Latest news with #SycamoreHighSchool
Chicago Tribune
28-03-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Elgin detectives recount the week they knew they'd solved the Karen Schepers missing person case
A sapphire ring she wore every day and a 1977 graduation tassel from Sycamore High School were among the items recovered from Karen Schepers' car this week and returned to her family, more proof that the Elgin woman missing nearly 42 years had finally been found. Elgin police Detectives Andrew Houghton and Matt Vartanian said they wanted to make sure the personal belongings found in the car were returned to Schepers' mother, now 90. 'It's a privilege and an honor for the Elgin Police Department to be able to do this for a family,' Elgin police Chief Ana Lalley said. 'It was very important to give the family a sense of peace.' Speaking Friday on Lalley's radio show, 'Fridays with the Finest,' on WRMN-AM 1410, the three discussed the stunning week of revelations that began with the discovery of Schepers' missing car in the Fox River and ended with identification of Schepers' remains. The detectives described the rapid series of events as astonishing despite knowing there was a strong possibility Schepers could have accidentally gone into the river given the weather conditions and other factors at play in the early morning hours of April 16, 1983. 'I think this week is still a bit of a shock (in) how everything went down how it did,' Vartanian said. Schepers' case was the first one Houghton and Vartanian decided to pursue after being assigned to the department's newly created cold case unit in May 2024. They decided to do a podcast, ' Somebody Knows Something, ' in hopes it could bring forth new witnesses and details and would be intriguing to listen to as they did their work in real time. The first step was to recount and review what they knew about the case. Schepers, a 23-year-old computer programmer, and a group of co-workers from First Chicago Bank Card in Elgin decided to meet April 15, 1983, a Friday night, for drinks at a bar in Carpentersville to celebrate the completion of a work project. Schepers had called her boyfriend, described as her former fiance, to see if he wanted to join her, and they quarreled when he turned her down. Despite that, she was seen participating in a hula hoop contest and reported to be the last in the group to leave about 1 a.m. After that, the trail went cold. She was never seen again. Her car never found. Her bank accounts, credit cards and possessions left untouched. Had she followed the common route home, she would have driven in close proximity to the Fox River's edge. The crescent moon offering limited light, below-freezing temperatures causing slick roadways and the possibility that Schepers' response time was hindered by alcohol consumption were all factors to be considered. Had a river search ever been conducted? The detectives weren't sure. That's how they came to contact Chaos Divers, a nonprofit that specializes in locating people in bodies of water. Early Monday,the pair joined Chaos Divers owner Jacob Grubbs, manager Lindsay Bussick and diver Mike McFerron on their boat for a search. Armed with specialized sonar equipment, they started at the Kimball Street dam and combed 5 miles of the river heading north toward the Interstate 90 bridge, Vartanian said. Several cars were found at the bottom of the river in the area northwest of the Slade Avenue boat launch but they were ruled out as being Schepers' 1980 Toyota Celica, the detectives said. After eight hours of unsuccessful searching, they decided to circle back to the Slade Avenue area. When McFerron went into the water there a second time, he came upon a vehicle on its roof covered in debris, Houghton said. When he resurfaced, he had a license plate number: XP8919. 'We knew the plate. We had it memorized,' Vartanian said. 'I can't describe the amount of shock you are in (when you realize you have a match),' Houghton said. The two immediately started making a plan for what to do next. The Celica was pulled out of the water Tuesday afternoon. Inside, human remains were recovered and given to the Kane County coroner's office for identification. Thanks to dental records, a positive ID for Schepers was made Thursday. 'When we started the podcast, we never wanted it to take away from what the goal was,' Vartanian said. 'The goal was to find answers and get information about where Karen is and what happened to her.' 'We wanted to be very factual,' he said, 'but still wanted to be engaging for people to listen to without being exploitative of the family or Karen.' Through the podcast, they learned details that weren't in the original police reports. Such as, there was a carnival in Carpentersville that night. And there had been an incident at the Carpentersville bar in which an employee reported that a co-worker was stalking her. Had they not gotten the break they needed by finding the car, the investigation would have continued, authorities said. The detectives will appear again next week on 'Fridays with the Finest' to answer questions about the case, Lalley said. While the cold case unit has other cases to work on, she's giving Houghton and Vartanian some time to decompress after an intense week, she said. 'The priority here is the Schepers family,' she said. 'We need to give them an opportunity to process this privately. This is an extraordinary thing that happened over this past week that they probably never thought would happen.'
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Yahoo
Lawyer: Sycamore teacher resigned as union president following investigation. What we know
The Sycamore teacher who was suspended after making racial comments at a school board meeting has given up her position as president of the teacher's union, according to her lawyer. Here's what we know. Danielle Scrase, 54, was suspended and later reached a settlement with the district following the incident. Scrase's lawyer, Robert W. Sauter, told The Enquirer on Friday that Scrase had resigned as president of the Sycamore Education Association, which represents more than 500 teachers and other staff members in contract negotiations with the Sycamore school board. Sauter could not say Friday when Scrase resigned. Members of the union could not be reached comment. Scrase was accused of being intoxicated, making erratic comments and exposing herself in a hallway at the Sept. 18 board meeting. According to the district's investigation, Scrase referred to Sycamore High School Principal Taylor Porter as an "incompetent Black man," and texted the the district's community relations director: "U know Ur a joke Rite? And ur lucky 2 have ur job and pay." Scrase told the investigators she had mixed medication with alcohol unintentionally, and was not implying Porter was incompetent because he was Black. The investigation also stated she exposed her "bare buttocks, while walking towards the restroom," and said these incidents were caught on video. In her rebuttal, Scrase said this didn't happen in a "common area" because she was the only person in that part of the building during that time. In December, Superintendent Chad Lewis suspended Scrase for 45 days without pay. In January, Scrase filed a grievance against Lewis saying he had a history of retaliatory behavior against her. The school board approved a settlement with Scrase later that month. As part of the agreement, Scrase dismissed her grievance against Lewis and agreed not to talk about it again. She was also required to attend counseling sessions and undergo an independent medical evaluation by a medical professional with substance use training. Scrase's lawyer, Sauter, said Friday that she has complied with the terms of the agreement. In turn, the school district agreed to remove records referencing Scrase's inappropriate behavior from her personnel file and reduced her 45-day unpaid suspension to 15 days. So instead of returning to work on March 6, Scrase returned to the classroom on Jan. 23. The Enquirer has requested video and comment in relation to the investigation and latest developments. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Lawyer: Sycamore teacher has stepped down as union president
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Yahoo
Episode 2: Karen Schepers and her family dynamic
ELGIN, Ill. (WGN) — Nearly 42 years after her disappearance, Karen Schepers' family still maintains her childhood home in Sycamore. The piano she used to spend hours on still sits in the same room, where family members hold on to a forlorn hope she reappears and plays the keys as if she never left. Episode two of the Elgin Police Department's 'Somebody Knows Something' podcast lays out Karen Scheper's childhood, the relationships she had with her family members growing up, and how relationships with some of her parental figures soured in the years before her disappearance. Previous Coverage – 'Somebody knows something': Elgin Police Department launches podcast aimed at solving cold cases Schepers was one of nine siblings and the second oldest of her brothers and sisters. The family's first child was her brother Gary, followed by her, then her younger brother Dale, and then Susan, Ron, Laurie, Sue, Scott and Mike in that order. Gary, Karen and Dale were born in San Francisco before her mother and father, Elizabeth 'Liz' Paulson and Loren Schepers, relocated them to Iowa around 1960, where they lived until 1964. While the Schepers lived in Iowa, Karen's little sister Susan was born before they moved again—this time to Sycamore, Illinois sometime around 1965. Once the family settled into Sycamore—a town along Route 64 west of Elgin—Ron, Laurie, Sue, Scott and Mike steadily came into the picture. Growing up, Karen's brothers and sisters described her as a caring sibling, but also one who was talented and well-liked in high school. During the episode, Gary described when they were kids, Karen would use her Christmas Secret Santa money to buy gifts for all her siblings, instead of just the one name she drew each year. Susan recalled how she was a talented musician and became a cheerleader at Sycamore High School. 'She was on the pom-pom squad. You had crepe paper and you had to sit there and tape them all together to make these things and we thought they were so great—my other sister and I—it meant that you were 'it,'' Susan recalled during the episode. 'She was a very talented singer. She was in musicals and she played piano. 'She was a clear inspiration for me playing the piano and I've played the piano ever since. I would listen to her in what was called 'the piano room' and there was nothing in it but the piano. I'm sure everyone else in the house hated the fact the piano was being played a lot, but I would listen to her play and even though my lessons were here, I would play what she was playing to emulate [her] because I wanted to play what she was playing.' Dale, who was Karen's closest sibling in age at 11 months younger than her, said Karen wasn't necessarily outgoing, but she definitely wasn't shy. He also said the family wasn't like the Waltons or the Brady Bunch, but he and Karen looked out for each other to the best of their abilities and had what he considered a normal brother-sister relationship. After graduating from Sycamore High School in 1977, Karen chose to forego college and enter the workforce, getting a job in Elgin at First Chicago Bank Card as a computer programmer. As a part of picking up the job, she briefly moved in with her father Loren and stepmother Suzette in Elgin, before moving into a second-floor apartment in the 300 block of Lovell Street on the East Side of the Fox River. Along the way, she bought a canary-yellow 1980 Toyota Celica with distinctive red stripes and began dating Terry Wayne Schultz. The two met after Schultz delivered a pizza to her apartment. According to detectives Andrew Houghton and Matt Vartanian, the two became unofficially engaged in the spring or summer of 1982. Schultz had yet to buy a ring, but the understanding was they would eventually marry one another. Karen experienced more than her fair share of drama from 1980 up until her disappearance in April 1983. As Houghton and Vartanian explain in the episode, Karen had strained relationships with her father, Loren, and her stepmother, Suzette, before her relationship with Schultz became rockier ahead of her disappearance. Houghton and Vartanian reveal their investigation showed Karen had only spoken to her father over the phone for up to three-plus years before her disappearance. Then, they also talk of how Karen kept the address of her Lovell Street apartment a secret from Suzette, due to strain in their relationship. A few weeks before Karen's disappearance, she and Schultz reportedly called off their unofficial engagement but were still seeing each other. Although Houghton and Vartanian didn't reveal any strain the relationship with her mother, Liz moved to Texas in 1981, leading to less contact with Karen, who stayed put in Illinois. Two of Karen's siblings—Dale and Susan—both recall the last moments they were either in contact with Karen or with her. After disappearing sometime after midnight in the early morning hours of April 16, 1983, Dale went to Karen's apartment on April 17—a day before her boyfriend filed a missing persons report with police. Karen called the mother of Dale's now-wife to ask if she could have Dale contact her. According to Houghton and Vartanian, it was common for Karen to call her and leave instructions for Dale because he didn't own a phone at the time. Dale told Houghton and Vartanian he was picking up a trailer to drop off in Memphis that day. Before departing, he stopped at Karen's apartment and left a note on her door. A day later when he returned to Illinois, he and the rest of his family learned Karen had gone missing. Susan wasn't in Illinois when Karen went missing, but she recalled the last time she was with her sister. Karen, her mom and several of her brothers spent a day at a beach in Galveston, Texas. When they returned, Karen and Susan went on a trip to a store in town that turned into an excursion to Lake Ray Hubbard, where the two sat and had a one-on-one conversation about life. 'We were a gaggle of geese most of the time,' Susan said of their family dynamic with nine brothers and sisters, which made the time spent with just one sibling a rare commodity. More than four decades after Karen's disappearance, her family still maintains the farmhouse where they grew up in Sycamore, keeping details the same way they were before she went missing. One of those details is keeping the piano Karen practiced on growing up in the same room it's always been sitting in. Gary told Houghton and Vartanian it's all a part of a slim sliver of hope she comes home after all these years. 'You wonder all the time. In my mind, I almost never say the word 'was' about her. It's always like, 'She's somewhere,' and I don't know,' Gary said. 'I mean, mom and I are still in the house waiting for her to show up one day. I would be surprised, but I wouldn't be surprised if that happened. It's one of the reasons the house looks the same and the barn's never been painted a different color. 'If she were driving by and saw the place, she would know it was there … On my Facebook page—the cover photo has been there for years—a picture of [ billboard and I get responses to it. I repost it on her birthday [and] every April 15th. People leave comments. I'm still convinced somebody knows and somebody is going to tell us.'Anyone with information on Karen's case or any other cold case in the City of Elgin are encouraged to contact EPD via email at ColdCaseTips@ or via phone at 1-847-289-COLD. A list of all cold case missing persons and homicide cases are listed at A new episode of 'Somebody Knows Something: The Elgin Police Cold Case Podcast' drops every other Monday, with the next episode coming out on Feb. 17. With Each episode's drop, an article from WGN News will follow within 24 hours. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Yahoo
Cheatham County high school teacher arrested on drug charges
CHEATHAM COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — A Cheatham County high school teacher was arrested and fired Friday after he was reportedly found to be under the influence in a school zone. The Cheatham County Sheriff's Office said 42-year-old Brandon Peters was charged with possession of a schedule VI drug in a drug-free school zone and public intoxication. According to authorities, Peters was found in possession of a THC vape and a small amount of marijuana. Person arrested for DUI after being rescued from floodwaters in Portland Peters was a teacher at Sycamore High School in Pleasant View. In a statement, Cheatham County School District said Peters had worked for the district since 2024 and had no prior issues in his personnel file, but his employment was terminated on Friday, Feb. 14, the day of his arrest. According to the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, Peters also coached wrestling at Sycamore Middle School and girls' flag football at Sycamore High School. 2 wanted people arrested after Mt. Juliet officer spots speeding car with child inside 'The safety and well-being of our students is one of our top priorities, and we are committed to maintaining a safe and supportive environment for all students,' Cheatham County school officials said in a statement over the weekend. 'We are fully cooperating with the Cheatham County Sheriff's Office.' The district did not provide any additional details about this ongoing investigation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
