‘We Won’t Be Silenced’: Ex-Deputy Charged In Teen’s Death Eight Months After Video Shows Him Washing Evidence from His Truck; Dispatcher Fired for Giving Him Tips to Avoid Arrest
It was obvious from the beginning that an Illinois sheriff’s deputy was a prime suspect in the death of an 18-year-old man named Jackson Kradle whom the deputy claimed to have found lying on a rural road at 3:30 a.m. last July.
After all, investigators had obtained the teen’s DNA from beneath the Carroll County sheriff’s deputy’s truck in the days following the incident, even though he claimed to have swerved to avoid striking the object in the road before he stopped and discovered the body, then called 911.
Illinois State Police also obtained surveillance video showing the deputy, Matthew Herpstreith, spray washing the bottom of his truck at a self-service commercial car wash 30 minutes after he had reported Kradle’s body, which would have been around 4 a.m.
Herpstreith resigned a week later, the same morning he was scheduled to be interrogated by state police who were investigating the death. His passenger that night, a local 911 dispatcher named Amy Hubble, also resigned to avoid answering questions.
But it still took eight months for prosecutors to charge Herpstreith in Kradle’s death.
And only because the county coroner, Matthew Jones, conducted a thorough inquest in January, which is a formal court proceeding open to the public where he presented evidence to a jury that determined Kradle’s death was a homicide.
On Monday – two months after the jury’s decision – Herpstreith was charged with three felonies, including reckless homicide, reckless conduct and obstructing justice, according to online court records.
He was also charged with misdemeanor obstructing justice as well as with a traffic infraction of failing to reduce his speed. Hubble, his passenger, was not charged.
“Normally, an inquest might last an hour or two hours, but this took about 16 hours of court time,” Jones told WQAD in January.
“I thought it was very important to allow them to understand that just 30 minutes (after) the accident, prior to even the coroner arriving on the scene, that this ex-deputy was washing the evidence from his vehicle,” Jones said.
Drunken Night
Herpstreith would likely have also been charged with DUI had the responding Mt. Carroll police officer investigated him for driving drunk, but instead the cop allowed the deputy to leave the scene minutes after arriving, enabling the deputy to drive to the car wash before more law enforcement officers arrived to the scene.
Mt. Carroll Police Officer Scott Marth wrote in his report that both Herpstreith and Hubble appeared “normal and professional” and did not smell of alcohol, KWQC reported. Marth also claimed he spotted no damage to Herpstreith’s truck.
However, a Carroll County dispatcher that had attended a retirement party with the pair testified that Herpstreith and Hubble had been drinking for hours that night, describing the deputy as being highly intoxicated, a “7 or 8” on a scale of 1 through 10 before he dropped her off at home around 3 a.m.
Kayla Russell said they had attended the retirement party at a local bar and restaurant called the Copper Cow that closes at 1 a.m., then continued drinking afterward at a couple more bars before they dropped her off at home.
Another dispatcher who was working that night, Rebecca Frederick, testified she received a call from Hubble earlier around 11 p.m. who admitted to driving while drinking and was asking the dispatcher for the location of local cops to avoid being pulled over while drunk.
Frederick was fired in November for providing information that would allow Herpstreith and Hubble to avoid “any possible criminal action being taken against them for their actions,” according to her termination letter written by Carroll County Sheriff Ryan Kloepping and obtained by KWQC.
Both Attended Same Party
Coincidentally, Kradle had also attended the same party with his girlfriend and was also drunk, according to the coroner, who said he had a blood alcohol content of .192 and had likely fallen face-down on the street before he was run over by the drunk deputy.
Kradle’s girlfriend, Madelyn Stevens, testified at the inquest that they had attended the party around 5 p.m. with other local first responders, around the same time dispatcher Russell said Herpstreith started drinking at the party, WQAD reported.
The young couple then attended a get-together at Kradle’s family farm where they continued drinking. They were then dropped off at Kradle’s father’s house, where he became agitated and left the home on foot, which would be the last time he was seen alive.
But then came the apparent coverup, where Herpstreith was allowed to resign and whose name was not made public until January’s inquest by the county coroner.
More than a month after the incident in September, Kradle’s family and friends gathered to protest outside Illinois State Police headquarters in Sterling, demanding “Justice for Jackson.”
“We feel like it’s taken a long time to get this handled,” Brittany Smith, a family friend, told KWQC. “The Carroll County Sheriff’s Office didn’t handle things correctly, but hopefully, the Illinois State Police are.”
“We want those people in the building to know we won’t be quiet. We won’t be silenced, and we’ll spread his name, his word as long as we can,” Smith continued.
“Justice for Jackson. We want an arrest made as soon as possible.”
Kradle’s father, Joshua Sisler, told WQAD he felt “very emotional, happy, sad all at the same time” upon hearing the news of the charges.
“Just thankful the charges were finally filed,” Sisler said. “I knew it was coming, I was just trying to be patient.”
Herpstreith remains free on pretrial release and is due back in court on April 17.