For more than 15 years, Mike Arians has been investigating an unsolved double homicide that occurred on a lovers’ lane in his scenic river town in 1948. On Thursday in a cemetery west of Rockford, he plans to take his last, best shot.
Arians, former mayor of Oregon, Ill., about 100 miles west of Chicago in Ogle County, is coordinating the exhumation of the body of Stanley Skridla, 28, a telephone lineman and Navy veteran shot to death while on a date with Mary Jane Reed, 17, on June 25, 1948, on the outskirts of town. Arians said he hopes an autopsy of the body, which also is set for Thursday, will reveal evidence that, among other things, could be linked to a murder weapon.
The crime, in which Skridla was shot about five times and Reed’s body was found shot to death four days later about 2 miles from Skridla’s body, garnered headlines from coast to coast. Amid a swirl of rumors that continues to this day, authorities’ investigation failed to yield an arrest.
Since becoming enthralled with the killings after moving to Oregon in the late 1990s, Arians says, he has spent more than $100,000 on a personal quest that led him to conclude that a now-dead local law enforcement officer who had an affair with Reed may be the killer. Arians, owner of a restaurant in Oregon, also has contended that local authorities orchestrated a cover-up.
It’s a theory based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence. A 2005-06 Ogle County sheriff’s investigation, undertaken largely in response to Arians’ agitation, concluded that two brothers, also dead, probably killed the couple in a botched robbery attempt.
Authorities stopped short of charging anyone, and Arians remains skeptical of the official conclusion.
Still, the report contained revelations that fueled suspicion. The original investigation was influenced by “political, as well as social connections,” and evidence was lost, destroyed, not documented and not “passed on between” sheriff’s administrations, the report stated. “This investigation was corrupt and mishandled from the start,” it concluded.
Adding to the uncertainty is the mysterious twist of the mismatched bones.
In 2005, Arians organized the exhumation of Reed’s body. Two years later, a forensic anthropologist examined some of the bones and concluded that the skull in the casket did not match the rest of the body. Ogle County authorities question whether Arians may have tampered with the evidence, but Arians has offered to allow investigators to examine the skull.
Other oddities accompany the case. Arians says the dead woman’s spirit visits his restaurant from time to time, one element that drew a crew from the Travel Channel to shoot an episode of “The Dead Files” in Oregon. The episode, in which a retired homicide detective and a psychic investigate crimes with a supernatural component, is set to air Saturday.
Although Arians never met the victims, he says he made a commitment to their family members to investigate the crime. He is moved by the killing of a young woman who authorities may have viewed as disposable, in part because she came from a less-desirable part of Oregon, Arians said, adding that paranormal activity at the restaurant picks up if his work on the case slows.
Critics have said Arians is trying to earn money from a settlement with Ogle County or land a movie deal. He dismisses those claims.
“There’s a better than 50-50 chance that we’re going to find something out of the ordinary” in Skridla’s remains, Arians said. He said he bases that speculation on his belief that bullets will be found in the body and on a photo in his possession that he says shows the body was burned before burial.
In addition to the autopsy, Thursday’s exhumation will include X-rays of the body, Arians said. He expects results by Friday.
If the exhumation and review fail to yield new evidence, Arians said, his investigation will be finished.
Ogle County Sheriff Brian VanVickle said he doubts the exhumation and autopsy will reveal that new evidence.
“We’d love to solve an unsolved murder in the county,” VanVickle said. “I don’t believe that this is going to be fruitful.”
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