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‘I don’t have any doubts’ McCullough’s lawyers make case in murder appeal By ANDREA AZZO aazzo@shawmedia.com ELGIN – On the 57th anniversary of the day his sister disappeared from the corner of Archie Place and Center Cross Street in Sycamore, Charles Ridulph listened to legal arguments in the appeal of the man convicted of killing her. None of what he heard convinced Ridulph that the trial judge was mistaken in finding Jack McCullough guilty in the 1957 kidnapping and murder of 7-yearold Maria Ridulph. Jack “I don’t have any doubts,” McCullough Ridulph said. “None.” Justices are expected to issue a written decision in three to eight weeks after attorneys for both sides argued Wednesday before a three-judge panel at the Second District Appellate Court in Elgin. McCullough, 75, was sentenced in December 2012 to life in prison. DeKalb County State’s Attorney Richard Schmack, Public Defender Tom McCulloch and Sycamore Mayor Ken Mundy, along with members of the Ridulph family, packed the courtroom. Maria’s disappearance initially inspired an FBI investigation that went cold for decades until McCullough’s half sister told Illinois State Police about their mother’s deathbed confession. Defense attorney Paul Glaser, from the Office of the State Appellate Defender, argued prosecutors did not produce enough evidence at trial to prove McCullough guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He also argued that McCullough should have been allowed to present his alibi that he claimed was bolstered by FBI records stemming from the case’s initial investigation. Only six pages of the FBI reports were entered into the court as evidence; the trial judge ruled the rest were hearsay.
Monica Synett – msynett@shawmedia.com
Charles Ridulph listens to appellate prosecutor Scott Jacobson on Wednesday after an appeal hearing for Jack McCullough at the Second District Appellate Court in Elgin. McCullough was convicted in 2012 in the 1957 kidnapping and murder of Ridulph’s sister, 7-year-old Maria Ridulph of Sycamore. No decision was made at the hearing. McCullough has maintained that he was in Rockford when Maria Ridulph was kidnapped. “The defense has to be allowed to present something, too,” Glaser said. “There’s no reason the FBI would fabricate the reports.”
McCullough, who was known as John Tessier at the time Maria disappeared, was arrested in 2011 in Seattle after the investigation was renewed because his mother, Eileen Tessier, told her daughter that McCullough was responsible for the crime. Maria’s childhood friend, Kathy Sig-
man, was the only person who saw a stranger take Maria for a piggyback ride as the trio were playing near her Sycamore home. Decades later, she identified McCullough as that stranger from a series
See APPEAL, page A4
Five key points in Jack McCullough’s appeal
1.
Defense attorney Paul Glaser argued Jack McCullough should have been allowed to produce FBI reports that included his alibi that he was in Rockford at the time of the kidnapping.
2.
Glaser said McCullough’s mother’s deathbed confession was not clear because one daughter recalled the mother only saying, “He did it,” while another daughter recalls more detail.
Police: Robbery reports made up By ANDREA AZZO aazzo@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Two men who told local police they were robbed in separate incidents, one purportedly involving a gun, now face charges alleging they lied about the incidents, authorities said. Brian Thomas, 18, of South Holland, reported to Northern Illinois University Police that he was robbed at gunpoint of a laptop and about $60 in cash about 9:45 p.m. Nov. 17 while walking in the 1200 block of Varsity Boulevard in DeKalb. During their investigation, police learned Thomas was actually involved in a drug transaction in a different city
a few days earlier when something belonging to him was stolen, and he made the false report to account for his missing property, according to a DeKalb police news release issued Wednesday. A judge Wednesday issued a warrant for Thomas’ arrest for making a false report to police. In a separate incident, Joshua Goddard, 20, of Winfield, told a student worker at NIU – who then called police – that he was robbed while walking about 3 a.m. Nov. 21 in the 600 block of North Annie Glidden Road in DeKalb. Goddard, who initially
See REPORTS, page A4
3.
4.
Appellate Prosecutor Jacobson said the FBI Scott Jacobson said reports contain hearthe issue of McCullough’s say and do not have exculpamother’s deathbed confestory evidence that would be sion is a smokescreen and not favorable to McCullough. the only evidence presented at trial.
5.
Glaser argued that Kathy Sigman’s identification of McCullough 55 years after the incident was unreliable, but Jacobson said the trial judge found it convincing.
U.S.: Iran launches airstrikes in Iraq against IS By KEN DILANIAN and VIVIAN SALAMA The Associated Press WASHINGTON – Iranian jets have carried out airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq in recent days, Pentagon officials and independent analysts said, underscoring the strange alliances generated by the war against the extremist group that has beheaded Americans and killed and terrorized Iraqi civilians. Washington and Tehran are locked in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. But the two adversaries have been fighting parallel campaigns on the same side in Iraq to defend the Shiite-dominated government – and the region’s Kurds – from IS militants who seized a large section of the country. Iranian troops and advisers have been fighting alongside
Iraqi forces, but until this week there had been no confirmation of Iranian air activity. The timing and nature of the strikes are not clear, but a senior U.S. official said they occurred in Diyala province, which extends from northeast Baghdad to the Iranian border. The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose that information. The Qatari-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera filmed a jet flying over Iraq on Nov. 30 that was identified by Jane’s Defence Weekly as an American-made F-4 Phantom. The Phantom, a twin-engine fighter bomber that was sold to Iran’s U.S.backed shah in the 1970s, was last produced by McDonnell Aircraft Corp. in 1981. Iran in the 1980s fought a brutal, ultimately stalemated war with Iraq when that coun-
try was led by Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-controlled Baath Party. But the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam left an Iraqi government closely aligned with Iran. A majority of Iraqis are Shiite, as are most Iranians. The Islamic State group, which also controls parts of Syria, is led by Sunni extremists and has attracted many Sunnis who felt disenfranchised by Baghdad. In public, U.S. officials have walked a careful line over the strikes, while Iranian officials have flatly denied them. Neither side has an interest in appearing to cooperate with the other. America’s Arab allies in the fight against the Islamic State, including Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and Qatar, would not want to be seen as fighting alongside Shiite Iran against a
See AIRSTRIKES, page A4
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry listens to questions Wednesday during a media conference after he opened a meeting of the global coalition to counter the Islamic State militant group at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The morning meeting assessed what’s been accomplished and what remains to be done.
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