Five months and still no answers for family of incarcerated Mascoutah priest who died
It’s been more than five months since a former Mascoutah priest died while serving time in prison for possession of child pornography and methamphetamine, and his family still doesn’t know the cause of death or other details.
Officials have told Gerald Hechenberger’s brother and two sisters that the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed a state investigation, but the siblings are getting impatient.
“I want to know what happened,” his sister, Nancy Rueter, said this week.
Hechenberger, 56, had just started serving a nine-year sentence at Pinckneyville Correctional Center when he died on March 6. Officials have declined to say whether it happened at the prison or Pinckneyville Community Hospital.
Rueter, 66, of Belleville, said she has contacted the offices of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Illinois State Rep. Jay Hoffman (D-Swansea) by phone and email in recent weeks.
“I’ve gotten nowhere,” she said. “I called the prison again because we still don’t have his personal belongings. We still don’t have a death certificate. We have nothing, and we can do nothing. I’m beginning to wonder what they’re covering up.”
Hechenberger was a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Belleville for 22 years. He was serving as associate pastor at Holy Childhood of Jesus Catholic Church in Mascoutah, St. Pancratius in Fayetteville and St. Liborius in St. Libory at the time of his 2018 arrest.
Coroner waiting on state investigators
Perry County Coronor Paul Searby is responsible for determining Hechenberger’s cause and manner of death, but he said that can’t happen until the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) completes an investigation and turns over its findings.
Searby said Monday that state investigators haven’t been allowed into the prison for months due to the coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19.
“I’ve been calling them, trying to get answers,” he said. “And they told me (on Friday) they were going to have all their interviews and investigation completed in the next two weeks to where we could get it to the pathologist for a final ruling.”
Pinckneyville Correctional Center has referred all media calls to Lindsey Hess, IDOC spokeswoman. As of Tuesday afternoon, she hadn’t responded to a request Monday for more information on the state investigation.
Searby said he has been anxious to get the Hechenberger case settled, particularly for the family’s sake.
“Usually this goes a lot quicker,” he said. “But I’m stuck waiting on reports before I can finish anything. My hands are tied.”
Autopsies common with prison deaths
Hechenberger’s autopsy was performed on March 9 by Dr. John Heidingsfelder, a Kentucky-based pathologist who’s been working in the field since 1978. He now serves coroners in about two-dozen counties in Illinois and Indiana.
Heidingsfelder is certified in forensic pathology, but only about half his cases involve crimes. Autopsies are performed after most deaths in Illinois prisons and county jails, he said.
“Anybody who died in police custody, they’re probably going to want to do an autopsy.”
Heidingsfelder estimates it will take two or three weeks for him to review materials from the state investigation on Hechenberger’s death and write a final report, depending on how many autopsies he’s asked to perform and whether he’s called to testify in any court cases.
There’s a shortage of pathologists who perform autopsies in the region, he said, and the past few months have been busier than usual.
“Suicides are definitely up,” Heidingsfelder said. “... That may not be directly COVID-19 related, but it could be indirectly related because of people being kept at home. And then there’s the people forced to spend too much time with other people they don’t get along with, and then they may end up doing violence against them.”
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Health problems, depression and drugs
Hechenberger was sentenced to nine years in prison in St. Clair County Circuit Court on Jan. 14, despite defense lawyer Randall Kelley’s argument that any form of incarceration would be a “death sentence” because of the priest’s poor health.
At the sentencing hearing, Hechenberger told the judge that his behavior resulted from a “perfect storm” of mental-health issues, including depression and bipolar disorder; drug use, hypersexual thoughts and grief over the death of his father in 2014.
“I know what he did was a horrible thing, but the other side of him was a beautiful person,” Rueter, his sister, said this week. “I don’t know what happened to him, but something sure messed him up.
“We hear from his parishioners all the time. They loved him,” she added.
About 30 people expressed condolences for “Father Jerry” on the Renner Funeral Homes website after Hechenberger’s death, fondly remembering his friendship and pastoral service involving baptisms, communions and funerals.
One referred to his “wonderful” singing voice and participation in high school musicals.
“He was an amazing priest with the knowledge and wisdom of being a caring human being even through his own pain,” another wrote. “He helped each of us to move through the deaths in our family through prayer and allowing us to realize that God is with us through all our pain.”
Family supported him through ordeal
The police investigation of Hechenberger grew out of a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which flagged an image coming into his Google account as child pornography. In November of 2019, he pleaded guilty to four of 17 counts, including three of possessing pornographic photos of children and one of possessing meth.
Hechenberger is survived by Rueter, sister Mary Ann Swope, also of Belleville, and brother Steve Hechenberger, who lives in Florida. Rueter paid the $25,000 bail to get him out of jail in January of 2018.
The last time Gerald Hechenberger’s family saw him was at his sentencing hearing in January of this year.
“It isn’t the prison’s fault, but we had not seen him since he was taken, the day of his sentencing,” Rueter said, fighting back tears. “He hadn’t filled out the paperwork to allow visitors. So I don’t know what was going on with him at the time that he wouldn’t do that.”
Rueter said Searby, the Perry County coroner, has been very kind to the family, starting with a phone call on March 9.
“He let me come down to see (Hechenberger) before the autopsy started, so I was happy,” Rueter said. “He was cremated, and I needed to see him.”
This story was originally published August 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
