KNOX COUNTY, Ill. — The Illinois Supreme Court has rejected a motion to review a lower court's decision to reinstate murder charges against Marcy Oglesby. Oglesby is accused of murdering former Maquon Police Chief Richard Young.
The rejection allows the Know County State's Attorney's Office to proceed in its prosecution against Oglesby, who is set for a pretrial hearing on March 4.
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On Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, Knox County deputies responded to a Maquon storage unit after complaints of a suspicious smell. The deputies contacted the facility's manager and Oglesby, the unit's renter, and began a search.
Oglesby claimed that the smell came from an opossum that had previously died in the unit. When police came across a large box that she refused to open, Oglesby admitted that there was a body inside it. The body was later identified as Young.
At the time, Oglesby was taken into custody and charged with concealment of a death by the Knox County State's Attorney's Office. However, after further investigation, Oglesby received two additional charges of murder and battery in February 2023 — around four months from the initial concealment charge. Those charges were dismissed by a Knox County judge the next month after Oglesby's defense claimed that the new charges weren't brought within the required 120 days. The State Attorney's Office appealed that decision.
Back in November, the Fourth District Illinois Appellate Court ruled that the court erred when dismissing the case, saying "that because the concealment of a nonhomicidal death and the murder charges were not a part of the same act or action by the defendant, they were not required to (be) filed at the same time," according to the state's attorney office. As a result, they ruled to reinstate charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery. Oglesby then appealed the appellate court's decision to the state's highest court.
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