WAYNE CO., Ill. - If it weren't for media outside Wayne County, folks might not know that an escaped inmate from Illinois Department of Corrections was back in custody.
In one of the quietest escaped inmate-incidents ever, Eric B. Willett, 32 of Grayville, somehow managed to not only escape a work-release along with another area crim, Tim Kerr, but also elude capture until, ostensibly, yesterday, and if not for a little blurb about it on a radio station with a dwindling-daily listenership, folks wouldn't know.
Of course, folks barely knew that Willett had escaped, so it's about par for the course.
We ran this piece on Kerr's capture, which was nice and detailed thanks to the sheriff in the area where Kerr was caught, White County Sheriff Doug Maier, who spares the media nothing when there's a situation involving possible danger to the public. Just before that, we ran this piece about one of Willett's known associates, Terrible Tara Keown (pronounced "keen," not "kee-own"), being apprehended allegedly with meth while White County was out looking for Willett.
But very little about Willett because apparently, the escape occurred in Wayne County, and Wayne, as many people know, is a black hole when it comes to actual media information being disseminated about incidents that involve public safety and embarrassing situations that lead to the abruption thereof.
Apparently, Willett was captured in the Merriam area of Wayne, which is due east of Fairfield if traveling that direction on Highway 15. We don't know where in Merriam, we only know it was "at a residence"; we don't know when, only "yesterday" (Friday, February 22); we don't know if anyone was harboring him and ergo if they're going to face charges; we don't know if he was just hanging out in a shack for however long; and above all, we don't know anything about a work-release program that would get an inmate in a position to escape - things like what he and Kerr were doing on said program; how long they were in the program; are there others in a similar program; are they subsequently able to put the public at risk by escaping as well...you know, important stuff that the public needs to and definitely HAS A RIGHT TO know. Because between Wayne County and IDOC, they're going to keep this stuff as much under wraps as possible. Don't say "oh Jack, just make those calls and find out for yourself!!" Not possible. IDOC won't tell anyone (unless, of course, they're the "right" kind of media...the kind that aids them in keeping stuff quiet, and then you only get very surface details, nothing more) those details, and trying to cut through Wayne County's crap is equally as impossible. So we're just going to call them out on it, and see if, in the coming days, information that's actually helpful comes to the fore.
After the fact, thoug...of course.