Joliet native writes book on 1987 kidnapping/murder case

HERSCHER – A new book, “Small Justice” – on the 1987 kidnapping and murder of a Kankakee media heir – concludes that the woman who was convicted of the crime is innocent. The author is Jim Ridings, formerly of Joliet and now of Herscher.

Stephen Small, great-grandson of an Illinois governor and a part of the Small newspaper and radio chain, was kidnapped and buried alive in September 1987.

He was buried in a remote area of Kankakee County while the kidnapper, Danny Edwards, waited for a million-dollar ransom.

Everything went tragically wrong. Small suffocated to death. Edwards was caught, convicted and sentenced to death.

His life was spared by Gov. George Ryan’s commutation of all death sentences in 2003. Edwards is in Pontiac prison today.

Edwards’ girlfriend at the time, Nancy Rish, also was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. She is in Logan penitentiary.

Rish has claimed she was innocent from the day she was arrested.

Ridings spent a year and a half going through police files, trial transcripts and talking to numerous people connected to the incident.

Ridings also managed to get the only in-depth interviews from prison that Edwards and Rish have given in the past 27 years.

The book has attracted the attention of two Chicago attorneys, who have taken the case pro bono because they believe a tremendous injustice has been done. Their work resulted in a clemency hearing July 8 before the parole board in Chicago.

The board is considering a recommendation to the governor.

Ridings won several awards for investigative reporting as a reporter for daily newspapers in Ottawa and Aurora. He was presented a Studs Terkel Humanities Award from the Illinois Humanities Council in 2006. He has written more than 20 books of local history, four of which have won awards from the Illinois State Historical Society.