Police and Courts

A 10-year-old boy charged with murder in the April 2019 deaths of five people in a fire in Goodfield will continue to live with relatives while his case is pending, a Woodford County judge ruled Wednesday.

State police in Ullin, Ill., said Wednesday there has been an arrest in the killing of a teenager from Normal.

Haley Decker, 18, went missing March 4. Her body was found March 26 in the Cypress Creek National Wildlife Refuge in rural Pulaski County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol said James A. Merritt, 32, of Morehouse, Mo., was arrested April 16 and initially charged with trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Illinois State Police and the FBI searched Merritt’s residence that day.

The Town of Normal and three police officers have asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a widow who alleges a cop stole $12,000 from her home after her husband overdosed.

Officials are investigating the cause of an explosion Thursday in a boiler room at a Bloomington and Normal Water Reclamation District plant.

A 37-year-old Bloomington man is accused of setting a house on fire after an argument Monday.

A Bloomington technology firm claims in a federal lawsuit that one of its former top employees stole its secret customer list and used it to bolster his own competing company.

Fire forced evacuation of the Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Uptown Normal on Thursday morning and heavily damaged a coffee and souvenir shop inside.

Authorities say an 18-year-old woman from Normal has been found dead in southern Illinois in an apparent homicide.

Don Whalen should be returned to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence on murder charges in the 1991 death of his father, according to a motion filed Wednesday by McLean County prosecutors.

Authorities have identified a 34-year-old Bloomington man as the driver killed in Wednesday’s head-on crash on Interstate 74 near Morton.

Ten student-athletes and coaches from the Illinois Wesleyan University track team have sued the owners of a Bloomington Jimmy John’s after allegedly getting sick following a meal.

A McLean County jury found a suburban Chicago man guilty of sexually assaulting a woman he met on a dating site after going on a date in Normal.

UPDATED 6 a.m. | McLean County sheriff's police said early Saturday they had captured Thomas Benge and he was taken back into custody. Benge is being held at the McLean County jail.

Federal prosecutors have charged the former president of a children’s charity with stealing more than $400,000 from the organization when it was based in Bloomington.

Bloomington Police said they are investigating an incident in which a 17-year-old boy was shot in the forearm on Saturday.

The number of people in the U.S. now required to register as sex offenders is edging close to the one million mark.

A 36-year-old Bloomington doctor has pleaded not guilty to charges he sexually assaulted a woman with a disability last month.

A Livingston County man has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the Christmas Day triple homicide in Cullom.

UPDATED 10:35 a.m. | A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Uptown mural artists against the Town of Normal and its Trail East developer, though he left the door open for another suit if the artwork is damaged or destroyed during relocation.

A 36-year-old Bloomington doctor is off the job at least temporarily after being charged this week with forcing oral sex on a woman with a disability.

A Bloomington man faces 16 years and eight months in prison for his role in a crack cocaine trafficking conspiracy.

Authorities say the same 35-year-old suspect is behind a series of truck burglaries at the Menards store in Normal.

Police who spent six days looking for their prime suspect in the New Year's Eve shooting in Normal found him hiding in a makeshift basement crawlspace, prosecutors said Friday.