An accident on Plaza Drive about 1:30 p.m. Thursday claimed the life of a Chillicothe man.

The following is a story about a Chillicothe native, Michael Long, and what happened at a Wheaton bank Sept. 5. He was a 1986 graduate of Illinois Valley Central High School.

Community still bewildered by standoff

On a typical suburban block in west Wheaton, etched out of the marshy Belleau Woods Forest Preserve, neighbors say that from afar Michael Long seemed an ordinary family man.

They recall seeing Long working on his Jeep or walking his oldest daughter to the bus stop. Over the summer, he built a play set in the backyard for his two young children.

“I thought he was a real nice guy,” said Richard Skonning, who lives across the street. “Whenever I saw him or he saw me, we would wave.”

So they could only imagine what led 41-year-old Long to wrest a gun from a police officer Friday and hold a dozen people hostage in a downtown Wheaton bank before killing himself.

The Peoria County Sheriff’s Department is continuing investigation of numerous residential and business burglaries in Peoria County.

The burglaries came to an end when police arrested three suspects after an attempted burglary failed on Blue Ridge Road Friday.

Two workers reached the ground safely after a spark from a welding torch started a fire Friday at the former Archer Daniels Midland grain elevator at the foot of Elm Street.

Art Jackson, 76, of 1219 N. Sixth St., was pronounced dead by LifeFlight personnel at Three Sisters Park Tuesday evening after he fell from his boat in the Illinois River.

According to Peoria County coroner Johnna Ingersoll, the cause of death was drowning, in conjunction with a heart attack, which may have caused Jackson to fall into the water and subsequently drown.

A Chillicothe woman and her three children escaped serious injuries after their vehicle collided with a Burlington North-Santa Fe Railroad train Friday afternoon.

A Peoria Heights man ended up at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria following a accident Wednesday at Illinois Route 29.

Three Chillicothe males were apprehended last week after they allegedly attempted to burglarize the Illinois Valley Central High School ball diamond concession stand.

A 20-year-old Wyanet man has been discharged from OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria after flipping his vehicle Saturday night.

A Chillicothe couple will be sentenced Aug. 29 after admitting to the sexual assault of a mentally handicapped woman in October.

Chillicothe firemen responded to a metal building on fire early Monday morning.

A fire destroyed a favorite Chillicothe hangout last week.
“It looks like it’s a total loss — at least that’s what it looks like to me,” said The Dug Out building owner Ty Seibert, of Bee-J Amusements in Peoria Heights.

Just under a day-and-a-half after allegedly committing a sexual assault on a Chillicothe woman, 25-year-old Gary W. Miller Jr. of Rome was arrested in Springfield June 4.

A Chillicothe woman was abducted Sunday night from the Kroger parking lot, 603 N. Fourth St., and sexually assaulted while her infant daughter was in the car.

A Mother’s Day fire left one family without a home.