June 06--DeKalb County's chief prosecutor is again seeking to strike efforts to have his decisions reviewed in the 1957 murder of a Sycamore girl whose convicted killer was freed after the prosecutor dismissed the case.
State's Attorney Richard Schmack, in a new court filing, says the family of murder victim Maria Ridulph has yet to provide a legally sufficient reason that would prompt the appointment of a special prosecutor in the Jack McCullough case.
McCullough was found guilty in 2012 and was serving a life sentence for killing 7-year-old Maria. But McCullough, 76, was granted a new trial this spring based in part on new evidence developed by Schmack, who believes McCullough is innocent. After a judge ordered a new trial, Schmack opted to dismiss the charges, freeing McCullough.
Schmack's decision prompted a legal challenge from Maria's brother, Charles Ridulph, who has filed a court motion seeking appointment of a special prosecutor to review the decisions of Schmack, who was not state's attorney when McCullough was convicted.
But in a response filed Friday, Schmack said Ridulph still has not stated any sort of conflict of interest that would compel a special prosecutor. That includes the situation described in recent court filings in which Ridulph said Schmack had "prejudged" the case before taking office, the prosecutor said.
"Were a prosecutor to change his mind six or seven times about the guilt of a defendant (or any other subject) there is still no conflict of interest," Schmack wrote in his filing.
Ridulph, in his motion for special prosecutor, said that he met with Schmack early after his election and that Schmack said he would dismiss the McCullough case if it ever was returned because it had been riddled with errors.
Schmack disputed that account, calling it "inaccurate, misleading or completely taken out of context."
"What are presented as direct quotes from the state's attorney are more likely distant recollections of Ridulph's feelings and emotions following the actually conversations of many months ago," Schmack said.
The motion for special prosecutor is scheduled to be argued June 23 before Judge William Brady.
Maria Ridulph disappeared from her Sycamore neighborhood on Dec. 3, 1957, and her body was discovered in northwest Illinois the following April. McCullough was arrested in 2011, after a childhood friend who was with Maria that evening identified an old photo of McCullough as matching the man who approached the young girls as they played on a street corner.
McCullough, a Seattle-area retiree, had in 1957 lived in the same neighborhood as the Ridulph girl. At the time of the conviction, McCullough's case was believed to be the oldest cold case in U.S. history to result in a conviction.
His conviction was upheld on appeal, but when the case returned to DeKalb court on a post-conviction petition, Schmack said he undertook a review, after which he concluded that McCullough was innocent of the murder.
Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
