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Crime scene shakes up rural Geneseo neighborhood

“This really scares me,” said neighbor Nicky Blaser. “There’s a lot of kids in the neighborhood.”

GENESEO, Illinois - There's a shocking story coming out of the house on Sherwood Drive in Geneseo.  Neighbors say they'll be talking about it for a long time. Around 5 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, officers found missing couple Larry and Constance VanOosten inside.

"There were 10 cop cars in my neighborhood," said Nicky Blaser, who lives in the quiet North Country Estates subdivision."That's a lot of people in this small, little neighborhood."

By late morning on February 9, 2017, investigators continued to work inside the vacant rental property.

"The customers from the bank, Mr. and Mrs. Van Oosten, were located at an address in Geneseo," said Whiteside County Sheriff Kelly Wilhelmi.

But there are no answers yet on why they were there.

"There's not been a whole lot of people in and out of the house," Blaser said.  "It's been vacant."

The unusual scene continued to startle neighbors on a frigid Thursday.

"That really scares me," Blaser continued.  "There's a lot of kids in the neighborhood."

Some residents have lived in the neighborhood for a half-century, but more homes are up for sale, too. They're  left to watch and wonder why this is happening on their street.

"We know where each other lives," Blaser said.  "We may not know first names, but we know each other by face.  This house, there's never any activities."

It's a vacant house that's now the center of a crime investigation.

"It's very scary," she concluded.

It's shocking, too, for neighbors along Sherwood Drive in Geneseo.

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