Metro-east weekly crime roundup. Here's what to know

Four separate criminal cases in the Metro East and southern Illinois reached significant turning points in recent days, ranging from a child’s remains being discovered to a 120-year prison sentence. Here’s a rundown of the latest developments across the region.

Here are key takeaways:

• The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department opened an Internal Affairs investigation into why it took two years to find the remains of a 2-year-old boy whose mother first reported him missing in July 2024, with the child’s body discovered Wednesday night in Stookey Township near Belleville.
• Ronnell M. Jones, 32, and Kirstie Dora, 35, were charged with parental kidnapping on June 29 and are being held without bond, after a renewed investigation by the Desloge Police Department led to a multi-agency search.
• Timothy J. Dubois Jr., 42, was sentenced to 120 years in prison Thursday for a 2022 kidnapping and rape that began at a Collinsville Starbucks, where he entered a 21-year-old woman’s car armed with a knife.
• Investigators cracked the Dubois case using DNA from a discarded condom located through Apple Watch location data and a commercial genetic genealogy database, which State’s Attorney Tom Haine called an “incredibly innovative” technique.
• Maggi Tudor, 34, a payroll worker at Pinckneyville Correctional Center, pleaded guilty Wednesday to wire fraud and theft from a federally funded program for falsifying her correctional officer husband’s overtime and holiday pay from July 2022 through December 2024.
• Tudor agreed to pay $124,917.35 in restitution and faces an advisory sentencing guideline range of 10 to 16 months in prison, with her sentencing hearing scheduled for Nov. 9 in federal court in Benton.
• Raymond J. Generous, 42, of Lenzburg, was ordered to remain jailed pending trial on aggravated arson and domestic battery charges after allegedly battering his teenage child and setting items on fire Friday, with the teen fleeing to get help before the house was engulfed in flames.
• Generous’s defense attorney argued his client was likely struggling with alcohol abuse and mental health conditions on the day of the incident and had previously suffered head injuries, while his family appeared in court to support him.

The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The source reporting referenced above was written and edited entirely by journalists.