Beth Bentley - Missing 396 Weeks (7 yrs. 7 mos.)

There was a lot of activity in Judge Chmiel's courtroom on Thursday, December 21, in the case related to the probate of Beth Bentley's Estate. Did anyone (besides lawyers) go?

The probate case is No. 17PR000295. You can follow it at www.mchenrycircuitclerk.org

The entries in court records for December 21, 2017 are:

ORDER-IMPOUND
LETTERS OF OFFICE
ORDER-LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE APPOI
BOND-OATH
ORDER
ORDER-HEIRSHIP
ORDER
MEMORANDUM-OPINION AND ORDER
AFFIDAVIT
NOTICE
OATH
AFFIDAVIT-HEIRSHIP

These documents are all public record. Anyone can go to the McHenry County Courthouse, 3rd floor, and read them on the Court's computer system, without charge. If you want to buy printed copies, the cost will be $2.00/page.

On August 28, 2017, there was filed a PETITION-TESTAMENTARY.

Somewhere in the process Beth is going to have to be declared dead. She hasn't been seen or heard of for more than seven years. It seems to me that a Petition should have been filed for a Presumption of Death Order before the Estate was ever opened for probate, but the court must have accepted it among other papers.

If she had a Will, the Will can be read at the courthouse. I thought I had read a newspaper article that she did not have a Will. If not, then she will have died intestate. But since the August 28 filing reads TESTAMENTARY, I wonder whether there was a Will. If there was a Will, it can be read as filed.

The name of her husband at the time of her disappearance, Scott Bentley, appears in online court records as Independent Administrator of her Estate.

The lawyer for the estate is Guy Youman, of Rupp & Youman.

The Illinois Attorney General is listed as ATTORNEY - INTEREST OF. Is this normal in cases of Petitions for Presumption of Death? Or is the State interested for another reason?

The ORDER-IMPOUND may be related to any records from law enforcement agencies that police want withheld from the public view while they continue their investigation.

On December 1 Judge Chmiel issued a HIPAA QUALIFIED PROTECTIVE ORDER. There were rumors in 2010 of a health condition of Beth that, if true, would have interested police investigators. Could this Order impede a police investigation that could proceed after a Presumption of Death Petition is granted?

The Illinois State Police have assigned FOIA Response No. 17-2930 to my FOIA request, filed December 18, for the location at which suspected human remains were found in Jefferson County by the Illinois State Police. Several people from southern Illinois have told me where police activity was on December 4, but I'm waiting for official response.

The address of the property visited by Jenn Wyatt and Beth Bentley on that May 21-23, 2010 week-end is 17974 N. Miller Lake Road. It's a Mt. Vernon (Ill.) mailing address, but the house is in Jefferson County, outside the city limits of Mt. Vernon. According to Zillow.com the house was on and off the market. The listing and sales activity from Zillow.com shows

December 2010

6/13/10 Listed by Century 21 $126,000
7/31/10 Listing removed
8/5/14 Listed by owner $156,900
5/28/15 Listed by Century 21 $156,900
6/26/15 Pending sale $156,900
8/7/15 Back on market $156.900
9/9/15 Price change (-5.4%)
1/19/16 Pending sale $148,500
3/4/16 Sold $142,500

The Zillow information may or may not be complete.

Remains - where found?

The press release that appeared on the Facebook page of the Illinois State Police (ISP) District 13/DuQuoin about the burned human remains found in Jefferson County, Ill. and published later the same day in the Northwest Herald doesn't reveal where the remains were found. It says only "rural Jefferson County (Ill.)".

It seems to me that the location could be disclosed without harming any investigation. And so today I emailed a Freedom of Information Act Request to the Illinois State Police headquarters in Springfield. Why there?

Back in about 2013, when I tried to get information from the DuQuoin district office, I was informed that all FOIA requests must go to Springfield headquarters.

Filing the request starts the clock ticking. ISP will have a certain number of days to reply. And reply it must, even if only to deny the request. Then a Request for Review can be submitted to the Illinois Secretary of State's Public Access Counselor. All this takes time; perhaps in the meantime the Woodstock Police or the ISP will disclose the location.

As I wrote recently, it is very unusual for police to associate the finding of human remains with any missing person case, until a positive identification has been made. There must be solid grounds for doing so in this case.

Were the remains found on the property outside of Mt. Vernon owned by a Woodstock resident and in the possession of his sons? At this property?

Or were the remains found nearby, in the vicinity of Miller Lake?

And what happened to the $5,000 Reward that was offered in June 2010?

Was any of it ever paid out? Where is the $5,000 today?

If it's Beth ...

If the Illinois State Police are able to confirm that the remains found on a rural property in Jefferson County, Ill. are those of Beth Bentley, it certainly will create an interesting situation for Jennifer Wyatt-Paplham.

As you may recall, Jenn told police that she drove Beth to the Centralia (Ill.) Amtrak Station on Sunday afternoon, May 23, 2010. Police charged Jenn with Obstruction of Justice after they believed she had spoken with Beth on May 25. Those charged were dropped.

While speculation is rampant that the remains could be Beth's, one needs to remember that the police usually do not associate the finding of remains with any particular missing person, until a positive identification has been made.

How long can it take to identify the remains?

Hopefully, the Illinois State Police will soon release the rural location. That will go a long way in raising or lowering hopes.

Beth Bentley - where is she?

Beth Bentley, Woodstock mother, wife, employee, friend of many, disappeared in May 2010 at age 41 during a trip from Woodstock to Mt. Vernon, Ill., which is 330 miles south of Woodstock.

Her disappearance has been hashed and re-hashed here. Previous articles can be found on this site by searching for "Bentley".

Just this week an out-of-state reader wrote to me and sent me a possible lead. I've been thinking of Beth over the past few months, as May 2017 came and went. The significance of May 2017 is that it is the seven-year anniversary of her disappearance.

In Illinois there is a Presumption of Death law, under which a petition can be filed in court to have a person declared dead. If such a petition were filed and granted, this would open the way to file for death benefits under any life insurance policies (individual or group) and Social Security benefits for any minor children. Seven years' worth of Social Security ought to be worth somewhere around $25,000.

There were rumors in 2010 of a large life insurance policy. Having been in the life insurance business, I knew there were companies that would issue unreasonably (in my opinion) large policies on wives and mothers. Such insurance was popularly called Wife Insurance. It wasn't unusual to see amounts of $50,-100,000, which would cover child care and household duties for a minor child, while a surviving husband worked. But some companies would routinely approve policies for $500,000-$1,000,000. The companies I was associated with (Penn Mutual, Connecticut General, Northwestern Mutual Life) would not have considered such face amounts for two seconds.

There are many suspicious factors surrounding Beth's disappearance. Among them are

1. Why was Beth's car parked in Jenn's garage when they left for Mt. Vernon?
2. Why did they rent a car for the week-end?
3. Did investigators ever check Illinois Tollway cameras to determine who was in the car, if and when it passed through toll plazas?
4. What time did they get to Mt. Vernon?
5. Did Beth really spend Saturday on a boat on Rend Lake?
6. Did Jenn really drive Beth to Centralia and leave her at the Amtrak station? Without learning from her "best friend" what Beth was up to?
7. What really happened to the Pogue's Pizza order that was reportedly ordered from Beth's phone at about the time she was to be dropped off in Centralia?
8. Why would Beth leave the rental car with Jenn, who did not have a valid driver's license?
9. What did Beth do earlier that month on Mother's Day? Was she really in St. Louis to meet a "mystery" man? Again, why wouldn't Beth share that information with her "best friend", Jenn?
10. Why wasn't the Woodstock Police Dept. notified earlier than 10:00PM on Monday?

What was the real coordination between Woodstock PD, Mt. Vernon PD and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Dept.? Did the Zone 7 detectives at the Illinois State Police ever really get involved, as the former chief of the Woodstock PD said they would be? (N.B., how interesting to search this morning for the ISP Investigations Division for Jefferson County (Ill.) and find that one county missing from the dropdown menu on the ISP homepage?)

Three-hundred thirty miles separate Woodstock and Mt. Vernon, which made it difficult location-wise and expensive for the Woodstock PD to pursue this case. The house that Beth and Jenn visited was in Jefferson County, not in the City of Mt. Vernon, but Beth and friends supposedly had dinner on Friday night at the Frosty Mug, which would have been the only reason for Mt. Vernon P.D. to be involved.

There was a fundraiser in Woodstock for search funds for Beth. Apparently, those funds were expended on a "search" in Las Vegas shortly after the fundraiser.

Many women in southern Illinois devoted considerable time to searching for Beth in 2010 and in 2011.

Do I have a guess as to what happened? And to who knows what happened? You bet.

On Friday I'm meeting with a retired detective in southern Illinois, and I'm hoping for some fresh ideas as to how to help an interested public bring closure to this case.

Beth Bentley - now missing 44 weeks

Now that Spring is almost here, will there be some serious plans for searching for Beth Bentley, either in the Woodstock area or in Jefferson County, Ill., near Mount Vernon? Bentley, 41 at the time she disappeared, hasn't been seen since May 20-21-22-23, 2010, depending on to whom you talk.

If you talk to local Woodstock residents, they haven't seen her since Thursday night, May 20, after her youngest son's baseball game.

If you talk to a waitress in Mount Vernon, she was last seen in the Frosty Mug, a restaurant and bar in Mount Vernon.

Supposedly she went on a boat rental on Rend Lake and was seen in an IGA grocery store on Saturday with her distinctive, designer bag.

If you talk to her friend, co-worker and traveling companion, Jennifer Wyatt, Beth was last seen in Centralia, Ill. on Sunday near the Amtrak station, when Wyatt dropped her off before 6:00PM. Some (many?) jumped to the conclusion initially that Beth had taken the northbound 6:08PM train to Chicago, intending to catch the 12:30AM (May 24) Metra to Woodstock, arriving at 2:01AM.

But then there is a report of a pizza's being ordered from Beth's cell phone in Mount Vernon about the time Wyatt says she dropped Beth off in Centralia.

And now there are rumors that Beth's cell phone "pinged" in McHenry County about 11:00PM that Sunday night. And of a break-in at her husband's office, where she was the office manager, that night and tampering with computers.

On June 10 Wyatt called me and told me that Beth never intended to take a train to Chicago.

So, if Wyatt did drop Beth off in Centralia, what was Beth going to do? Was Beth going to meet someone? Be picked up by someone? Be driven back to northern Illinois, where Wyatt and Beth would rendezvous so that they could return to Woodstock together?

The investigation into Beth's disappearance needs to start again, right at Square 1.

Beth Bentley - gone 41 weeks now...

It has been 41 weeks since Beth Bentley disappeared.

From where did she disappear? Centralia, Ill.? Mount Vernon, Ill.? Woodstock?

Finding her ought to be like sliding down the inside of a funnel. You start at the top, on the rim. As you get closer and closer to the spout, you get closer and closer to finding her. No one should be ruled out. Those closest to her (inappropriate relationships, family, co-workers, friends, acquaintances, occasional contacts, disgruntled friends) get put under the microscope.

It's too bad that so many postings have been removed or deleted from the several Facebook (FB) pages. The Beth Bentley Missing FB page (BBM-1) at one time had almost 8,000 followers. Then one of the "administrators" did a slice and dice and chopped a large number on her own volition. Many concerned followers had posted comments that might just lead investigators to Beth, but those comments are gone.

A second FB page ("BBM-2") initially promised not to censure or delete comments, but it happened there, too. Most recently, a poster using the name "Amy Bee" posted very insightful comments - many of them. They are gone now, as if "Amy Bee"'s FB name. If she deleted her account, all her comments went with it.

Some people get concerned about "posers", who are those who don't use their true names. Flaming someone while using a poser account is the chicken's way of commenting; however, if you have information that might just be quite good, but you are afraid to use your true name, then why not use a "poser" name.

I'm not in favor of waterboarding (although, after watching the movie Unthinkable, I might change my mind), but there are slightly less objectionable methods of sweating information out of people who might just have information about what happened to Beth. Are there some gaps in some of the stories?

Right now only the detectives know. Has there been an intense analysis and group meeting between detectives from Woodstock and Mount Vernon PDs and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office?

Maybe it's time to start fresh from the beginning - from the night of the baseball game in Woodstock on May 20, 2010, and once again trace every step. Even back earlier, when the car was rented (if one was).

Bentley's last meal?

Yesterday I was in Mt. Vernon, Ill. to see what kind of place The Frosty Mug is. Now I know.

As I drove toward it, I thought about a burger for lunch (with a cold beer, but I still had 300 miles to drive, so that was out) but, after pulling into the parking lot, I had second thoughts. I may have missed a good burger; the parking lot was full.

But Woodstock doesn't even have a place that begins to look like the Mug. Thankfully. Was this the place where Beth had her last dinner?

Before getting there, I had an image in my mind of a place maybe like Coleman's. But The Mug is just a small town watering hole. If the exterior says anything about the crowd that would hang out there on an early summer night, there was a fair amount of drinking going on. Maybe other entertainment.

Other customers saw Beth in that place, and they saw the people she was with. It's the kind of place where an outsider would be noticed. And if she was there with locals, which has been intimated, then the regulars would have razzed the locals over the following days, asking questions about Beth and Jenn.

I did hear a very interesting comment in town about who should have gone under the microscope in this case. But 300 miles between Mt. Vernon and Woodstock could mean that the same level of scrutiny might not be applied.

What is the Beth Story?

Beth Bentley, 41, disappeared on Sunday, May 23. That's more than five weeks ago.

She was reported missing on Monday, May 24. It is claimed that she called home about 4:15PM on Sunday. After that? Nothing. No contact. No phone calls. No text messages. No use of her credit cards. No ATM withdrawals. No use of her cell phone. (Who did she talk to at 4:15PM?)

At least, that is what has been said.

The position of the Woodstock Police Department seems to be "No foul play." No evidence of foul play. No evidence of foul play. Is the absence of evidence possibly evidence of suspected foul play?

What are the possibilities?

She ran away, voluntarily. OK, what's she doing for money and transportation? Is any money missing? From any source to which she had access? The police and the family aren't saying.

Did she go to Centralia late Sunday afternoon and get out of a car near the Amtrak station? One person says so. And that person says it wasn't to take a train (read, not to take the 6:08PM train to Chicago, where a late connection could be made for the Metra to Woodstock, scheduled to arrive at 2:01AM Monday).

If she was in Centralia, how was she going to get back to the Woodstock area and meet up with her traveling friend and the rental car?

What, exactly, were Beth's movements after arriving in the Mt. Vernon area early on Friday morning? Are all the restaurants, grocery stores, liquor stores, bars, nail salons being checked?

Beth, Jenn, Ryan and a second man were seen having dinner and drinks in the Frosty Mug in Mt. Vernon on Friday night? Have all the employees at the Frosty Mug been interviewed?

Reportedly a boat was rented on Rend Lake on Saturday, but no one seems to know much about that. Who knows about that?

Why have there been no searches organized by law enforcement? The Woodstock Police Department is the lead agency investigating Beth's disappearance, but it is 330 miles from Mt. Vernon.

There are more than 6,700 "Friends" on the Facebook page set up to follow Beth's disappearance. For some reason, right now the Friends or Fans section is not visible on Facebook. Hopefully, it will be restored.

There is almost a lack of urgency locally about finding Beth; at least, that's how it seems to a number of people. There are no frequent press conferences. There is little or nothing in the local papers. Do the police or the family know something about her whereabouts or missing status that precludes a high sense of urgency about searching for and finding her?

The public can help and will help.

Backing on the Interstate

I think most drivers are aware of the rule against backing up on the Interstate. You know - like when you miss your exit and the next exit is 10 miles down the highway? Many have seen others do it and are aware of the very high risk in such backing. What about just backing on the shoulder? The Illinois Vehicle Code (IVC) prohibits it.

But what about when police officers do it? Is it okay, just because the driver is wearing a uniform and driving a squad car?

I've seen it on the Tri-State when the Illinois State Police have been running radar. The worst situation I saw was when an ISP squad car was backing on the narrow inside shoulder next to the cement barrier, while cars whizzed by within inches of the side of his car.

Yesterday three ISP cars were enforcing the speed limit in southern Illinois north of Mt. Vernon. The radar unit was parked on a bridge where the driver/operator could check the speed of southbound vehicles. Two of the chase cars were on the shoulder waiting for "business", and the third, southern-most car had a violator stopped.

What got my attention was the middle squad car, an unmarked unit, which was backing up on the shoulder with its emergency lights activated. And the third (northern-most) unit had its emergency lights activated, although no violator was stopped in front of it. It appeared he was "clearing" the outside lane of traffic for the middle squad car that was backing. "Scott's Law" requires drivers to move over a lane or slow down when passing emergency vehicles on the shoulder with warning/emergency lights in use; but those lights must be in lawful use.

I heartily approve of radar speed enforcement and the "creative" use of a radar unit on a bridge, where speeders would likely not notice it.

However, I believe it is critical that traffic officers obey traffic laws while they are enforcing them. Two of the squad cars seemed to be using their emergency lights other than as authorized, and the middle car should not have been backing on the shoulder.

I realize he was most likely backing up so that he could return to his staging position for the next speeder. The radar unit officer must keep the violator in sight until the officer in the chase car has him in sight.

It would be interesting to learn the opinion of these officers about my suspicion that two of them were in violation of the IVC.

© 2008 GUS PHILPOTT