Sister of suspect in killing spree says he helped in his own arrest

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By the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH | Friday, July 4, 2008 5:46 PM CDT | () comments

Knox County authorities escort Nicholas Sheley into the Knox County Courthouse, Thursday July 3, 2008 in Galesburg, Ill.. Nicholas Sheley appeared in circuit court Thursday in Galesburg, where he's charged in the beating death of 65-year-old Ronald Randall. Sheley waived his right to a public defender, indicating he'd hire his own attorney. (AP PHOTO)

STERLING, Ill. — Well before the handcuffs were tightened around his wrists, killing spree suspect Nicholas T. Sheley had decided to stop running from police, his sister said.

Heidi Sheley of Rock Falls, Ill., said Thursday that her brother had called his wife and attorney while police were attempting to find him, “to bring this to an end, nicely and peacefully.”

Law enforcement officials reached by the Post-Dispatch could not verify whether Sheley, whom authorities have labeled a suspect in eight murders in Illinois and Missouri, played a hand in his own arrest.

Sheley’s sister, Heidi Sheley, told the Post-Dispatch on Thursday that at the time of the arrest, her brother was waiting to make contact with his lawyer. “He didn’t want to resist arrest or have anything major go down,” she said, adding that he wanted to avoid “a bad outcome, which was basically what my family feared the most.”

Nicholas Sheley’s criminal history offers a picture of a 10-year run of frequent, violent crime that culminated, authorities say, in the recent brutal rampage. Sheley allegedly left the bodies of eight people, including a toddler, strewn in a bloody trail from the Sterling area to Galesburg, Ill., to Festus, Mo., before he was arrested outside a Granite City, Ill., bar.

Authorities on Thursday transferred Sheley, 28, from Madison County to Knox County, Ill., where he is charged in the beating death of Ronald Randall, 65, of Galesburg. He also has been charged in the death of Russell Reed, 93, of rural Sterling.

He also is a suspect in the slayings of four people in a Rock Falls apartment and an Arkansas couple in a Festus motel parking lot.

As authorities consider motives for the eight murders, Sheley’s thick stack of case files at the Whiteside County Courthouse suggest that if he is the killer, there may not be a specific motive.

His crimes — assault, domestic battery, breaking and entering, drug and weapons possession and resisting arrest — sometimes were related to drugs, but sometimes appeared related to nothing. The files describe a man whose adult life has been spent using drugs, carrying guns, breaking into homes, and fighting with associates, lovers, strangers and police in the Sterling-Rock Falls area, often without any apparent reason beyond anger.

In what could become a difficult question for local prosecutors, the records indicate that Sheley was routinely arrested for threatening use of force and that he was routinely released or given reduced sentences in plea bargains. At the time of the murders, Sheley was free on bond in a 2007 armed home invasion, despite his lengthy violent record.

Whiteside County State’s Attorney Gary Spencer declined to be interviewed Thursday.

Heidi Sheley said her little brother has battled drug and alcohol addiction and that her family has tried to steer him away from drug use and trouble.

“Unfortunately, sometimes when people get involved in drugs, they take over their mind, body and soul and it can just strip a wonderful person of everything, because they just become so dependent,” she said. “It’s a really heart-wrenching thing to watch somebody that you love go and battle with this demon that he’s been battling.”

Heidi Sheley said she spoke with her brother by phone for about a half-hour Wednesday. She said she told him she was thankful to hear his voice and that the family was standing by him.

“Nick was very, very emotional on the phone and just a nervous, disturbed wreck,” she said. “He’s just beside himself right now because he feels the world is against him.”

The world, she said, doesn’t know him like she does. As a kid, he loved fishing, bike riding and playing football, and his sense of humor drew people to him. As an adult, he’s been a good father, skillful concrete finisher, church-goer and has even helped the homeless, she said.

“He’s not a lost cause in our eyes,” she said

A criminal past

In 1997, a broken taillight triggered Nicholas Sheley’s adult criminal career. He was not yet 18.

A sheriff’s deputy in Whiteside County in northwestern Illinois pulled Sheley over for the infraction. As the officer stood by the car, he saw Sheley reach toward the back seat. The officer directed his flashlight beam there, and it landed on the butt of a shotgun.

A search turned up two shotguns, a knife tucked under Sheley’s leg, 34.6 grams of cannabis in his pants, assorted drug paraphernalia and a spilled can of Budweiser, “still cold to the touch,” according to a decade-old court file.

Several years and arrests later, his sister insists there are two sides to every story and that her brother’s arrest record doesn’t define him.

Heidi Sheley tried to lift her spirits Thursday by combing through pictures of her brother — pictures far different than the jarring images she’s seen in the papers and on television of a shackled, severe-looking man.

In the stack, she said, were photos of the father of four laughing and being goofy. Of him crying on his wedding day, May 10, as his wife, Holly, read her vows. Of him smiling despite the fact he doesn’t like to reveal his crooked teeth in photos.

“I just keep looking at these pictures,” she said, “and it just paints a different picture in my eyes.”

(The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is a Lee Enterprises newspaper.)