Beth Bentley, Woodstock mother who was 41 when she vanished in May 2010, has been gone for 51 weeks. Not a trace. No phone usage. No credit card use. No letters, emails, faxes that anyone has talked about.
In a Witness Protection Program? Probably not, since Woodstock Police have only charged one person with a crime related to Beth's disappearance.
In checking the McHenry County Circuit Court online records this morning for Jennifer Wyatt-Paplham's next court date, I found a court entry for May 10 which indicates that on that date Judge Prather set a bond related to "Grand Jury". Was Wyatt-Paplham indicted?
The "Financial Summary" page of the online record is unintelligible to "normal" human beings. It reads $30.00 assessed and paid, and a Bond Balance of $700.00. Does this mean a $7,000 bond? A different or additional bond than was posted in connection with charges by the Woodstock Police Department? If a Bond has a balance, does that mean the person is in custody? Is the Bond Balance the 10% that can be posted to obtain an inmate's release from custody (jail)?
Wyatt-Paplham's next court date is Wednesday, May 16, 9:00AM, for her arraignment before Judge Condon in Courtroom 302. A Motion to Modify (something) will be heard at the same appearance. Will she enter a plea on May 16? Maybe the expectation of a Grand Jury indictment is why a plea hasn't been entered between her arrest on March 19 and now.
At 10:48AM I called the Jail's shift sergeant and left a message, asking if Wyatt-Paplham is in custody. I mention this, because the Jail sergeants usually don't return my phone calls.
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4 comments:
Looking at the same public access website that you checked, it's fairly clear what has happened.
Jennifer was originally arrested on two counts of obstruction of justice (not perjury as YOU earlier said she was charged with).
A couple of preliminary hearings were continued by the state (which tells anyone with rudimentary knowledge of the criminal justice system in Illinois that she was charged either on a criminal complaint or an information - NOT an indictment.
The case was in front of Judge Prather on May 10th with the notation of Grand Jury. Common practice in McHenry Co is for the state to charge by information/complaint and then seek an indictment by grand jury rather than proceed with a preliminary hearing. You must have seen this often in your ever watchful following of the McHenry County courts but maybe it was lost on you.
Also, unless there are extenuating circumstances or additional, more serious charges brought forward, the judge who received the indictment allows whatever bond previously set or posted to stand.
As for the modifications, could be anything but you won't learn it unless you read the court file.
The $30? beats me too. Could it be the charge to the defendant for posting bond via the sheriff's office or the charge to her for the arrest warrant? All that stuff now gets tacked on as costs. Pretty sure 10% of the 10% bond she posts remains with the clerk's office as a bond fee.
It kills me that people are more critical of the only person that writes about the Beth Bentley case than they are of the authorities that are seemingly doing so little to investigate her disappearance! God, every time I come here, it just seems so childish. The worst ones are by the people that don't use anything close to their real name and then taunt about that, which I saw the last time I read this blog.
On the topic of Beth Bentley, the Gavin Smith case seems like it is being handled a lot different than Beth's case - for one thing, the police there seem pretty forthcoming. They have assured the public that they're devoting a lot of resources, have asked the public for assistance and are being generally communicative. They say there are no signs of foul play and there even seems to be some trouble in the marriage - sound familiar? Yet, that police dept is investigating as if anything is possible - unlike Woodstock that seemed to simply throw up their hands as if to say they don't know where to begin - not too surprising given the victim smear campaign that ensued, following her disappearance, I think that had a lot of people throwing up their hands, too.
101 weeks is too long!
"The worst ones are by the people that don't use anything close to their real name."
Best quote ever from an anonymous poster.
Ray Flavin
Ray, you're taking that out of context as I was clearly speaking of Gus bashers. I've never made a secret of who I am - M. Christine Broderick and I'm logged in to Google as my bloggeror gmail acct, can't remember which (AuthenticFacade) sometimes and sometimes my facebook acct (M. Christine Broderick). I don't bash Gus - if I felt the need to bash him, I'd just stay away from HIS blog, just like I stay away from other things that I dislike and editors that I dislike, am offended by or generally firmly disagree with.
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