Guilty Plea in Sidnee Stephens Murder Case: 60-Year Sentence
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[One of three teenagers accused in last summer's shooting death of a Pinckneyville girl has pleaded guilty before the Honorable Judge James Campanella in Perry County Circuit Court.
Carl Dane, 19, entered a guilty plea Thursday to first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison with no chance of parole.
Dane faced 11 counts in connection with the July 2010 death of 15-year-old Sidnee Stephens of Pinckneyville. Dane was 18 at the time of the murder.
Perry County State's Attorney David Stanton says Dane has confessed to going to Stephens home and choking her until she passed out. He then drove her to a bridge on Cudgetown Road that crosses Beaucoup Creek in central Perry County , where he shot her and left her body.
Her body was found in the creek by fishermen.
Stephens' mother, Tracy, fainted when she heard Dane's plea. She says she's one step closer to bringing justice for her daughter.
Two other teens have pleaded not guilty to the murder.
James Glazier and Robbie Mueller are also facing murder charges in Stephens' death. Sidnee's half-sister, Dakota Wall, has been charged with obstruction of justice because she allegedly made false statements to investigators.
State's Attorney Stanton said very strict Illinois Supreme Court administrative rules prevent him from detailing motive in the case as well as all other information as there are three more defendants to be adjudicated in this case.
Mueller's trial is set to begin Aug. 15 in Perry County Circuit Court. A pre-trial hearing is set for July 28 at 9 .m. Mueller's attorney, Charlie Stegmeyer was not in the courtroom for Dane's plea.
Glazier's attorney, Tom Mansfield, indicated to the court on Thursday that he would be filing a motion to suppress statements in Glazier's case. Judge Campanella gave the defense 10 days to file the motions and set a hearing date on the motion for August 3, 2011 at 9 a.m.
Dane was scheduled to be in court Thursday only for a pre-trial hearing. Then, Judge Campanella announced that Dane had reached a plea agreement with the Perry County State's Attorney's office.
Judge Campanella then made it crystal clear to Dane what the irrevocable consequences would be from his decision. He told those in the courtroom, "If you sit here and reach some sort of agreement, then there will not be a trial at all," the judge said. "This, for all practical purposes, will be the end of it."
He then asked Dane, "Do you understand that every minute of that 60 years will have to be served?"
Dane replied "Yes."
There is no chance of parole and Dane would be almost 80 at the time of his release. Judge Campanella called it "a small light at the end of the tunnel."
The other 10 counts are being dropped as a result of the plea. Judge Campanella said that because one of the counts was premeditated murder Dane could have faced the death penalty even though the death penalty is on the cusp of being abolished in Illinois.
State's Attorney Stanton read the facts of the case. Sidnee's mother showed her emotion, then became faint.
Dane admitted that on July 19 he entered Stephens' house and choked her until she was unconscious. He then put Sidnee's body into the trunk of his vehicle and drove it to the Beaucoup Creek, southeast of Pinckneyville. He took her body out of the vehicle and shot her two to four times with a handgun. Dane then took her body and pushed it into the creek in a back roads area of Perry County.
The creek was shallow and Dane went back to the scene two days later to try and weigh the body down to conceal it. The body was found by fishermen on July 25.
As the investigation evolved, the work of the Perry County task force in concert with the professional investigative disciplines of the individual departments began to focus on a group known around Pinckneyville as the P-Town Saints. Dane was the self-professed leader of that group.
Dane still had traces of his blood on Sidnee's clothing when he was arrested on July 28. At one point, Dane is said to have asked interviewers how many "calendars" he would get if he admitted to the crime. The mounting evidence later included a taped confession admitting to the murder.
Investigators individually have told the newspaper since Sidnee's death that this was the most thorough investigation ever conducted in Perry County. The weight of the interviews, depositions, video tapes, DVDs and CDs is apparently voluminous. Stanton, again, could not comment.
With three more defendants to be dealt with in some form or fashion, the case remains a work in progress.