Crime Stoppers & Beth Bentley

This morning I visited the periodic meeting (the last one was in April) of the Woodstock Area Crime Stoppers group and asked some questions about the reward offer in the Beth Bentley missing-person case.

Normally, Crime Stoppers rewards are offered only for information leading to the arrest or indictment of a suspect in a crime, plus in certain drug cases. In the Bentley case the offer was broadened by the Woodstock group to pay for information that leads to Beth's location. The reward offered by the Woodstock group is "up to $1,000", and the decision is made by the board of the Woodstock group.

The Woodstock group is a 501(c)(3) organization, meaning that donations to the group are tax-deductible. When you consider your charitable giving for the end of this year, you might keep the Woodstock group in mind. Donations can be made payable to the Woodstock Area Crime Stoppers and mailed to them, in care of the Woodstock Police Department. I'm sure that the PD's rep will be happy to deliver your check to them. Contact me if you prefer to mail your check to a different address, and I'll obtain it for you.

It may be a different matter with the Crime Stoppers for McHenry County group. Although the June 9th flier of the Woodstock P.D. about the missing Beth Bentley indicates participation by the McHenry County group in the reward amount, a recent letter from that group states: "CrimeStoppers for McHenry County has no connection to or knowledge about a "reward fund" in the Beth Bentley case so cannot address any conditions you perceive there to be. CrimeStoppers simply offered a reward of $1,000 from their funds for information that leads to an arrest in this case, an offer we frequently make in major cases."

That statement in its October 10, 2010, was confusing to me. How can that group have no knowledge about a reward fund, yet offer $1,000 for information in that case?

Although I wrote to the McHenry County group on September 10 for the names of its officers, I had to contact its Registered Agent on October 5 to get a reply. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that the Secretary wrote to me on October 10. And that the officers' names were not included.

The McHenry County Sheriff's Department apparently does not know who runs the Crime Stoppers for McHenry County group, because Dep. Aimee' Knop could (would) not tell me and Undersheriff Andy Zinke did not reply to my email.

The Illinois Secretary of State knows who the officers are. The following information is from the Annual Report filed on Nov. 18, 2009:

Louis Mattheson, President
Helen Torscher, Secretary
Susan Heizer, Treasurer

The next step is to discover when and where the group meets, so that I can present to them the opinions of three callers to the tip line who were dissatisfied in their contacts.

When I indicated in my September 10th letter that I knew of dissatisfied callers, the reply did not ask for information. The response was, "I find it curious one could have a "less than satisfactory" experience and that anonymous calls then share their "less than satisfactory" experience with each other."

But not curious enough to ask what the "less than satisfactory" experiences were...

I found the reply from CrimeStoppers for McHenry County to be rather condescending, and I am not one to let a sleeping dog lie.