Exhumation may yield clues to 1948 murders

By Vinde Wells

Editor

The exhumation of the body of a Rockford man could yield important evidence into a 66-year-old unsolved double homicide, according to an Oregon businessman.

Mike Arians said last week that Stanley Skridla’s coffin may hold more than just Skridla’s remains.

Informants have told him, he said, that the skull of the other murder victim, Mary Jane Reed, Oregon, and the gun that killed the two could be inside.

Arians and Skridla’s nephew Steve Skridla, 62, Rockford, held a press conference Nov. 12 at the Roadhouse, the bar and restaurant Arians owns on Oregon’s south side.

They announced that Winnebago County Judge Eugene G. Doherty has signed an order granting their petition to exhume Stanley Skridla’s body from Calvary Cemetery, Rockford.

The order says the exhumation must be completed by June 30, 2015. Arians said he expects it to take place in March or April.

Reed, who was only 17 at the time, failed to return home after a date on June 24, 1948.

She and Skridla, 28, her companion on the night she disappeared, were subsequently found shot to death.

Skridla’s body was discovered the next morning on County Farm Road south of Oregon. He had been shot five times.

Reed’s badly decomposed body was found four days later in a ditch along Devil’s Backbone Road west of Oregon. She had been shot once in the head.

The double murder has never been solved, although a new investigation of the case by the Ogle County Sheriff’s Department in 2005 pointed to possible culprits.

Arians said he has new evidence.

“Three people have come forward with information,” he said. “One said there may be additional body parts [in the coffin] that aren’t his [Skridla’s].”

Another informant said some of the ballistics questions could be clarified by exhuming the body, he said.

Steve Skridla, who never knew his uncle, said he hopes the exhumation will answer some questions.

“I hope it uncovers enough that we get answers to what happened,” he said. “A lot of questions aren’t answered. What happened to body parts of Mary Jane? Could they be in my uncle’s coffin? Could the murder weapon be in there, too?”

“I’d like to have this solved,” Skridla continued. “The parties involved are likely gone, but it’s still family.”

Ogle County Judge Steve Pemberton, now retired, ordered the exhumation of Reed’s body in 2004 after Arians and her brother Warren Reed, Rock Falls, filed a petition.

The body was exhumed in August of 2005 from its grave in Daysville Cemetery, southeast of Oregon, for a post mortem examination and forensic testing.

The body was interred later the same day, except for the skull, several vertebrae, and a femur, which were held for several months for further testing.

Pemberton later ordered those remains returned to Warren Reed, Mary Jane’s closest surviving relative, to be reburied.

However, the bones have not yet been reburied. Arians said they are in a vault in Rockford.

Arians claims the skull and at least one of the vertebrae are not Mary Jane’s.

He hired Linda Keplinger, a professor emeritus in anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 2007 to examine the skull and several vertebrae he said came from Mary Jane’s casket.

Klepinger’s report said the skull and one vertebra did not match up with the other vertebrae and appeared to come from different people.

Arians said Wednesday that if Mary Jane’s skull is found in Stanley’s coffin, he believes that would show that Ogle County law enforcement officials, the medical examiner, and the coroner were all part of a conspiracy in 1948 to cover up the crimes which he said he suspects were committed by a county deputy.

He said his informants have pointed him to two other people, who he referred to as “accomplices,” who helped the deputy commit the murders.

He said the two accomplices are still living.

Arians said he is working with the Rockford Police Department and Winnebago County Coroner and State’s Attorney, and also hopes to enlist the help of the FBI.

He has contacted the FBI, he said, because his investigation has uncovered evidence that Mary Jane was kidnapped from the place where Stanley was shot and killed later.

“Mary Jane was kidnapped, and that’s a federal crime,” he said.

Arians said he is excited by the evidence he has uncovered.

“I think we may have a surprise for everyone on this,’ he said. We have some really good leads.”

“It’s been a long battle — 15 years,” he went on to say. “We’ve got some good stuff coming down the pike here. I really can’t let the cat out of the bag yet.”

Both Arians and Skridla said a retired Ogle County detective has called them and told them, in a threatening manner, to drop their inquiries into the murders.

“Someone shot my uncle five times — three times in the groin and twice in the chest — and after he was dead threw acid on his face and hands,” Skridla said. “That’s a statement killing.”

Ogle County officials, however, are less than impressed with Arians’ claim of new evidence.

“My detectives had information as to who committed the murders. They’re all deceased,” said former Ogle County Sheriff Mel Messer, who served in the office from 1990 to 2006.

The 2005 investigation of the case pointed to two brothers from Kings as the probable killers.

Messer said he has no doubt the skull in Mary Jane’s casket was her own.

“Of course it was hers,” he said. “It was hooked to her body.”

Coroner Louis Finch agreed. “I believe it [the skull in her casket] belonged to her,” he said.

Both Messer and Finch were present for Mary Jane’s exhumation and subsequent autopsy.

At the press conference, Arians disputed critics who have said the chain of custody was broken when Mary Jane’s skull and other bones were turned over to her brother, rather than to a funeral director.

“All this talk that the chain of custody was broken — that’s a bunch of crap,” he said. “They’re one of a kind; they cannot be duplicated. The skull that was in the coffin [Mary Jane’s] did not belong to Mary Jane Reed.”

He said comparing photographs and X-rays taken during the examination after the exhumation to the bones he has will confirm they came from the coffin.

Arians also disputed that he is hoping to gain financially from the murders.

“The primary purpose is to bring both families closure,” he said. “Solving the double homicides would be a bonus.”

He said he has, in fact, spent a great deal of his own money.

“I’m not necessarily proud to admit this but it’s cost me $125,00 to $130,000.”

He said that when a TV channel was at his restaurant earlier this year to film for a documentary, he was forced to close his business for three days and lost money then.

“For anyone out there who says we did this for financial gain — that makes my blood boil.”

The Winnebago County exhumation order stipulates that the petitioners — Arians and Skridla — will pay all costs related to the exhumation and reburial.

A similar agreement was in place in Ogle County for the costs of Mary Jane’s exhumation.

However, an out-of-court settlement reached in 2009 stipulated that the county would not pursue getting payment in exchange for Warren Reed and Arians dropping a contempt of court lawsuit against the sheriff, coroner, and state’s attorney.