We felt that in light of the Earp shooting this weekend, we might bring to you another death occurring within the city limits of Olney that was controversial and yet handled so poorly that no one has any real idea WHAT really happened. Let’s hope that the situation with the shooting this weekend isn’t as mishandled as the death of California native Jaimee Rupe’s was….unfortunately, the very same people are in charge of it, and we’re unsure whether outside agencies (like the state police) will be brought in, just like in the 2004 Rupe case.

There were four articles presented about the Rupe situation in the spring and summer of 2004. Here are the three that best tell the tale, beginning with the March 2004 issue article, the April 2004 article, and the August 2004 article.

March 2004

Family alleges cover-up in death

RICHLAND CO. – The family of a 38-year-old woman and her 20-month-old son who were found dead in their Washington St. home in Olney March 1, 2004 say they are beginning to feel the deaths were a homicide and that Richland County authorities are covering up.

“We haven’t heard anything from authorities,” said Caroline Prudhon, who is the sister of the dead woman. “For months now we have been getting the same thing. Authorities continue to claim they are waiting on autopsy results before they schedule an inquest to determine the cause and manner of death.”

Prudhon said she is angry by the lack of communication from authorities.

“They have even refused to return calls to my father in California,” Prudhon said. “He just wants to know how his daughter died.”

Bodies found by sister

Prudhon said she last saw her sister, Jamiee Rupe and her son Ryion Ippolito at the Olney Post Office February 23, 2004.

“She had Ryion on her hip as always and she was mailing a package,” Prudhon said.

When Rupe didn’t show for a planned evening outing with her sister on February 27, Prudhon started to get worried.

“I decided to check on her February 29,” Prudhon told Disclosure.

When Prudhon went to Rupe’s home she noticed her Ford Ranger pickup was not in the driveway but decided to check anyway as her sister would on occasion let someone borrow her truck.

“When I knocked I could hear the television turned up pretty loud,” Prudhon said. “I tried the knob and it was locked. I jiggled the door, but it was shut tight.”

Prudhon said she returned to check on her sister the next day (March 1) but this time things were different.

“I went to the door and knocked and it opened all by itself,” Prudhon said. “Just the day before it was locked tight and it just swung open at the weight of my hand knocking.”

After noticing what she describes as an “unpleasant smell,” Prudhon said she called out to her sister to no avail and began looking around the home.

She found her sister’s body along with that of her dead nephew in a back bedroom.

Richland County Coroner Randy Kistler told Prudhon on the spot that her sister had been dead for more than a week and the child only a matter of a couple days.

“I told the police about the door being locked tight just the day before and how it opened at my knocking,” Prudhon said. “They told me my sister had been dead for more than a week. It appears either they don’t know what they are doing or someone is covering something up.”

‘They know who did it’

With the amount of time that has passed without anything new from authorities, Prudhon now says she believes her sister was killed.

“I think she was murdered and the authorities know who did it,” she told Disclosure. “I just don’t understand. They are ignoring us and saying absolutely nothing.”

Prudhon said she has received word lately that one of the individuals who may have had something to do with the death is still running the streets.

“I was told just this week that he running around with a brand new gun,” she said. “From what I understand all the kids who may know something or have had something to do with my sister’s death are running around carrying guns.”

Prudhon admits that she’s so frustrated by authorities’ lack of response in her sister’s case that she doesn’t really know what to believe.

Not afraid of authorities

There has been some talk that the family is in fear of Richland County authorities but Prudhon said neither she nor her mother are living in fear.

“Not of the authorities anyway,” she said. “Someone needs to do something about these kids running around with guns.”

What she is afraid of is that if authorities don’t get to the bottom of her sister’s death and she was murdered, then there are murderers running the streets of Olney.

“I just don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” she said. “I don’t want any other family to have to go through what we are.”

Harassed by court

Although Prudhon said she’s not feeling picked on, she is currently undergoing what many see as subtle hints to keep her mouth shut and not to talk further with the media.

“In January I ran into a stop sign near my house,” she said. “I contacted police and told them I had hit the sign.”

Prudhon said she was dragged into court at which time Assistant State’s Attorney David Hyde informed the court that she had been driving on a suspended drivers license.

“I was not driving on a suspended license and told Judge Larry Dunn that,” she said. “The judge said it was crap basically and informed Hyde to check with the Secretary of State and if he found my license were not suspended that the charges should be dropped.”

According to Prudhon, that didn’t happen.

“I’ve been informed I have a warrant out for my arrest because of the incident,” she said. “I’ll go pay their $100 bond to get them off my back. I have proof my license was not suspended. But what gets me is that the court sent me a bill for several hundred dollars for a sign city workers came out and simply straightened it back up.”

Officials impose media blackout

Richland County authorities have imposed a media blackout and have had no contact with media outlets covering the story. No attempts have been made by authorities to respond to what appears to be a cover-up.

Authorities refuse to return calls from the family.

There have been no responses from Olney Chief of Police Rick Chaplin, State’s Attorney Kaye DeSelms or Coroner Randy Kistler, who may have something to hide.

 

April 2004

Friend of dead woman comes forward

RICHLAND CO. – A friend of 38-year-old Jaimee Rupe, the woman found dead March 1 along with her 20-month-old son Ryion Ippolito in their Olney home, has contacted Disclosure and expressed outrage at the lack of taking responsibility and absence of communication between police and elected authorities and the family.

Judge Dunn should feel guilty

“I am personally outraged by Judge Larry Dunn’s apparent lack of humanity, but what’s worse he has managed to convince at least some of Jaimee’s family that he was taken out of context the day she appeared before him and he claims nothing but the best of intentions for her,” the source said. “I think maybe if Judge Dunn had bothered to learn a little bit more about Jaimee Rupee that he might come to realize just how callous his actions were and what an opportunity he missed to potentially avert a tragedy.”

Rupe was in front of Dunn the first week of December 2003 regarding her ex-husband.

“The mother appeared to have some psychological problems as she spoke to the judge,” a source that was in the courtroom that day tells Disclosure. “She was saying something about her baby being a clone.”

According to the source, Dunn basically told the emotionally troubled woman that she should take her young son, get out of his courtroom and go back to California where she came from.

“He even went as far as asking her how much a train ticket would cost her,” the source said. “He then asked her if she were on any medication and she said she wasn’t.”

Dunn then dismissed the woman and her child without any further guidance.

Jaimee Rupe and her young son were found dead two months later.

Dunn didn’t even try

“Did judge Dunn not raise an eyebrow when she told him she thought the child was a ‘clone?’ Did no warning flag go up?” the friend asked. “He denies to her family that she ever said that. But anybody who knew Jaimee would not be at all surprised to have heard that come from her lips.

“On one hand the judge tells the family that he was tenderly trying to help her by merely suggesting that she would be happier going back to where she came from. Yet he admits that he asked her how much train fair would cost. But he says, only so he could acquire the money for her—what bullsh*t. How do you tenderly run someone out of town on a rail?  How would she know in the midst of his courtroom what train fare is to anywhere would cost? That was obviously a flippant remark intended to make his point that the County of Richland had not interest in helping her. At the very least, he could have ordered her to be placed under observation.”

Was a tragedy in the making

The friend said Jaimee Rupe was nothing short of a tragedy in the making.

“But that doesn’t mean that people who are granted the public’s trust shouldn’t have tried to help her,” the friend said. “If you knew her, you couldn’t help but love her and pity her.  But…she was extremely disturbed. Somewhere along the line, probably California, she might have been diagnosed as bi-polar, maybe obsessive compulsive. If never schizophrenic – well, I would be very surprised about that.

“She told me she was NOT currently taking any prescription drugs for any of these problems but she has in the past and most likely really should have been on something still yet.”

The friend said the last time they had seen Rupe was a few months before her death.

Richland Memorial Hospital connection

Rupe was under psychiatric the care of Dr. Ahmed at Richland Memorial Hospital (RMH).

According to documents, Dr. Ahmed was attempting to care for Rupe on an outpatient basis.

“That damned doctor had the authority to have her hospitalized,” one source told Disclosure. “I don’t know why he didn’t. I don’t know why he didn’t keep her on her medication. He should be held accountable for his actions or lack thereof.”

Those who hear of Dr. Ahmed’s involvement in the Rupe case feel he “dropped the ball” and was probably forced out of the hospital by administration as a butt-covering, avoid-a-lawsuit move.

Oddly enough, Disclosure has discovered that Dr. Ahmed has left Richland Memorial for parts unknown for reasons unknown.

Another disturbing connection with RMH comes in the form of Dr. Mary-Baird Loftin, who practices (because many don’t believe she’ll ever get it right) internal medicine.

When a family member of Jaimee Rupe, one who had seen and smelled the decomposing bodies of the mother and her young child, went to Dr. Loftin in the weeks following the gruesome discovery and asked for something to help them sleep, Dr. Loftin allegedly threw the family member out of her office.

“I asked her if she could give me something to sleep,” the family member said. “When I closed my eyes at night all I could see was Jaimee’s black, swollen head with her tongue hanging out. Dr. Loftin told me to get out of her office and never come back.

“She had been my doctors for years.”

Unlike Dr. Ahmed, who had an undeniable connection with the case, Dr. Loftin continues to be employed at RMH.

Was paranoid

The family friend said the last time they saw Jaimee Rupe she was paranoid.

“She was paranoid –as usual. God bless her. Just ask the Olney police department, Sheriffs department too, I’d wager, if they have a record of how many times she’s called,” the friend said. “The Woodland Hills, California, Police Department could give you an ear full too.  No one will probably ever know for sure how many times she spent the entire night in the parking lot or pitched a tent on the lawn of law enforcement facilities in at least two states.

“She even spent the night in that truck of hers with the baby – there at the Olney Police Department – maybe the Sheriff’s Department. Poor thing, thought the FBI was after her – aliens and such too – talk about being tormented by demons.

“Always thought her friends and family had secret plots against her. She kept lengthy journals that she said documented all the times she had been threatened somehow.

Did she have reason to be paranoid?

The friend said they had read some of Rupe’s journals and believes the majority of her fears were manifestations of her illness.

“I did read one of her journals and from what I read she was obviously delusional,” the friend said. “The one I saw was mostly about how a family member that I know for a fact nurtured and cared for her despite the difficulty of enduring her erratic behavior.”

The friend said they felt none of what Rupe wrote in the journal they read could have happened.

“It was just way too out there, what with bugging devices implanted inside of her head and other fantastic tales,” the friend said. “All we can do now is hope the authorities pull their heads out of their butts and start treating Jaimee like an human being instead of a statistic no one cares about. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s mother, someone’s sister and someone’s friend despite her problems.”

 

August 2004

Coroner’s inquest a horrible joke

OLNEY—In the absence of final autopsy reports and anything resembling a serious investigation, Richland County Coroner Randy Kistler used unscientific guessing and his own opinion to steer a coroner’s jury toward findings during the July 27 inquest into the deaths of 38-year-old Jamiee Rupe and her 20-month-old son Ryion Ippolito, both found dead in their Olney home in March 2004.

Kistler opened the inquest by finger pointing, blaming the nearly five-month wait for the inquest on the regional morgue in Evansville.

“Five months is too long to wait for a final autopsy report,” Kistler said. “This is the longest I’ve ever had to wait for an autopsy. I’ve called Dr. LeVaughan (pathologist) seven weeks in a row. I don’t know why it’s taking so long.”

Even the testimony of Olney Police Chief Rick Chaplin failed to answer critical questions.

Last seen at Post Office

Rupe and Ippolito were last seen alive by Rupe’s sister Caroline Prudhon at the Olney Post Office February 23, 2004.

“She had Ryion on her hip as always and she was mailing a package,” Prudhon said.

When Rupe didn’t show for a planned evening outing with her sister on February 27, Prudhon started to get worried.

“I decided to check on her February 29,” Prudhon told Disclosure.

When Prudhon went to Rupe’s home she noticed her Ford Ranger pickup was not in the driveway but decided to check anyway as her sister would on occasion let someone borrow her truck.

“When I knocked I could hear the television turned up pretty loud,” Prudhon said. “I tried the knob and it was locked. I jiggled the door, but it was shut tight.”

Prudhon said she returned to check on her sister the next day, March 1.

Finds door unlocked

“I went to the door and knocked and it opened all by itself,” Prudhon said. “Just the day before it was locked tight and it just swung open at the weight of my hand knocking.”

After noticing what she describes as an “unpleasant smell,” Prudhon said she called out to her sister to no avail then began looking around the home.

She found her sister’s body in a back bedroom.

Prudhon said her sister’s head was black from the neck up.

Chaplin acknowledged that Prudhon reported the door was locked February 29, then just unlocked but practically ajar March 1, but offered no explanation.

Pickup found across town

Rupe’s Ford Ranger was found February 25 several miles across town, abandoned in the vicinity of Lynn and Clem Streets in Olney.

According to police, Rupe’s truck was reported abandoned by a neighbor who lives in the area.

The tow truck operator reported the truck could not be driven from the scene because of a broken tie rod end.

One of the inconsistencies Kistler and the jury failed to clarify was the fact that Sue Ippolito claims to have seen her daughter’s truck driving down Main Street in Olney February 26—one day after the vehicle was reported abandoned with a broken tie rod end.

Stroller in truck

As Prudhon and others report, Rupe “always” had her son with her.

Neither Kistler nor Chaplin offered any explanation as to how Rupe could have gotten from the vicinity of Clem and Lynn Streets all the way across town.

“She wouldn’t have walked home because it was so cold,” Prudhon said. “And if she did walk all the way back home I think she would have used the stroller. It was right there in the truck—that’s just common sense.”

Common sense being what it is appears to have escaped Chaplin and ignored by Kistler, as neither even mentioned the oddity.

Chaplin confirms condition of bodies

Chaplin confirmed the condition of the two bodies, adding that Rupe was found in an advanced state of decomposition on a bed in a back room with Ryion Ippolito found dead under the bed.

With no scientific testing and before the bodies were even removed from the home, Kistler told Prudhon her sister had been dead for more than a week and the child only a matter of a couple days.

“He told me that day that Ryion had died from dehydration,” Prudhon said.

When asked if they had any further questions the jury sat mute, riveted to Kistler’s every word.

Kistler paints picture

Then in a move rarely seen in an inquest, Kistler offered up answers for the jury.

“In my opinion Jamiee Rupe died on the bed while breast feeding the baby, from her electrolytes being out of balance from not taking her medication. I believe she died from a heart attack, “Kistler said.

Rupe had suffered for years from a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Family members said they believe she had not been taking her medication for weeks, maybe months.

Kistler, lacking the training to make the statement he did, didn’t mention how, after weeks or months of being off her medication suddenly Rupe would experience heart failure.

“The baby had blood on his hands. It’s very apparent the baby lived after she died,” Kistler said. “If it were murder, there would have been a struggle and there were no signs of a struggle. I believe Jamiee Rupe died a natural death and the baby crawled, tried to find food, drew blood when the milk ran out as he was breast-feeding and probably died from dehydration when there was no food or water to be found.

“That’s just my opinion.”

Jury doesn’t read reports

Opinions being what they are and everyone having one, the jury apparently listened at least somewhat to Kistler’s untrained medical determination of the situation.

After deliberating for only a few minutes, nowhere near long enough to review all the local police reports, Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) reports and reports from the Illinois State Police, the jury returned with a verdict of “death by accidental means by severe dehydration” for 20-month-old Ryion Ippolito and “death by undetermined means” (undetermined because of severe decomposition).

Chief plays stupid

Following the inquest, Kistler was asked if to his knowledge he was aware of any agency continuing an investigation into the deaths.

“Well, DCFS was supposed to be here tonight but they didn’t show up,” Kistler said, ignoring the question.

Kistler was asked again, this time if there were any “law enforcement agencies” continuing to look into the deaths.

“There’s a state police report in the file given to the jury,” he said, again skirting the question.

When asked a third time, this time point-blank if the local cops had an ongoing investigation, Kistler came out of his fog long enough to say, “That’s my understanding.”

Throughout the entire exchange Chaplin was standing with his back to the audience, not offering any information.

“Is that right, chief?” Chaplin was asked.

“Yes, sir,” came a response from Chaplin who refused to turn and face those in attendance.

‘That’s not what they told me’

“That’s not what they told me,” Prudhon said. “The Olney police told me they were done with their investigation and that the state police were continuing to look into it.”

Prudhon and her family have been frustrated from the beginning at the lack of communication from authorities.

“They refuse to talk with us. They refuse to return my father’s calls from California. He wants to know how his daughter died and Kistler and the cops have never returned his calls,” she said. “I think my sister was murdered and I think I know who did it but the cops aren’t interested in the first bit of information I have tried to give them. I don’t think they have talked to anyone I know were hanging around with Jamiee.”

Prudhon said she doesn’t understand why Kistler and local law would take such a nonchalant approach to two deaths with numerous unexplained facets.

“I don’t know if it’s because Judge Dunn threw Jamiee and Ryion out of his courtroom when she obviously needed help, or because one of their local doctors didn’t do his job and forcibly admit her for the care she needed,” Prudhon said. “I just pray to God no other family has to experience what our family has.”

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Jaimee Rupe’s body was cremated almost immediately. There is no way to go back and attempt a more comprehensive examination to obtain more answers.

In the years following Rupe’s death, we heard from several different sectors of Richland County society that the last person to see her alive was Chris ‘Taz’ Laird, who ultimately ended up in DOC because, frankly, he’s a maniac. He tied up a girfriend, bound and gagged her, beat her with electrical cords and poured bleach on her. Resultant of this, several people came to us and told us he had been the one to strangle Rupe to death, over an alleged dope deal in which a lack of payment was involved. This information was turned over to authorities by the people who told us, and nothing ever came of it. Chris Laird was a known nark at the time and working closely with the cops and prosecutor; we obtained this information in the form of documents, so it’s confirmed. However, whether any involvement he may have had in Jaimee Rupe’s (and the baby boy Ippolito’s) death came about as the result of Laird’s alleged drug trafficking, or whether non-prosecution of his in connection with their deaths came about because of his ‘status’ with authorities, remains unknown and unconfirmed as of this day.

What we are saying is this: There’s an awful lot of back-scratching going on in Richland; too much for our taste. The fact that so many whiny bitchy people have come to the defense of a thug like Scott Earp shows that that particular strata thinks they have some kind of ‘position’ when it comes to the thuggery, and that they can speak their mind and flaunt and stomp and get away with it…because they’ve BEEN ALLOWED TO. The Earps are among those who have BEEN ALLOWED to get away with their fights, threats, thuggery and more for YEARS. They are a product of David Hyde and of whatever law enforcement systems were in place when they committed their crimes and received virtually no punishment for them.

THIS WILL CONTINUE unless someone steps up and attempts to end the thuggery in Richland County. David Hyde and his office of do-nothings has to GO. Yet no one is running against him in this upcoming election. Handy Andy Hires allows “drug cop” Mike Bertin to run roughshod over the department; yet no one ran against Hires in the last sheriff’s election (last year). We don’t even know if anyone is going to take out a petition against freak Brian James O’Neill in the upcoming election for county commissioner. How sick is THAT? People whine and piss and moan because “one of their own” has been shot and killed….and yet, they’re the ones with their thumbs firmly up their asses watching American Idol when the last elections were held, not giving a shit that the people who were being voted into office by FOURTEEN PERCENT OF THE VOTING POPULATION IN RICHLAND COUNTY were going to BE THE IMPETUS FOR THEIR PROBLEMS TO COME.

Let’s hope the next killing—or murder—in Richland County doesn’t happen to a lowlife or someone whose life didn’t matter to the elite, like Jaimee Rupe’s didn’t, because it’s going to keep happening until it hits a little too close to home to someone who DOES matter to the elite…if it hasn’t already with this Earp situation.