McHenry County Blog

Steven Hess when he was arrested.

A press release from the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office about the man who kidnapped a woman from Sam’s Club parking lot who was saved by a Good Samaritan near Taco Bell. Both establishments are on Route 14 in Crystal Lake.

CRYSTAL LAKE MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO AGGRAVATED KIDNAPPING

AND ATTEMPTED CRIMINAL SEXUAL ASSAULT

Louis A. Bianchi, McHenry County State’s Attorney, announces that Steven W. Hess, 57, plead guilty today to

• the Class X felony offense of Aggravated Kidnapping and
• the class 2 felony offense of Attempted Criminal Sexual Assault.

Sentencing is scheduled for May 6, 2011 and the defendant faces up to 30 years in prison and will be legally required to serve 85% of his sentence.

Photo of Steven W. Hess provided by the McHenry County Sheriff's Department.

On December 9, 2009, it was alleged that the defendant confronted his ex-girlfriend, a 53 year old Crystal Lake woman, at her place of employment.

He was able to convince her to get into his car, whereupon he tied a rope around her neck, tied her wrists together with plastic zip ties and drove her to a vacant store where he served as a property manager.

According to witnesses, the defendant attempted to force the victim into the basement of the vacant store by striking her with his fists and spraying her face with pepper spray.

A bystander, who was driving in the area, shouted at the defendant allowing the victim to flee to a nearby business.

The police responded to the area, searched the basement and discovered a makeshift bed, pre-tied ropes, twist ties, knives and other items indicating that the defendant planned to commit a sexual assault.

The defendant was located the following morning after the car that he used to transport the victim was found burning in a field in unincorporated Woodstock.

The defendant later confessed that he intended to have sex with the victim and to post the assault on the internet.

This matter was investigated by the Crystal Lake Police Department and was prosecuted by Assistant State’s Attorney Ryan Blackney.

Lots of stuff.

Legislators are always looking for headlines.

One in California, State Senator Dean Florez, wants to mandate grocery stores to make sure they do not sell recalled items.

He says current supermarket scanners have that capability.

Undoubtedly he is correct.

But the scanners also capture information about items purchased.

Sam’s Club, for instance, could figure out I bought the same book twice and gave me no problem when I asked for a rebate for the second copy.

And Sam’s Club also surprised me when it sent me a letter telling me I had purchased peanut butter crackers which many have contained contaminated peanut butter.

Of course, the crackers had already been sold at the McHenry Marlins concession stand.

But, it certainly showed the scanner capability was there and that Sam’s Club was ahead of the legislative curve.

My son was at a friend’s, so I finally got a chance to spend time at Sam’s Club’s photo machines.

I would not call it quality time, but the employees are quite pleasant and accommodating.

I’ve found it takes me up to an hour per flash card to adjust the pictures that I want to have printed. I had five to do.

Sam’s machines download so slowly. Nothing like Picasa at home.

Standing on the concrete floor reminds me most of my 1960 $1 an hour summer job manning the counter at McDonald’s (the Crystal Lake one that was just torn down, except with arches and 700,000, then 800,000 sold on the sign) after I graduated from high school in 1960.

On the way into Sam’s, it was impossible not to notice the big tent and Star 105 broadcasting trailer in the parking lot.

It was there for a big fund raiser for Turning Point, a domestic violence agency located in Woodstock.

I also saw smoke coming up from a grill and thought maybe I’d go get a bratwurst after I did some work.

About two, when I got hungry, I walked over. It was beginning to drizzle a bit.

I saw Stew Cohen, the station’s long-time news director and his son Brant.

Stew told me that his son had gone door-to-door in his neighborhood (east of McHenry Avenue, south of Route 14) and offered to play a song on his saxophone if people would make at least a donation of $1 to Turning Point.

Brant raised $171!

I got to the food area, heard they had two burnt brats, just like I like them, placed my order, opened my wallet and discovered it was empty. I had cleaned it out when my son when to Brookfield Zoo the day before.

So, I went back and got some cash.

When I returned, it was wet.

Sub-teenage girls were still practicing cheer leading routines.

But it was raining enough that people were crowding into the tent.

Not many people were sitting in the chairs watching the Sleeping Hollow band “33 1/3 .“ But, there was no way anyone could miss hearing them, no matter where they were.

When the station went live from under the tent, the band was asked to stop playing.

It was a good thing the teen musicians were under a tent. (You can see more of the band, plus other pictures that wouldn’t fit in this article here. You can here them here. There’s more on YouTube here.)

With all the electrical connections, I would have feared for their safety if they had been out in the open.

I walked around taking pictures, some of which you can see here. Others are here.

Another group of older girls were still practicing cheer leading routines.

A gravel truck driver had apparently been attracted to the fund raiser by what he had heard on the radio.

It wasn’t pouring yet.

After eating, I went back in to do my shopping and finish downloading my Cannon flash cards.

All three of the one-hour machines were busy, so I decided to try the wait-a-couple-of-days machine.

By then I was back to photos that I had taken in July, so what would a couple more days mean?

To my surprise and delight, I discovered this machined downloaded almost as fast as Google’s Picasa.

I figured out how to do the editing, but its program will only allow one to get the photos one prints on a disk. So, I waited for the show downloads on one of the other machines when it opened up and just ordered disks.

By the time I left, some of my photos were printed and it was pouring.

There weren’t any high school girls practicing anymore.

Going to pick up my son for 5 o’clock church for the Huntley Brown piano concert at the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake, I turned on 105.3 and head Brant Cohen’s money-raising accomplishment being extolled by the disk jockette. Brant had been chosen to be the co-disk jockey of the hour.

And I heard the description of Turning Point:

“The only domestic violence agency in McHenry County with a shelter.”

Well chosen words, because there is another domestic violence agency in Crystal Lake called Peace4All…but it doesn’t have a shelter.

All photographs may be enlarged by clicking on them.

My son was at a friend’s, so I finally got a chance to spend time at Sam’s Club’s photo machines.

I would not call it quality time, but the employees are quite pleasant and accommodating.

I’ve found it takes me up to an hour per flash card to adjust the pictures that I want to have printed. I had five to do.

Sam’s machines download so slowly. Nothing like Picasa at home.

Standing on the concrete floor reminds me most of my 1960 $1 an hour summer job manning the counter at McDonald’s (the Crystal Lake one that was just torn down, except with arches and 700,000, then 800,000 sold on the sign) after I graduated from high school in 1960.

On the way into Sam’s, it was impossible not to notice the big tent and Star 105 broadcasting trailer in the parking lot.

It was there for a big fund raiser for Turning Point, a domestic violence agency located in Woodstock.

I also saw smoke coming up from a grill and thought maybe I’d go get a bratwurst after I did some work.

About two, when I got hungry, I walked over. It was beginning to drizzle a bit.

I saw Stew Cohen, the station’s long-time news director and his son Brant.

Stew told me that his son had gone door-to-door in his neighborhood (east of McHenry Avenue, south of Route 14) and offered to play a song on his saxophone if people would make at least a donation of $1 to Turning Point.

Brant raised $171!

I got to the food area, heard they had two burnt brats, just like I like them, placed my order, opened my wallet and discovered it was empty. I had cleaned it out when my son when to Brookfield Zoo the day before.

So, I went back and got some cash.

When I returned, it was wet.

Sub-teenage girls were still practicing cheer leading routines.

But it was raining enough that people were crowding into the tent.

Not many people were sitting in the chairs watching the Sleeping Hollow band “33 1/3 .“ But, there was no way anyone could miss hearing them, no matter where they were.

When the station went live from under the tent, the band was asked to stop playing.

It was a good thing the teen musicians were under a tent. (You can see more of the band, plus other pictures that wouldn’t fit in this article here. You can here them here. There’s more on YouTube here.)

With all the electrical connections, I would have feared for their safety if they had been out in the open.

I walked around taking pictures, some of which you can see here. Others are here.

Another group of older girls were still practicing cheer leading routines.

A gravel truck driver had apparently been attracted to the fund raiser by what he had heard on the radio.

It wasn’t pouring yet.

After eating, I went back in to do my shopping and finish downloading my Cannon flash cards.

All three of the one-hour machines were busy, so I decided to try the wait-a-couple-of-days machine.

By then I was back to photos that I had taken in July, so what would a couple more days mean?

To my surprise and delight, I discovered this machined downloaded almost as fast as Google’s Picasa.

I figured out how to do the editing, but its program will only allow one to get the photos one prints on a disk. So, I waited for the show downloads on one of the other machines when it opened up and just ordered disks.

By the time I left, some of my photos were printed and it was pouring.

There weren’t any high school girls practicing anymore.

Going to pick up my son for 5 o’clock church for the Huntley Brown piano concert at the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake, I turned on 105.3 and head Brant Cohen’s money-raising accomplishment being extolled by the disk jockette. Brant had been chosen to be the co-disk jockey of the hour.

And I heard the description of Turning Point:

“The only domestic violence agency in McHenry County with a shelter.”

Well chosen words, because there is another domestic violence agency in Crystal Lake called Peace4All…but it doesn’t have a shelter.

All photographs may be enlarged by clicking on them.