Crime Stoppers of Morgan, Scott & Cass Counties are requesting information to assist the Jacksonville Police Department in their investigation of a recent burglary.

Sometime between 6:30 am on Friday, December 22^nd, and 10:30 pm on Saturday, December 23^rd, unknown person(s) entered a residence in the 800 block of West Lafayette Avenue and removed a bicycle.

The bicycle that was removed from the residence was described as a 1986 GT Pro Performer, that is yellow in color.

The Jacksonville Police Department is asking that anyone who has information concerning this incident, or any other crimes within the three-county area, submit an anonymous tip online by going to the Morgan, Scott, Cass Crime Stoppers Facebook page, or by calling Crime Stoppers at 217-243-7300.

Tips may also be submitted anonymously by texting to the word CRIMES (274637). The first word of the text tip must be “payout”. Crime Stoppers says if your tip leads to an arrest, you are eligible for a cash reward.

Alsey Glasgow Water Commission has announced that the boil order for all water customers in Alsey which was issued on Tuesday, January 2^nd, 2024, has been lifted.

It took a few days, but the first baby born in the new year at Jacksonville Memorial Hospital has arrived.

Joseph Raye Castleberry was born at JMH on Wednesday at 12:34 in the morning.

Joseph weighed 9 lbs, 12 oz, and was 22 inches long when he arrived. Parents Austin and Liberty Castleberry live in Jacksonville and have two older children.

Jacksonville Memorial Hospital Officials say Joseph and his family are already home from the hospital and doing fine.

The number of overdoses increased while the number of suicides went down in Morgan County during 2023.

On Wednesday, the Morgan County Coroner’s Office released the final statistics from last year, and while overall there were no changes or unusual trends associated with death counts in Morgan County in 2023, some specific numbers gave both cause for concern, and praise.

In all, there were 376 total deaths reported in Morgan County last year, down from 485 in 2022. Of those, 356 people died due to the top three natural causes of cardiac disease, respiratory disease, and cancer.

Morgan County Coroner Marcy Patterson says the number of deaths due to those top three natural causes is exactly the same as the average she has seen in her more than 13 years affiliated with the Coroner’s office.

Patterson says one statistic that is of concern, is that overdoses in Morgan County have doubled since 2022. “We had eight, and of the eight overdoses we had, one hundred percent of them had fentanyl in their system. And that’s a really scary time for a community because obviously there is no good time for anybody to be doing drugs.

But people aren’t using drugs thinking it’s going to cause them instant death, right? They’re thinking it’s going to be, you know whatever pleasure they get from their drug, and somebody’s mixed something in it that’s killing them. And that’s concerning to all of us as we watch that number rise across this community and the nation.”

Conversely, the number of suicides in Morgan County last year was down one from four to three. Patterson says even though the decrease was small, it still is a big step in the right direction.

“We always like it when suicide goes down. That’s something that our office is very passionate about, that one suicide death is too many. For it to go down twenty-five percent is significant in our community.

We were hoping for some of the programs that the community has started, like the S.T.A.R.S. group that works for suicide prevention, and they are doing work that is getting some people some help.”

Patterson says over the last year, mental health is the leading factor that contributes to suicide, while factors such as a person’s age do not. “It doesn’t, we had a young person, we had a senior citizen and we had a middle-aged person so our three deaths were across the board. And the answer is always, see if we can get the correct mental health. Everybody this year that died by suicide was actively treating their health problems- their mental health problems, and we still ended up here. It’s a really sad statistic.”

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of self-harm or suicide, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention and Crisis Lifeline 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by calling or texting the number 988.

You can find more information on the Jacksonville area group S.T.A.R.S. for Suicide Prevention by searching for the group on Facebook.

The Jacksonville Salvation Army closed the gap in the Red Kettle Campaign shortfall heading into the start of the year, and with less than a month to go, officials are urging the public to help get them over the top.

Major Chris Clarke with the Jacksonville Salvation Army says there is still time to get donations in for the campaign even though the kettles are put away for the holiday season.

He says a big push in the back half of December helped, but there is still a pretty big need for help. “Well, we’ve had a lot of donations come in the mail. People donate at the end of the year and we’re so thankful for that. But the campaign actually still goes through January 31^st and we still need to raise about forty-six thousand dollars, or about a quarter of our overall goal.

We put a plea out there, in fact, we sent out some letters urging our donors that if they haven’t given already and if they are able to give again we would certainly appreciate it.

Because we call it a goal but actually, that line item comes right from our budget. So if we can’t make that it is really going to hurt our ability to help as many people as we’d like to and right now we’re helping more people and seeing more people in need than ever.”

Clarke says reaching the budget goal is critically important to making sure they can offer continued service programs in the new year. He says the need for more donations coupled with increasing need in the community poses a two-fold effect.

“Because we’re hearing that some people are not able to give as much because the cost of everything has pretty much gone up so it’s hurting everyone’s pocketbooks in some ways. But it is also bringing more people in for things like food and help with utilities and things like that.

Our goal of one hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, that makes up nearly half of our yearly budget, and we’re still like I said about twenty-five percent short. So that’s a big portion of our yearly budget and that is more than a month’s worth of services. So we don’t want to, but we’d have to revise our budget and look at ways to cut back.

It’s certainly something we don’t want to do but again, we are serving more people than ever and the need is greater than ever and we want to continue to help all those people we can, but if we don’t make our goal, we may have to make some tough decisions.”

Clarke says they are thankful to everyone who donated and volunteered for this year’s campaign, as well as for those who donated directly to help families in need during the holiday season.

“We are certainly thankful to the many people who helped with the Angel Tree campaign and adopting entire families for the holidays. We were able to help nearly five hundred children with toys, and people are so generous they gave so many good gifts to each child as well as helping people with food.

We were able to help a lot of people with food for the holidays as well. So we thank the community for that because, without the community’s help, we wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

In 2023 the Jacksonville Salvation Army provided more than 16,000 hot meals and over 800,000 pounds of food for those in need. More than 16,000 personal care items, 1,200 nights of shelter, clothing for 510 people, and housing stability for 114 families were provided via funds raised during the 2022 campaign.

For more information on the services provided by the Jacksonville Salvation Army, or to donate to the 2023 Red Kettle Campaign, go to centralusa.salvationarmy.org and search Jacksonville.

You can also drop off or mail donations to the Jacksonville Salvation Army at 331 West Douglas Avenue in Jacksonville.

The boil order in the City of Mt. Sterling issued last week for residents with city water north of Highway 24 and west of Highway 99 has been lifted.

A portion of US Route 67 was closed to traffic early this morning after a semi rolled over.

According to preliminary information by Illinois State Police Troop 6 officials, troopers were called to US 67 and Post Road in Schuyler County at approximately 3:30 this morning for a report of a rolled-over truck tractor semi-trailer.

Officials say the vehicle was traveling southbound on US 67 when it went off of the right side of the roadway to avoid colliding with an unidentified vehicle that was traveling northbound. According to the report, the semi-truck’s passenger side tires went onto the soft shoulder which caused it to overturn.

No injuries have been reported in the incident. Officials say US 67 remained closed from Camden Blacktop to Illinois Route 101 for approximately six hours for clean-up and investigation.

The highway reopened to traffic at approximately 9:30 this morning. The incident remains under investigation by the Illinois State Police.

The President and CEO of a West Central Illinois hospital has been suspended with pay pending an internal review.

According to reports by WIUM and Becker’s Hospital Review, the McDonough District Hospital Board of Directors voted to suspend President and CEO Brian Dietz following a nearly two-hour closed-door meeting on Thursday of last week.

According to the reports, the suspension with pay came due to a “personnel matter” and “the hearing of testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee.”

WIUM reports that prior to the closed-door meeting, Macomb Mayor Mike Inman addressed the board after the city received several anonymous letters citing issues raised by hospital employees.

Letters were also reportedly sent to members of the hospital board and county board as well. A second board meeting was scheduled for today.

Dietz was appointed President and CEO in June of 2018 and reportedly earns a salary of $550,000. According to a news release by the board on Friday, current Vice President and CFO, William (Bill) Murdock has been named as interim CEO.

The loss of some technology led to a drop in Crime Stopper tips in 2023, but officials say it was still a good year despite the loss.

Crime Stoppers of Morgan, Scott, and Cass Counties released the 2023 year-end stats Tuesday. Crime Stoppers Coordinator Loren Hamilton says overall the solved cases were up one to 10 in 2023 compared to 2022, even though the amount of tips received decreased considerably.

“It was a disappointing year, but we know why. We had worked most of the year without our website and without the cellphone app. And no reason, or excuse, it’s just that both companies that we used for the website and the cellphone app both went out of business.

So we started the search to replace those. The new website should be up and active by the end of the month. The cellphone app I’m not real sure. Most of the cellphone apps that we have looked at are way way out of our budget. So hopefully we will be able to bring that back as well but I can’t give you an answer on that as of yet.”

in 2023, Crime Stoppers received 225 tips, which is down 264 from 2022. Arrests made were down seven from the previous year, however, Hamilton says even though the tips were down, those that came in were very high quality as far as valuable information.

In total, 35 arrests were made and $10,800 in property was recovered due to anonymous tips submitted to Crime Stoppers, who paid out $4,275.00 in rewards.

He says the lack of a mobile phone app hurt the total numbers in the back half of the year. “That was probably the most disappointing one. Obviously, when we lost the website we lost another avenue where we collect tips from. But the majority we missed I think came from the cell phone apps because when we first contracted that- and it was through a grant that allowed us to do that, our target audience was young people, and I think that is what fell off.”

Hamilton says Crime Stoppers has tried to stay current with new technology such as the phone app and the current social media platforms as the only avenue for tips when he first started was the landline phone.

He says budgetary constraints have played a role in hampering being able to find a new mobile app, and if anyone has information that could help the local Crime Stoppers in that search, please call him at the Jacksonville Police Department.

Hamilton says another area they are still struggling in is with having enough members on the board. “The other thing that we tried to do is diversify our board geographically in the counties that we serve. Right now in some of the outlying communities, we’re lacking volunteers to serve on our board. Specifically speaking in Beardstown, Winchester, and Meredosia. So if there is someone in your audience that lives or works in one of those communities and would be interested in serving on the board please contact me.”

Hamilton says if anyone is interested in serving on the board, or thinks they could be of help in finding a suitable mobile application, to contact him at the Jacksonville Police Department by calling 217-479-4630.

Since its inception in 1985, Crime Stoppers of Morgan, Scott, and Cass Counties has received nearly 6,000 tips leading to 849 cases being solved with 2,322 arrests being made. To date, Crime Stoppers has recovered nearly $969,000.00 worth of property and paid out just over $142,000.00 in cash rewards.

Hamilton says that anyone with information on any crime in the three-county area can submit a tip anonymously through the Morgan, Scott, Cass Crime Stoppers Facebook page, or by calling 217-243-7300.

The Alsey Glasgow Water Commission had a water main break Tuesday and officials say all water customers in Alsey are on a boil order until further notice.