MARION—The interview with Monica Felts-Zukas on her one-hour Friday night show at WGGH Monster radio 1150 AM. Reality Check, is now available on SoundCloud at the following link:
Outrage grows over Molly Young death! What really happened?
This is Reality Check’s second show about the issue; check this link to listen to the first, which was recorded in mid-July.
Molly Young
The shows have been presented in the ongoing effort to make the public aware of the case of the shooting death of Molly Young, which occurred March 24, 2012, in the early morning hours. On that Saturday, Molly was called to her ex-boyfriend’s apartment in Carbondale; the ex, Richie Minton, a dispatcher for the Carbondale police department, had been drinking all night and had been bugging Molly by text until she came to see what he wanted. She arrived some time before 4 a.m.; before 5 a.m., authorities believe, she was shot to death by someone wielding a handgun that belonged to Minton and was kept in a locked case in his room. Authorities know the approximately time of death not only because of physical evidence on Molly’s condition, but also because a roommate in the apartment, Wes Romack, arrived home from work after 5 a.m. and he did not hear a gunshot after he arrived.
Richie Minton
Minton was due at work at 7 a.m. but did not go. Instead, he awoke before 9 a.m. and made a 911 call to his own dispatch center, reporting a “dead person” in the apartment. Therefore several hours had passed between Molly’s death and the discovery/report.
Minton was allowed to wash his hands and change clothes before leaving the scene. Responding EMTs noted that there was no alcohol on his breath, and that there were two, fresh six-inch scratches on his back. He has never spoken to authorities, even to give a statement of events, despite the fact that he was allegedly the only person in the room when Molly “shot herself.” He reported her death as an overdose in the initial 911 call, despite the fact that she was covered in blood with an obvious gunshot wound to the head and that the part of the 9X13 room was covered in blood. She was said to have shot herself on the left side of her head with her right hand; however, her hands were tested and there was no gunpowder residue. Minton’s hands were never tested, nor were the hands of his roommate, Womack.
A coroner’s inquest returned a verdict of unnatural death, undetermined causes. Despite the complete slant of testimony given by ISP investigators, who attempted at every turn to convince the coroner’s jury that Molly Young was suicidal, they didn’t buy it…primarily because the “evidence” they were presenting—a journal and other writings Molly had composed—was more than a year, and in some cases two years, before her death. They were immaterial to her mental state at the time, and the jury could see it. What wasn’t presented were several key pieces of evidence that pointed to the fact that Molly was murdered. Because ISP carefully left that material out, their verdict had to be “undetermined” circumstances instead of homicide…but certainly it wasn’t ‘suicide.’
Mr. & Mrs. Richard “Flip” Minton
What’s prompting the authorities to overlook the obvious in this case may lie in who Richie Minton’s father is: Flip Minton, of Franklin County, who is a computer expert who works in forensic (for cases at law) examination of computers and hard drives in such cases as child pornography and other high-end, interstate trafficking crimes on the internet. The common-knowledge, common sense theme that’s emerging here is that Flip Minton is holding something over someone’s head, someone involved in this investigation and who doesn’t want something coming out about them that Minton either has in his possession…or can create by placing on a computer hard drive, even remotely. Given the utter corruption, and the perverse nature of it, that has been thriving in Franklin County (where the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois is located), it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to assume the same of Williamson and Jackson…and Jackson County state’s attorney Mike Carr, who, prior to being elected, was employed as an attorney for the U.S. government in Benton, might be in that mix.
The Illinois State Police and Carbondale and Jackson County law enforcement authorities say they’ve turned over all their investigatory paperwork to Molly’s father Larry Young, telling him that the investigation is considered ‘closed.’ There are no plans by Carr to seat a grand jury in the wake of the completion of the investigation. More than a year has passed since Molly’s death and not one move has been made to resolve the issue and bring a killer to justice. It is painfully evident that there is no possible way the girl could have shot herself in the offered scenario. But someone, or someones, know the truth. The focus now is to raise awareness of the matter and, through increasing public knowledge, begin to put pressure on the witnesses, the people involved peripherally with the case…and on the authorities, who are stonewalling the matter on the taxpayers dime and who don’t seem interested in answering to the taxpayers or the family who grieves for the loss of Molly Young every day. Subscribe to Monica’s SoundCloud channel; subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can see the podcast post-inquest in February of this year; and read our coverage of the case and decide for yourself what you would do if this were your daughter, your sister, your granddaughter, you friend, and how hard you would fight for answers. Because the next time, it might BE someone you know and love…and the same authorities might turn a blind eye to the crime the same way they are doing to Molly Young.
