SEARCHING FOR JOHN SPIRA

I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how to paste my easy to read table in here so I’ll just do this in paragraph form. What I wanted to show with the table were the various similarities between the circumstances of John’s, Lisa’s and Stacy’s disappearances and yet the vast differences in how their cases were investigated and handled by authorities. In John’s case St. Charles police department had it early on but requested repeatedly for DuPage to take the lead as John went missing in DuPage County. DuPage refused and then quit on 3/29/07, but decided to take over in 4/07 after I wrote to Sheriff Zaruba. I’m not sure if that’s what prompted their takeover but it did seem that St. Charles and DuPage county had been playing hot potato with John’s case. Stacy’s case was handled by IL state police and Lisa Stebic’s by the Plainfield PD.

SIMILARITIES
1.John, Stacy and Lisa all went missing from the same general geographical area in IL within a short time frame in 2007.
2. Each person was in a horrible marriage. Lisa had just “evicted” Craig Stebic from their home and was going through a divorce; Stacy, per Drew Peterson, requested a divorce several times and according to others was in a controlling, abusive relationship with Drew Peterson. John and Suzanne had been going through a nasty divorce for two years and on the very day John disappeared, Suzanne had finally agreed to a divorce settlement; yep on the very same day. Did she know they’d never really be divorced? Let’s not forget what she told my cousin and the fact that her own daughter is a convicted murderer. Oh, and then there’s John’s statement to me just a week prior that Suzanne had made his life a living hell for the prior two years. In addition, John’s business partner, David Stubben, was the last to see John alive, they’d been having serious financial issues and Dave went over to Suzanne’s immediately after John disappeared to help her “shovel snow”. The police are aware of all of this.
3. Neither John’s, nor Stacy’s nor Lisa’s spouses participated in any candlelight vigils, or searches.
4. Both Suzanne (and Dave Stubben) and Drew insisted that their spouses voluntarily disappeared; Suzanne has sinced changed her stance on that I think but not sure and I invite her to please let us know. Craig Stebic did not say Lisa voluntarily disappeared.
5. To date, Craig Stebic and Suzanne (and Dave) have refused lie detector tests; only the pompous blowhard Drew Peterson agreed to take one.
6. THERE HAS BEEN NO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF MURDER FOUND IN ANY OF THE THREE CASES.
Differences in Investigation:
Despite the above similarities, here’s what authorities have done in the cases:
1. Stacy/Lisa-immediately determined foul play. In John’s case police told me to my face (while I was completely frantic) that John was probably in Tahiti drinking with some girls. Yes, they decided that John left voluntarily (because they thought they should listen to Suzanne and Dave) and because they “knew” this was just a missing persons case, it wasn’t handled with the urgency a homidice would have been or the same way. Maybe things would have been different. Despite my urgent requests from the very beginning and to this day, the police still refuse to call this anything but a missing person’s case. Why, because there’s no physical evidence; but see the similarities between Stacy/Lisa/John’s disappearance.
2. Stacy/Lisa-police agencies organized searches and made request to public for help. In John’s case, I organized searches and begged the police to assist and to make media requests but that was not forthcoming. Although the police attended my searches, (after much prodding) they made it very clear they were not participating and because of that I was unable to get dog teams to assist as they require searches to be police searces. The police did do a dog search on 5/18/07 but I had already scheduled a search on 5/19/07 with media. I will say that they did actively participate at the 12/07 search where we handed out flyers and they were active in our October 2008 search. In fact, we had alot of police assistance on that one and even forest preserve deputies helped. We had dogs. It was by far the most professional search we had done and Dupage people were there walking through the weeds with the rest of us and for that we are very appreciative. A cameraman from ID Discovery was there filming the whole thing. Oh, and last January, 09, the police staged a search for the ID Discovery Show. After reflecting on this I do believe the police were doing their best to be helpful with events we scheduled and maybe I’m being too hard on them.
3. In Stacy’s and Lisa’s cases, their spouses have been named persons of interests and/or suspects. In John’s case I have been told by the police that although they don’t really mind communicating with me, the only person they are obligated to communicate with is Suzanne?????Huh? What about my parents? And this despite horrible divorce, despite facts Suzanne immediately tried to have John’s property appraised while convincing police John went missing voluntarily and that she left town after only 6 months of John’s disappearance. Oh yea, and Suzanne stands to get $500,000.00 from life insurance and possibly several MILLION from google stock-see probate proceedings Suzanne has filed in Kane County Probate Court.
4. Police have issued press releases in both Lisa’s and Stacy’s cases and have requested assistance from other agencies. In John’s case, police have not issued press releases and speak to them reluctantly and when they do they have not been forthcoming. Again, they never once requested the public’s help in finding John. They did not inform me of the National Center for Missing Adults, did not tell me about Tim Miller and Texas Equusearch because they didn’t even know who he was or that such agencies exist. When I asked the police why they don’t get other agencies involved, the response was, because “we don’t need to” which I found odd since they weren’t having any success whatsoever.
5. Grand jury proceedings (to determine probable cause) were called in both Stacy’s and Lisa’s case. Didn’t happen in John’s case.
6. Police continue to investigate Stacy and Lisa’s cases but they did not reply to my last email requesting confirmation that they have stopped investigating John’s case; thus I believe they are done. What would be really marvelous is if they could simply tell the truth and they know it’s the truth and call John’s case a homicide even without the physical evidence of murder as they have done in both Stacy’s and Lisa’s cases. If they could do that, then they could name some persons of interest and/or suspects but until they do so those people are free to go about living their lives with John’s blood on their hands.

Admittedly, John’s case is very difficult and hindsight is 20/20. There have been detectives both in St. Charles and DuPage who have expressed sincere interest in this case and I do believe they’d do more if they could but are limited by resources and the powers that be. Some of the detecives did take their own time to help on a few occassions which has been much appreciated. However, I feel that the agency as a whole could have and should have done more. They should have called this murder from the very beginning. I do think things would have been different and perhaps those responsible would have at least felt some pressure.

And yes, I’m probably taking my frustration out too much on the police who again, individually, seem to care and want to find answers, but collectively don’t. I know there’s only so much they can do with the information they’ve got and let’s face it; if they can’t arrest Drew Peterson for the murder of Stacy Peterson, we’ve got a long way to go in John’s case.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 27th, 2009 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Family, John Spira, Make A Donation, Uncategorized, candlelight vigil 3-10-07. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.