RICHLAND CO.—A court case in Richland County that’s spanning the scope of the entire Zone 7 investigative district in southern and east-central Illinois is heating up in intensity, and on February 7, was set for an upcoming hearing in which the plaintiff will petition the court to issue a two-year order to keep the defendant from having any contact with him or his family.
Civil no-contact orders play out in circuit courts every day in downstate Illinois, and most of them are frivolous and based on spats between boyfriend and girlfriend or other antagonistic family member.
What makes this one so unusual is the lack of relationship between the two parties…and this is also what’s making it a more viable petition in the eyes of many, as the presumption is that there must be some basis to the claims Kelly Henby, retired ISP, has against Rick White, current ISP investigator and the man who has openly said he’d like to be known as the “sheriff killer.”
Further, the case, now taking on a life of its own with testimony having been given, may lend toward the success of yet another ISP retiree filing a federal civil lawsuit against their former employer, as Henby announced on the stand Feb. 5 that it was his intent to seek civil remedy against the agency based on what he claimed Rick White had been doing to him for years.
Killer Rick
White was the case agent called when then-Wayne County Sheriff Jim Hinkle was falsely accused of molesting his stepdaughter in the summer of 2010.
The girl had already recanted her statement to a Charleston police officer by the time Henby, a private investigator for Bill Pennel’s PII agency in Springfield, was hired on to the case by Hinkle. Hinkle hired his former co-worker in order to take videotaped statements of the young girl, one done in Charleston, the other done in Olney, in order to have it on the record depending upon which way the investigation was going to go.
And because it was White, whose investigative methods are somewhat unconventional and of which most law enforcement officers are critical, there was no way of knowing which way it would go.
White had a history of investigating public officials, some of them sheriffs (Sonny McCulley, Brad Wolenhaupt and, peripherally, Raymond Martin), but with only marginal successes. It could reasonably be inferred that White, along with a partner in the case, Tom Oliverio, saw Hinkle as his next conquest.
Not so fast
However, Henby beat White to it, obtaining the recantation not once, but twice, and the case against Hinkle seemed to be dead in the water.
White, bearing a case of the ass against Henby, somehow came across an Illinois Department of Professional Regulation case against Pennel, sanctioning him for how he was handling having “field offices” in downstate. As a result of the IDPR investigation, Henby, having a “field office” in Olney, needed to destroy business cards stating such until Pennel could get the matter worked out. He was never told not to work as a private investigator, and he continued in the practice…until White managed to convince an assistant prosecutor in Coles County to charge Henby with Practicing as a Private Detective without a License.
Henby was arrested February 15, 2011 and the case languished in court until December 2012, when it was dismissed outright, as there was no evidence that Henby was doing any such thing, as he was practicing with validity under Pennel’s license.
Didn’t let it go
It didn’t seem, however, to be out of Rick White’s craw.
Things were exacerbated when Hinkle filed a federal civil rights violation case against White, Oliverio and ISP a year ago.
In it, he named Henby as a witness to the events that prompted the suit.
Then, in a motion for a civil stalking/no-contact order filed January 29, 2013, Henby noted that in early September 2012, his father-in-law Don Riggs was visiting with Riggs’ mother Goldie Manlove at the Wayfair Nursing Home in Fairfield when White happened to pop in to say hi. This, Henby said, “upset” Riggs because “White had lied about (Henby)” and had Henby arrested.
Henby noted that the next day (Sept. 5, 2012), he called White’s supervisor, MSgt Jay Hall in Carmi, to ask him to please not speak to Riggs or come around any of Henby’s family. Hall, Henby said in his petition, told him he would talk to White and advise him to stay away.
In the episode that prompted the no-contact order, when Manlove passed away in late January, White came to the visitation/funeral in Fairfield. When the Henbys saw him approaching Nale’s Funeral Home in Fairfield, Henby’s wife met White at the door telling him he was not welcome. When White didn’t move off the steps of the entrance, Henby himself went to the door and roughly ordered White to leave. Henby said White smirked at him, and finally after several long moments, left.
Mental state
Then, “He looked back at me and just stared like he was having some kind of mental episode,” Henby wrote in his petition.
Henby reported that he called the Department of Internal Investigation for ISP in Springfield, and, connected to Collinsville, he explained the situation as it was with White and the funeral and how Henby was concerned about “White’s mental state.”
The trooper in Collinsville advised Henby to call Fairfield police, which he did.
“Richard White is under a lot of pressure from the James Hinkle federal lawsuit which I am a witness in,” Henby wrote. “I am concerned for my family’s safety and James Hinkle’s. Rick White knew I would be at the funeral home and disobeyed an order from his supervisor to stay away. White’s behavior upset my kids and distraught our families even more on top of losing our grandmother. DII advised me to file this complaint.”
Henby noted that White attended the same church as Manlove (the Cumberland Presbyterian) in Fairfield but that she hadn’t attended in four years and has no connection with White.
The petition for an emergency order was granted on the day it was filed, Jan. 29, and was set for a next hearing on Feb. 13. A summons was issued to White, noticing him that the emergency order was in effect and he needed to stay away from Henby and any of his family.
There was nothing in the order about White giving up a FOID card or weapon.
In steps Bill
The Feb.13 hearing was set aside in favor of a Feb. 5 hearing, requested by White through his attorney Bill Hudson of Mt. Carmel.
Henby, represented by Olney attorney Chuck Roberts, agreed to the hearing and testimony was presented.
Roberts called White to the stand first as an adverse witness.
It was established that Henby and White had worked together at ISP Dist. 19 in Carmi for a number of years, and that White’s investigation into the Hinkle case had indeed lead to Henby being charged with a misdemeanor in Coles.
But despite the obvious, White gave inexplicable answers to many questions about the Hinkle case. Chief among them was that Roberts asked if it were true that the young girl had recanted her statement before Henby had interviewed her. White answered “Not that I’m aware of,” a bizarre statement in that it’s a matter of record with the Charleston police, as the officer who took the statement, Mark Hise, was at the time the juvenile officer, and such statements were available to all ISP at the time the investigation was ongoing.
Interestingly, Disclosure has checked with the Charleston police, and Hise is no longer employed there, having left the position not long after the interview with the young girl.
More bizarre statements
Roberts asked White about the recantation, and if he was aware of what the young girl said.
And White, who didn’t seem to know much about the chronology of it, knew exactly what the girl had told Hise: “The victim said ‘I want to say that nothing happened,’” White testified. “She said it wasn’t a recantation; she said ‘I want to say,’ not that ‘nothing happened.’”
The whole courtroom, including Judge Chris Weber and Roberts, was frowning over this dissection of syntax, but Roberts pressed on.
Further questioning elicited that it was White’s testimony that he hadn’t visited Manlove in the nursing home; that he hadn’t spoken to Don Riggs; and that MSgt Hall had not advised him to have no contact with Henby or his family.
Instead, White testified, Hall had said “Kelly Henby called here and asked you not to speak to his family again; what’s that about?” back in September.
White asserted that he had reason to speak with Manlove because she was “in his Sunday School class,” but he did testify that he hadn’t seen her in two years.
About the funeral
White testified under examination by Roberts that it was his intention to go to the visitation and funeral because of the church association with Manlove, but he didn’t necessarily know that the Henbys would be there.
That’s because White’s wife had been in McDonald’s in Fairfield on Sunday, the 27th, and had “overheard Don Riggs saying his daughter, who owned a gym place, had a major event on the day of the funeral and she coudn’t reschedule.” White further testfied that Riggs said he knew that to cancel the gymnastics event would cost several thousand dollars, so they coudn’t go to the funeral or visitaton, scheduled for the following Monday, the 29th.
He decided, based on this information, that he’d go to the visitation.
Nobody went with him that day, White testified, ultimately telling the court that he A) was on duty; B) hadn’t radioed in to any police post to tell them he was going off duty so he could go to a funeral and C) that he figured he’d make it a “work-related matter” as the Wayne County coroner, Jimmy Taylor, had an office in the vicinity of Nale’s and White needed to “get with him anyway about some autopsy photos” White needed and Taylor had there in his office.
Met at the door
Instead of traipsing on in to the funeral home, however, White testified that he was met at the door by Henby’s wife, who asked White to leave.
“She said ‘You’re not welcome here; you need to leave,’” White said.
White said he did not persist in staying, noted that he told Mrs. Henby “Give my regards to Don,” and immediately Kelly Henby came around his wife and told White to leave.
White said he did, once again noting that he did not radio on to anyone about the stop or that he was back on the road again.
“Isn’t that what protocol requires?” Roberts asked, to which White responded, “I don’t know about other agents, but I don’t do that.”
Roberts confirmed with White that at least the agent knew he was named as one of the defendants in Hinkle’s federal case, and with that, he was released from the stand.
Gym testimony
Testimony was elicited from Henby’s wife about Manlove (who was her grandmother, and who was 101 years old when she died at the end of January); about the specific incident at the funeral home when White arrived (the account varied little from White’s except that Mrs. Henby gave greater details under direct questioning by Roberts) and how she had never known Rick White to be a “friend of the family,” to include Riggs and Manlove.
She then testified that there were no such plans for a gym meet scheduled for the day of the funeral, as White had testified to. In fact, they always scheduled events on weekends, and nothing on Mondays, in the history of their business.
Under cross-examination by Hudson, Mrs. Henby told the same details about White attending the visitation/funeral at Nale’s…with a few additional questions thrown in, such as whether White made any threatening moves or gestures, ever said anything threatening, pointed his finger at her, etc.
Hudson seemed obsessed on the amount of time the entire incident involving herself, her husband and Rick White at the funeral home took. At one point, Hudson had Mrs. Henby in tears in his attempt to get her to recount, down to the second, exactly what portions of the incident took exactly how long, and again insisted on asking questions like whether White spun his tires as he left.
“Is it possible it took less than four minutes?” Hudson asked when Mrs. Henby had composed herself, to which she responded she didn’t know; she hadn’t looked at her watch.
Henby called
After that somewhat tense and emotional bit of testimony from the soft-spoken Mrs. Henby, Roberts once again took the floor and this time called Kelly Henby to the stand.
Henby outlined under direct questioning how he’d been retired from the state police in 2008 after 27 years and 10 months on the job as a special agent from 1981-85, then in investigations as of 1986. He was assigned in District 19 when he met White. Henby was White’s supervisor in General Criminal and Drug Task Force crime units.
He also testified to knowing Hinkle since Hinkle was a city police officer in Olney, and when Hinkle joined ISP, they worked together.
Henby then testified to the matter with Hinkle’s stepdaughter, and how he’d been contacted on Sept. 6, 2010 to conduct interviews related to the investigation.
He spoke to the younglady regarding the matter, and testified that she’d made two statements, telling what really happened in the circumstances surrounding her false allegations and why she made them, and stating clearly that there was nothing criminal in nature that had occurred.
Henby pointed out that Charleston police had already done an investigation into the juvenile as it related to the case, and that she had previously recanted to Hise before Henby even met the girl.
The PI business
Henby explained about the situation with Bill Pennel and the fact that IDPR didn’t like the way he was handling his “field offices,” and that in October 2010, IDPR had told Pennel to “cease and desist” the way the field offices were being represented and for all his agents to destroy their business cards with the field office addresses on them, and not put field offices on new ones until Pennel could work out with IDPR exactly how they wanted them presented.
“On February 15, 2011, I was advised by a newspaper through a police officer that there was a warrant for my arrest,” Henby then testified when Roberts questioned him about it directly. “I sought legal counsel and posted bond. In the course of discovery, I found out that Rick White had gone to Coles County and told an assistant state’s attorney I’d violated the law.”
The newspaper was Disclosure, who’d been contacted by ISP’s premiere undercover agent, Greg Hanisch. Hanisch had told Disclosure that White had contacted him, asking him if he would “get word to” Disclosure specifically about Henby’s arrest.
Disclosure had yet to be advised of the nature of it, and did not yet know about Henby’s connection to Hinkle’s case, as the Hinkle case hadn’t come to the forefront yet; it was only being talked about, among Fairfield residents, by White during the course of the investigation.
Spoke to dealings after that
Henby testified that he hadn’t had dealings with White after that, but that his father-in-law Don Riggs had, telling Henby White had spoken to him in the nursing home.
“It made me upset that Rick White had access to him,” Henby testified. Asked what he’d done to handle with the matter, Henby testified that he’d contacted Hall “after the eighth try, I got hold of him.”
Henby corroborated his wife’s testimony about no gymnastics events being held on Mondays, and then described what occurred at the funeral home on the Monday in question.
Henby admitted that he cursed at White and spoke to him roughly, in a raised voice, but did not yell.
Asked what White did at that point, Henby testified that “He stepped down; turned and smirked.”
“Did that mean anything to you?” Roberts asked.
“Yes,” Henby said. “He was trying to provoke me. He had a glazed look in his eyes,” Henby said, “and he was trying to provoke me when he’d been told by his supervisor to stay away.”
Rick’s glazed look
During this testimony, White sat at the defense table with a strange smile on his face; it was easy to see what Henby was talking about, as it appeared that it was taking place right in front of everyone in the courtroom.
Roberts asked Henby if he had concerns for the rest of his family member as it related to White
“I do,” Henby testified. “My family is all I got. And further, I guess I can say here that I’m intending on filing a federal civil lawsuit next week, and naming Rick White as one of the respondents. So I’m concerned for my family because of this, too. He took the notion to come to a visitation when he was not welcome.”
Roberts asked why Henby and his family would have been worried about White coming to the visitation and funeral.
“He’s an ISP officer,” Henby said. He’s armed with three weapons, including a Glock and an AR. It took four to five minutes for Fairfield PD to respond when I called them. No one knew where White was,” Henby said, referring to White’s own testimony that he hadn’t called or radioed in to District 19 that he was going to be at the funeral or even off-duty for a period of time, nor, apparently, his location, as no testimony to that effect was elicited from White.
That bit of impactful testimony was what brought the first portion of the day’s proceedings to recess; it picked back up for another couple of hours with further testimony, much of it in favor of White, including the fact that it was being delivered by Henby’s father-in-law, Don Riggs.
The next issue of Disclosure will pick up where this coverage left off, as no further hearings are expected in the case until after the beginning of April; be watching for updates online if they develop.