Serving the Mt. Morris area since 1967
MT.Times MORRIS June 4, 2015 Volume 48, Number 14 - $1.00
Eighth at State
Eighth at State
Bond Denied
Konner Wilson brings home a medal in the 300 hurdles from the state track meet. B1
Konner Wilson brings home a state track medal. B1
An Ogle County judge has again denied a bond reduction for a Peoria man. B3
1,000 turn out for Rebuild Grubsteakers Restaurant was destroyed by the April 9 tornado By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecountynews.com Hundreds of people turned out May 30 to help an Ogle County restaurant owner get back in business. The crowd was estimated at 1,000 at a fundraiser to assist Ava Mirtoska, owner of Grubsteakers, rebuild her restaurant. The all-day event, held at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Lindenwood, and put on by Mirtoska’s employees and friends, raised approximately $20,000. “It was amazing,” Mirtoska said. Grubsteakers owner Ava Mirtoska, right, and waitress Margaret Cortesi, transition from breakfast to lunch “All the customers for years were during the Rebuild Grubsteakers benefit held on May 30. Photo by Earleen Hinton there. It was happy and sad. I was very glad to see everyone but not she hopes to begin digging the for that reason. I’m so grateful. I foundation for a new restaurant in July. can’t thank them all enough.” “I can’t wait,” she said. “It’s been The well-known restaurant, located at the intersection of Ill. 64 seven weeks and it feels like seven and 251, was demolished by the EF4 months. For the last 11 years that tornado that swept through eastern [the restaurant] was my life.” Architects are already working Ogle County around suppertime on on a design, she said, but several April 9. things need to be worked out before Mirtoska saw the storm construction can start. approaching and quickly ushered “There’s a lot of things that need about a dozen customers and employees into a storm cellar, to be done,” Mirtoska said. The first issue to be resolved is preventing serious injuries and where to locate the new building, possibly saving their lives. Jeff Kallenback, Rockford, looks over one of the photo displays at Turn to A10 the Rebuild Grubsteakers benefit. Photo by Earleen Hinton Mirtoska said Tuesday that
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By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecountynews.com
In This Week’s Edition...
Mike Arians, left, and Stephan Skridla, the nephew of 1948 murder victim Stanley Skridla, listen to a question from the media during a press conference in Oregon on Friday afternoon. Photo by Earleen Hinton
Church News, A5 Classifieds, B7-B12 Entertainment, A6 Fines, B4 Library News, A3
Marriage Licenses, A4 Oregon Police, B3 Public Voice, A9 Property Transfers, B4 Sheriff’s Arrests, B3
By Vinde Wells vwells@oglecountynews.com
that we could bury him with military honors and with a priest. He didn’t get that before.” The case began on June 24, 1948 when Reed failed to return home after a date. She and Skridla, her companion on the night she disappeared, were subsequently found shot to death. Skridla’s body was discovered the next morning on County Farm Road south of Oregon. He had been shot five times, according to police reports at the time. Reed’s badly decomposed body was found four days later in a ditch along Devil’s Backbone Road west of Oregon. She had been shot once in the head. The double murder has never been solved, although a new investigation of the case by the Ogle County Sheriff’s Department in 2005 pointed to possible culprits. That investigation concluded that the murders were probably committed by two brothers in a
Double homicide is still unsolved after 67 years
Two 32-caliber slugs and the possible remnants of a third were also retrieved from the casket, Arians said. Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia said only skeletal remains were left of Skridla’s body. “We had only skeletal remains because he had been down so long. There was no tissue,” she said. “The forensic anthropologists determined that they were the remains of one male individual between the ages of 28 and 31.” She said two slugs were found in the casket. Fiduccia said that because of the Skridla family’s concern that his body was burned with acid, scrapings were taken from the skull. She said the scrapings will be analyzed to determine the presence of acid or an accelerant, such as gasoline. She did not know when those results would be available. Stanley Skridla, a U.S. Navy veteran, was reburied after the autopsy. His nephew said he is glad they did took those steps. “I was pleased they could find 99.9 percent of his remains,” Stephan Skridla said. “I’m pleased
Work to begin on Black Hawk While nothing has been happening onsite to repair the Black Hawk Statue, preparation work for the project has been going on behind the scenes. Project conservator Dr. Andrzej Dajnowski, from Conservation of Sculpture & Objects Studio, Forest Park, said Tuesday that he and his crew have been testing various repair mixtures to make sure the blend to fill the cracks will match the statue. “We’re working on it all the time,” he said. “We’re testing the injection material. That’s very important.” The statue remains covered with its protective winter wrap of green plastic mesh over a framework of scaffolding, but that will all be changing in the very near future, Dajnowski said. “We’ll be out there finishing the scaffolding next week,” he said. “What’s up there now was just to protect it for the winter. Now we have to finish it for working on it.” Portions of the 104-year-old iconic statue are crumbling and falling off due to the effects of time and weather. Dajnowski is part of a team of experts who put together a plan to repair the 50-foot concrete statue that overlooks the Rock River at Lowden State Park. Designed by Chicago sculptor Lorado Taft in 1910 and dedicated in 1911 as a tribute to Native Americans, Black Hawk was named to the state’s list of Most Endangered Historic Places on April 22 by Landmarks Illinois. The work was expected to begin nearly a year ago but was delayed while Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) officials reviewed and approved contracts. The contracts were finally signed in late April. Most of the money for the $825,000 project has been raised by the Friends of the Black Hawk Statue, an organization headed up by Frank and Cherron Rausa, Sterling. A large portion of the funds came from a $350,000 grant the IDNR
Exhumation yields few new clues The exhumation of a Rockford man murdered in 1948 has yielded little new information about Ogle County’s oldest cold case. However, the man’s nephew, Stephan Skridla, 62, Rockford, said May 29 that he is hopeful the findings may lead to solving the decades-old double homicide of his uncle Stanley Skridla, then 28, and his date, Mary Jane Reed, then 17, on a lover’s lane just outside of Oregon. “I’m very hopeful,” Skidla said at an afternoon press conference in Oregon. “I think Ogle County investigators are going to work with us. Let’s put almost 70 years to rest. My uncle was shot in the groin and burned with acid. That’s a statement. Someone definitely wanted him dead and [wanted to say] don’t mess with us.” “We’re certainly closer than we’ve ever been before,” said Michael Arians, the now retired owner of an Oregon restaurant, and former Oregon mayor, who has tried to help solve the murder for several years. Arians obtained a court order from Winnebago County Judge Eugene G. Doherty last November to have Skridla’s remains exhumed from Calvary Cemetery, just west of Rockford, in his ongoing personal quest to solve the two murders. During the press conference, held at The Roadhouse, Arians said Skridla’s coffin did not contain Reed’s skull as he suggested it might last November. During an autopsy conducted right after the exhumation on May 28, Arians said forensic anthropologists determined that the coffin contained all of and only Skridla’s remains. “The body was the same throughout,” he said.
The Black Hawk Statue remains covered, but onsite restoration work is expected to begin soon. Photo by Earleen Hinton
Social News, A4 Sports, B1, B2 State’s Attorney, B4 Weather, A3
Deaths, B5 Mary F. Copeland, Janice V. Davidson, Vivian M. Unger
Published every Thursday by Ogle County Newspapers, a division of Shaw Media • www.oglecountynews.com