WEEK 13, 2018 7ANewsWWW.BND.COM BEAUTON ASPERGER Beauton Asperger, 85, of Granite City, IL, passed March 29, 2018. Visitation 5 to 8 p.m. Monday at the funeral home. Funeral 10 a.m. Tuesday at the funeral home.
Burial will follow at Calvary Catholic Cemetery, Edwardsville. Irwin Chapel, Granite City. MARIE BECKER Marie P. Becker, 81, of Belleville, IL, died Thursday, March 29, 2018. Visitation from 10 a.m.
to 1 p.m. Monday, April 2, 2018 at George Renner Sons Funeral Home, Belleville, IL. A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. Monday, April 2, 2018 at the funeral home. Burial will be at Walnut Hill Cemetery, Belleville, IL.
George Renner Sons Funer- al Home, Belleville, IL. DONALD BROCKWAY Donald E. Brockway, 67, of Bethalto, IL, passed March 23, 2018. No visitation and private cremations services will be accorded. Elias, Kallal and Schaaf Funeral Home, IL.
ALVIN BUCH Alvin L. Buch, 87, of Red Bud, IL, passed March 29, 2018. Visitation 4 to 8 p.m. Monday at St. Lutheran Church, Red Bud, IL, and from 9 to 11 a.m.
Tuesday at the church. Services 11 a.m., Tuesday at the church. In- terment follows in St. Lutheran Cemetery, Red Bud. Koch-Liefer Funeral Home, Red Bud.
ONETA BUECKMAN Oneta Brenning Bueckman, 95, of Chester, IL, passed March 30, 2018. Visitation 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the funeral home and from 9 to 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. John Lutheran Church, Ches- ter.
Funeral 10 a.m. Wednesday at the church. Interment at Paradise Cemetery, Steeleville, IL. Pechacek-McClure Funeral Home, Chester, IL. DOROTHY HABERL Dorothy M.
Haberl, 93, of Co- lumbia, IL, passed away March 29, 2018. Visitation 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesday at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Columbia, IL. Funeral Mass 11 a.m. following visitation Wednesday.
Interment follows in Immaculate Conception Ceme- tery, Columbia, IL. Lawlor Funer- al Home, Columbia. JAMES KERWIN James R. Kerwin, 73, of Carlyle, IL, passed March 29, 2018. Vis- itation from 4 to 8 p.m.
Friday and on Saturday from 9 to 11 a.m. at the funeral home. Funeral service 11 a.m. Saturday April 7, 2018 at the funeral home. In- terment follows at Posey Ceme- tery.
Zieren Funeral Home, Carlyle, IL. ALICE KESSEL Alice L. Kessel, 90, of Edwards- ville, IL, died March 29, 2018. Visitation 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.
Monday at the funeral home. Services will follow at 1 p.m. Monday at the funeral home. Interment follows at Valley View Cemetery. Weber Rodney Funeral Home, Edwardsville.
VICKI KETTLER Vicki Sue Kettler, nee Caesar, 74, of Belleville, IL, passed March 28, 2018. Visitation 1 to 2 p.m. April 7, 2018 at the funeral home. Funeral 2 p.m. April 7, 2018 at the funeral home.
Burial at Lake View Memorial Gardens. Lake View Funeral Home, Fairview Heights, IL. EDNA MARKUS Edna D. Markus, 93, of Breese, IL, died March 30, 2018. Visitation 10 a.m.
until time of service April 7, 2018 at the funeral home. Memorial service 11 a.m. April 7, 2018, at the funeral home. Burial to follow at St. Francis Cemetery, Aviston.
Nordike Funeral Home, Aviston, IL. AUDREY MELBY Audrey M. Melby, nee Wright, 88, of IL, passed away Thursday, March 29, 2018. Ar- rangements pending at Schild- knecht Funeral Home, IL. JOSEPH RADEMACHER Joseph Rademacher, 90, of IL, died March 30, 2018.
Services pending at Wol- fersberger Funeral Home, lonl. RUSSELL RIPPELMEYER Russell E. Rippelmeyer, 85, of Waterloo, IL, passed March 30, 2018. Arrangement pending at Quernheim Funeral Home, Waterloo, IL. GEORGE WAGNER JR.
George Wagner 92, of Co- lumbia, IL, formerly of Cahokia, IL, died March 26, 2018. Vis- itation 4 to 8 p.m. Monday and from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. at the funeral home. Funeral proces- sion to leave at 9:40 a.m.
Tues- day from the funeral home to Holy Family Catholic Church, Cahokia, IL, for a 10 a.m. Mass of Christian Burial. Burial in Lake View Memorial Gardens, Fair- view Heights. Braun Family Funeral Home, Columbia, IL. RICHARD WALTA Richard M.
Walta, 61, of Belleville, IL, died Thursday, March 29, 2018. A celebration of life will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Monday, April 2, 2018, at Restaurant, 239 Carlyle Avenue, Belleville, IL. George Renner Sons Funeral Home, Belleville, IL. JEFFREY WRIGHT Jeffrey Allen Wright, 56, of Columbia, IL, died March 29, 2018.
Visitation 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the funeral home. Funeral 7 p.m. Tuesday at the funeral home. Private cremation to follow.
Frank Braun Family Funeral Home, Columbia, IL. ELIZABETH ZIMMERMANN Elizabeth Zimmermann, 90, of New Baden, IL, died March 29, 2018. Visitation from 9 a.m. until time of service Wednesday at St. George Catholic Church, New Baden.
Memorial Mass 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the church. Nor- dike Funeral Home, New Baden, IL. DEATHS A Galesburg man asked a 12-year-old girl for photos and dis- cussed having sex with her, according to a search warrant affidavit connect- ed to the solicitation case. Police say Derrick Sams, 53, Facebook messaged the girl on Feb.
9. The conversation started off innocent: He introduced himself, explaining that he knew some of the same people she did. The father later told police Sams was an extended family member of his fiance. Sams allegedly asked the girl how old she was. She told him she was 12, and told her dad about the conversation, which he then began to monitor.
Once Sams asked the girl where she lived, the dad told her not to answer and took over the conversation, according to the affidavit. The dad and Sams allegedly discussed her boyfriends and relation- ships Sams asked the girl (who was still her dad posing as the child) about her sexual activity and described explicit sex acts. weird (sic) out that the dad asked as he pretended to be his daughter, accord- ing to the affidavit. The two talked about various sex acts and dis- cussed deleting the con- versation and keeping it a secret. Sams allegedly brought up a motel room, and sent the girl his phone number.
He told the girl he was going to text a photo of himself to her, according to the affidavit. He requested a photo of the even a little sexy The father contact- ed Wood River police just before midnight Feb. 9 about the messages, and police began their investi- gation. A few days later, Feb. 13, parole agent was contacted and he issued a warrant for arrest for parole violation.
He was on parole after prison time for residential bur- glary in Woodford County. He was sentenced to 14.5 years in prison, but was released after seven. He also was sentenced in 2001 to 10 years in prison for burglary in Livingston County, according to re- cords. Sams was then released for parole in December 2017. Less than three months later, he was back in prison.
As of Thursday evening, he was in the Pinckneyville Correctional Facility. When Sams was arrested in Galesburg, the detective who made the arrest said Sams made several state- ments regarding a girl he thought was of age, but it turned out she was 12 or 13 years according to the affidavit. Police took phone for evidence and applied for the search warrant to gain access to his phone records. Kara Berg: 618-239-2626, Police: Man asked for photo from 12-year-old girl via Facebook BY KARA BERG DNA evidence has prompted the dismissal of charges filed against an East St. Louis man in Jan- uary in connection to the sexual assault of a 12-year- old girl.
Melvin L. Price, 23, was facing four counts of pred- atory criminal sexual as- sault and one count of aggravated predatory criminal sexual assault. However, St. Clair County Attorney Brendan Kelly confirmed Friday that DNA evidence in the case did not match DNA. The girl was reportedly assaulted between May and November 2017.
Kelly said the investiga- tion is ongoing. Price was not in custody on the sex assault charges and authorities quashed a warrant for his arrest after the findings, Kelly said. Dana Rieck: 618-239-2642, DNA leads to dismissal of child sex assault charges BY DANA RIECK State police warned those driving on Interstate 55 near Hamel to prepare for stopped traffic as they responded to two tractor- trailer accidents Friday morning. The second crash, around 10:45 a.m., hap- pened when an 80-year- old O'Fallon man ran into the back of a semi as traf- fic came to a stop, accord- ing to Illinois State Police Trooper Calvin Dye Jr. The 80-year-old man was taken by helicopter to St.
Louis University Hospi- tal and was expected to live, Dye said. Dye noted the area in which the accident oc- curred not only the road goes down to one lane due to a construction zone, but was also stalled due to an earlier semi accident. Before that, a semi driv- er told police that he was driving on I-55 near mile marker 29 just three miles from where the second accident happened when another semi swerved into his lane around 8:30 a.m. and caused him to crash into the center median. The semi was on its side, Dye said.
He said traffic was backed up for some time as police and tow truck crews worked to get the semi upright and towed. "You know, it's the holi- day weekend so we expect the roads to be bumper-to- bumper with people trav- eling to be with families over Easter weekend," Dye said. He said three things contributed to the acci- dents: the congested traf- fic, the construction zone and the overturned semi. Dye noted that yester- day as he and another trooper sat in their SUVs near an I-55 crash in the same area they saw the potential for six or seven more crashes, where driv- ers braked too late and stopped inches away from rear-ending someone, their brakes screeching. The trooper said drivers need to slow their speeds to avoid accidents in that stretch of the highway.
Illinois State Police re- sponded to 16 crashes on highways Thursday. This crashes occurred just a few miles from an eight-car pileup that killed four people and injured another 12 in No- vember. Shortly after, in mid December, a woman died in a 10-car crash on Interstate 55 in the same area. That stretch of I-55 experiences stand-still traffic due to construction. Dana Rieck: 618-239-2642, Semi accidents stall I-55 traffic, send 1 to hospital by helicopter BY DANA RIECK NEWS-DEMOCRAT HOME DELIVERY Call 234-1113 to subscribe Ka- ching! Saving money never felt so good.
Look for valuable coupons in the Sunday News-Democrat. An East St. Louis man was charged with a series of robberies in St. Clair County. Preston Young, 23, al- legedly was involved in three robberies, one in Belleville, one in Fairview Heights and one in Wash- ington Park since January 2018, according to the St.
Clair County Sheriff's Department. On Jan. 12, Young alleg- edly broke into an elderly man's home on Gerold Lane in Belleville. Two weeks later, on Jan. 24, he allegedly robbed a woman on the MetroLink train near the Fairview Heights station.
Then on March 10, Young allegedly attempted to rob someone in Wash- ington Park, according to the release. He was shot during the attempted rob- bery, police say, which was how police found him. "This is an individual who was becoming more violent, and we are happy to have him off the streets," said St. Clair County Sheriff Rick Wat- son. "There was a lot of time invested to make this arrest and very proud of the deputies involved to get this person charged." Young was charged Thursday with home in- vasion, robbery, attempted armed robbery, aggravated battery and felon in pos- session of a firearm.
Young was in not in jail custody Thursday night, according to online jail records. He was sentenced in 2013 to three years in prison for having a firearm as a felon and six days in jail for assault. Also in 2013, he was sentenced to two years of probation for residential burglary, which was terminated less than a year later and was deemed unsatisfactory, according to court records. He was also sentenced for petty theft in 2008 and was sentenced to 10 hours of community service and court supervision. He would have been 13 at the time.
Kara Berg: 618-239-2626, East St. Louis man charged with series of robberies in St. Clair County BY KARA BERG Those people who pre- paid property tax bills before the calendar turned to 2018 will be able to deduct those taxes on their 2017 federal income tax return due by April 15, according to a report from the Illinois News Network. The INN reported Re- publican U.S. Rep.
Peter office had re- ceived word from the U.S. Treasury Department this week indicating taxpayers in Illinois that filed before Jan. 1 would still be able to deduct their entire proper- ty tax burden. will be able to deduct their prepaid 2017 property Roskam spokeswoman Veronica Vera told INN. Under the tax reform passed by Congress and signed by President Don- ald Trump, there is now a $10,000 cap on the amount of state and local taxes people can deduct on their federal returns, beginning in 2018.
Previ- ously, there was no cap, so a homeowner with a $15,000 property tax bill who paid $20,000 in income tax could deduct $35,000 on his or her federal returns. In Illinois, property tax bills are sent out in the spring are for the previous tax cycle. Before 2017 ended, many residents in St. Clair and Madison counties rushed to offic- es to pre-pay property taxes. Madison County Trea- surer Chris Slusser said his office received about $7.5 million in prepaid property taxes for more than 1,300 parcels.
Typically his of- fice has about $500,000 in prepaid property taxes. Figures for St. Clair County were not available Thursday. Property tax bills prepaid in 2017 can be deducted, report says BY JOSEPH BUSTOS BEFORE 2017 ENDED, MANY RESIDENTS IN ST. CLAIR AND MADISON COUNTIES RUSHED TO OFFICES TO PRE-PAY PROPERTY TAXES.
Two British members of the Islamic State group believed to have belonged to a cell notorious for beheading hostages in northern Syria said Friday that their home revoking of their citizen- ship denies them the pos- sibility of fair trial. One of them said the killings of captives was and could have been avoided. The men, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey, were alleg- edly among four British jihadis who made up the IS cell nicknamed Beat- by surviving captives because of their English accents. They were cap- tured in early January in eastern Syria. ASSOCIATED PRESS 2 Islamic State members decry loss of citizenship.
