HEARTLAND – On nothing more than a hunch, a Disclosure staffer wrote a letter reaching out to alleged solicitor of murder, Jennifer Inman, who is being confined at the Douglas County Jail, where her bond has been set at a half-million dollars following her arrest which occurred only one mile from where she is now incarcerated.
Jennifer Inman, arrested for Solicitation to Commit Murder for Hire on August 7, 2013. Because of her hysterics at the time of her processing, she was ordered into a suicide vest and put into solitary confinement.
Inman, 31, made the pages of Disclosure this month after startling details kept emerging, commanding attention for the murder-for-hire scheme she’s alleged to have hatched to kill Louis J. Thursh, her ex-fiancé, and the father of one of her two children.
The Disclosure staffer and Inman have been corresponding for weeks now, and yesterday our staffer reached into the mailbox expecting at least one letter from Inman, and instead discovered seven envelopes with 80 pages of handwritten material; over half of which Inman claims is the actual confession she has offered to state investigators; a confession which Inman claims the lead investigator has refused to read to Douglas County prosecutors, demanding instead that he’s going to make her sound “like the cold-blooded murderer she is.”
Some of the pages upon pages of handwritten confession and details of Inman’s crime, details of her abuse and multiple allegations of rape, and how she chose to cope by learning about the investigative sciences and forensics.
Since there was nothing Disclosure staff read in Inman’s 80-page, well-written, error-free spelling and meticulously detailed, absolute confession to the Class X Felony of Solicitation of Murder, the crime for which she is currently being charged, that could be equated to an act of murder committed in “cold blood” (being defined as a heinous, cold, and dispassionate shedding of blood resulting in the death of at least one human being), we’re wondering what more state investigators are wanting from Inman as far as a confession, and why her bail is $300,000 more than a Class X Felony like Criminal Sexual Assault of a Child.
Authorities were made aware of Inman’s intent to pay a man, identified to Disclosure in Inman’s own handwriting as a wire-wearing, police-informant, felonious associate of hers by the name of James Hollenbeck, $5000 up front in early August, and another $5000 after the deed was accomplished, to kill Thursh at his home in Champaign. A multi-agency sting effort was coordinated, led by Zone 5 ISP investigations, to secure Inman’s arrest in front of a business place in Tuscola that was home to The Fitness Center; a business affiliated with Thursh’s employer, White Tiger Taekwondo, where he is an instructor.
James Hollenbeck’s facebook profile picture.
Louis J. Thursh, whom Inman allegedly paid $5000 to James Hollenbeck to kill, holds an advanced black belt in Taekwondo,
After Inman’s arrest, authorities responsible for her apprehension took great pride in congratulating themselves in public forums for saving a man’s life. A man who had only one month earlier avoided felony prosecution himself.
Thursh, 51, had been arrested in December of 2012 at his home in Champaign and charged with the Class X Felony of Criminal Sexual Assault of a Child under 13. He posted $20,000 cash bond on a $200,000 bail two days later and walked out of jail. Jennifer Inman has revealed many things in her confession, but one of the most graphic and chilling claims is that Thursh’s arrest was the result of Inman’s eleven-year-old daughter disclosing to authorities that she had been being sexually assaulted by Thursh, in his bed, at his Champaign home, for at least a month. Inman’s confession states that the child came forth with this information after Inman discovered the child complaining about and displaying symptoms of genital HSV (Herpes), a sexually transmitted disease Inman says Thursh also gave to her after their first intimate encounter eleven years earlier. The child’s statement and hospital confirmation of the STD, along with test results provided by the Mayo Clinic, establishing what Inman claims is an HSV antibody level that corroborated her daughter’s story about when she told authorities the molestation began, gave Champaign County authorities enough cause to issue a warrant for Thursh’s arrest, but apparently not enough to inspire confidence among Champaign County prosecutors that it was worth taking to trial to follow through on the charges. Thursh’s charges were dropped by Champaign County prosecutors in late July 2013.
Within Inman’s 80 page manifesto-style document, she provides reasons she believes the child’s credibility was called into question, including her daughter’s diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, Bipolar Disorder, and ADHD. Inman asserts that Thursh’s ability to evade the Class X Felony charge relied heavily on his attorney exploiting a period of time in the child’s recent past; a time when Inman says her daughter had been over-medicated by doctors. Inman cites the specific pharma-cocktail of Depakote, Risperdal, and Topamax, which led to alleged delusions and hallucinations being experienced by the child three years earlier. During that time she made accusations of sexual abuse by the girl’s biological father.
Ms. Inman gives a detailed account of numerous instances of sexual abuse throughout her own life beginning at the age of three; a cycle of abuse that she attributes to forging within her an unswerving, untiring, obsessive lifelong pursuit of education in fields such as forensics, criminology, CSI, pharmacology and especially the evidence gathering sciences surrounding investigation of sexual homicides and the profiling of perpetrators of such heinous acts. The aforementioned and other fields of study in which she is verifiably and remarkably verbally proficient throughout the confession. Inman’s official credentials have been mailed to Disclosure offices, where they will be further verified. An extensive list of Inman’s personal, professional and educational contacts was also included by Inman for use by Disclosure staff should we need to establish some credibility as the story continues to develop and is subsequently delivered exclusively to Disclosure readers.
Pictured here is Shana Marie Jaros, murdered in 1995 on November 1st. Shana’s cold case has been obsessed over by Inman. She thought the case was similar enough to Holly Cassano’s murder to possibly be connected.
Pictured here is Holly Cassano, brutally slain in 2009, also on November 1st. Inman’s obsessive investigation into the cold case has contributed largely to her current legal issues.
The confession also explains in explicit detail Inman’s ongoing obsession with the solving of area Cold Cases, one regarding Shana M. Jaros, of Nokomis, Illinois in 1995, in Montgomery County, and more particularly, another as-of-yet unsolved, brutal slaying of Holly Cassano. Cassano’s corpse was then sexually assaulted and posed crucifixion-style by her attacker, with her arms spread out wide on the floor of her home in Candlewood Trailer Park in Mahomet, Illinois back in 2009. Inman’s obsession for solving the crime on her own led to relentless gumshoe work in the Holly Cassano case. A desire to carry out her personal investigations several steps further actually contributed to the covert operation that landed her in jail and mired in her current legal predicaments. Coincidentally, both Jennifer Inman and James Hollenbeck, the man she tried to hire to murder Louis Thursh, did not live together, but both lived very close to Holly Cossano’s trailer around the same time.
If you have any information regarding the crimes listed above, please contact the appropriate authorities, or send an e-mail to CRIMETIPS@isp.state.il.us. If you wish to remain anonymous, you may contact your local ISP District.
Outside of the Tuscola Fitness Center where Inman’s August arrest was reported to have taken place
In recent months Ms. Inman has lived in Champaign. After Thursh’s arrest she quickly moved her family south into Herrin, Illinois to reside in Williamson County. When Thursh’s charges were dropped in July and Inman was forced by Champaign Judge Arnold Blockman to reveal her new address to Thursh or face contempt charges, in very short order Ms. Inman and her children moved to Teutopolis in Effingham County. There she resided with dairy farmer, David Niendiek, 62, a man Inman called her best friend. The educated and articulate young woman has worked as an exotic dancer at area “gentlemen’s clubs”: The Silver Bullet in Champaign and also The School House Gentlemen’s Club in rural Neoga. The Schoolhouse Gentlemen’s Club is controversially located in the former Pioneer School on Route 121, where the dancers are often seen costumed in braids and schoolgirl outfits, eating suckers and chewing bubblegum, dancing in what used to be the cafeteria.
The School House Gentleman’s Club in Neoga
The Schoolhouse Gentlemen’s Club was also mentioned in this month’s print edition, where it was revealed that ISP investigator Tim Brown had involvements himself at The Schoolhouse resulting in him acquiring a pair of violence-related felony charges that were later reduced to a single misdemeanor.
Even more startling details of Inman’s developing story are going to be delivered exclusively by Disclosure in an ongoing series of print articles and website fillers with details piling up almost like a made-for-television drama, starting with the next issue hitting newsstands on October 2, 2013. The e-Edition will be available as early as September 30 if you have an online membership; otherwise check with our vendors for your print version, so you won’t miss one word of this intriguing story.
You can read the second online installment by clicking here.