCSO" (the McHenry County Sheriff's Department.

I don't think so!

As I understand it, the purpose of M.I.A.T. is to make officers from several departments with higher levels of expertise available to help the lead investigatory agency. Thus, no one department has to staff up to be able to handle every serious crime.

A huge benefit of M.I.A.T. is that the officers, although assigned to M.I.A.T., are much more independent and more free to do their work right. They don't have to worry about pleasing the boss. They can call a spade a spade.

I was reminded of the June 2011 homicides in Marengo, in which Jack and Audrey Feldkamp and Doran Bloom died.

Was M.I.A.T. called in? No.

I've read all the reports - several times. Less than 24 hours after the event, Sheriff Nygren held a press conference and announced what happened. On what did he rely? A telephoned report of one detective's 30-minute hospital-bed interview with one person. Nygren rushed to proclaim what had happened, without waiting for investigators' reports and laboratory testing if, indeed, lab testing was ever done. It appears not to have been.

Nygren would have received that detective's telephoned report immediately before the press conference. In fact, it appears he delayed the press conference for two hours (from 11:00AM until 1:00PM), while he waited for the hospital interview to be conducted at 12:30PM.

What if M.I.A.T. had been involved? What if a dozen police officers from municipal police departments across McHenry County had been called to the scene? What if dozens of MCSD deputies had not trooped through the scene, contaminating evidence? M.I.A.T. officers would have made an independent investigation and analysis, and my belief is they might have come up with an entirely different scenario.

But what MCSD deputy was going to say anything that contradicted Nygren's statements at the press conference on the very next day? Certainly, no deputy who wanted to keep his job.

Even though there has been little mention of this case recently, readers should not assume that it has been forgotten. The estate handling is a mess. Probates are in the hands of the third successor executor; i.e., the fourth executor.

The Executor apparently cannot locate assets that were in the estates of Jack and Audrey Feldkamp in June 2011. The original executor is no longer in the State of Illinois and left months before he was replaced by the Probate Court, and without giving notice to the Court. An attorney acted for months as attorney for the estates without ever filing the required Appearance. The Probate Court judge told that attorney that he (the judge) was very concerned about the late filing of the Appearance.

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation is upset about the real estate escrow account and books that were removed from the State of Illinois. At least one buyer has been forced to wait many months for the return of his money from the escrow account. It left the state in May when the books, required to be kept in Illinois and in the real estate office, went to Florida.

Had MIAT been called in on the Feldkamps/Bloom homicides, I suspect matters would have been handled quite differently. Officers who would have investigated ALL the evidence and would very likely have disagreed with Sheriff Nygren's hasty conclusion.