Sheriff confident those responsible for Gee family homicides are in custody

(Originally posted Friday afternoon)

[October 10, 2009]  Flanked by Lincoln Police Chief Stuart Erlenbush and Deputy Sheriff Rick Bacon, Logan County Sheriff Steve Nichols told the media Friday afternoon that the Gee Homicide Task Force was confident those responsible for the murders were in custody and he plans no further press conferences.

Statement from the sheriff:

I will tell you today that very early in this investigation that we believed that the Gee family knew their killers. We did not believe this was a random act. We are confident that we now have those responsible for the murders in custody. We believe we know the motive, but we cannot discuss the motive at this time.

We will continue to follow up on every lead and we ask the public to continue calling in any information that you may have regarding this case.

With the success demonstrated by this investigation, this should be a model for all law enforcement in the future for major case investigations. We in law enforcement need to pool our resources as we did in this case to effectively investigate these types of crimes. In this case the Illinois State Police provided a command structure, seasoned homicide investigators, analytical  and forensic support. Those resources coupled with the Logan County Sheriff's Department and the Lincoln Police Department's working knowledge and expertise in the area led to the quick arrests in the brutal homicide of the Gee family. All of the officers involved in this investigation would like to thank the community for your assistance and support.

I do not plan any future press conferences as we are now moving into the prosecutorial phase.

That does not change my caution to the public to look out for each other and your children. We all need to take care of each other.

The sheriff then answered a few questions.

Q. Why would the Harris brothers do something like this?

A. I cannot discuss that. It is part of the motive.

Q. Did Jason help Chris or did Jason physically kill some members of the family?

A. That is another part I cannot go into.

Q. Were search warrants filed to search the Harris residences and vehicles?

A. We used a lot of search warrants, but we are not going to release that information until we move out of the investigative part of the investigation.

Q. So they are sealed right now?

A. Yes.

Q. Don't the criminal charges against Harris allege that he struck blows?

A. That is something I cannot comment on. You'll have to speak to the state's AG's office on that.

Q. Does this mean that further arrests are unlikely?

A. More than likely, yes, that is a correct statement.

Q. You believe you have the folks responsible and you're giving this to the prosecutors, so as far as the police are concerned, is this solved?

A. NO, we're not done. Like I said, we're still going to follow up on all the leads that we have.  What I'm saying is that we have the people in custody that committed this act.

Q. Has Nicole Harris ever been a person of interest in this investigation?

A. I'm not going to comment on that.

Q. I understand that Chris Harris has been transferred back to Logan County from McLean County as of this morning, and Jason Harris has been taken to McLean County. Why the switch?

A. That's just what I wanted to do.

Q. Why?

(No reply from sheriff.)

Q. When will Sara Duncan arrive from Florida?

A. We're still making those arrangements.

Q. Do you expect more serious charges against Earnest or Duncan?

A. Like I have said, at this point in time we're going to go with what I have given you. I am not going to discount anything at this point in time.  There are things that we are not going to discuss and that is one of them.

Q. Can you say anything further about what Duncan did to obstruct justice?

A. No, that is another thing we are not going to talk about.

Q. Did a violent struggle in fact take place, seeing as how they did allegedly know their killers?

A. We put out earlier that we felt from what was observed at the scene that there was a violent struggle.

Q. Is there any more information about the tailpipes on this truck? Have you located them?

A. We believe we have accounted for that. We're not going to discuss that with you, but we believe we have accounted for that.

Q. Is the truck that you recovered the same truck that was outside the Nicole Harris home?

A. Yes.

Q. Why were you not able to secure it or identify it as the truck you wanted early on?

A. That is part of the investigation that came to us that we are not going to discuss.

Thank you. That will be it. Thank you.

[LDN staff]