IL IL - Walter Donley, Peoria, 1 June 1943

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I don't know what the Shelton presence was in 1943.
 
Their home ground was south central IL.
 
Principally Williamson County
 
According to an article by Norm Kelly, a local historian, Bernie Shelton was apparently in Peoria at the time of Donley's disappearance but he was, by indications, only a minor figure in local crime.
 
I would guess the culprits were inexperienced "boys" brought into town to do the job.
 
The motive is even a harder guess.
 
I haven't heard any suggestions that it was domestic so the general motive had to be that he made the wrong person mad.
 
STANDREID said:
I've heard that Peoria was considered an open town back then; meaning that mob organizations could operate here but none was supposed to try to take control.
Click to expand...

Sorta like Vegas
 
STANDREID said:
I haven't heard any suggestions that it was domestic so the general motive had to be that he made the wrong person mad.
Click to expand...

I suppose random is a possibility although extremely unlikely in my view.
 
More than likely, he was killed either because of something he did or something he knew.
 
It's puzzling how he could have been taken and the body disposed of, presumably in broad daylight, and no-one saw anything except some guys parking his car.
 
I can only think of two good reasons why there would be a need to ditch his car. Either it was used in the crime or Donley had driven it to a place that would incriminate someone and it needed to be moved away from there..
 
I don't think there was any evidence that his body was kept in the car, not his dead body anyway.
 
There was a conspiracy of some sort almost assuredly because two guys were seen ditching the car.
 
The question is, why ditch the car in a place where it would be immediately noticed?
 
STANDREID said:
The question is, why ditch the car in a place where it would be immediately noticed?
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The obvious answer is "because they wanted it to be found." Of course, that begs the questiion "why"?

By the way, I enjoy your posts even though I seldom have much to add.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I agree unless they just panicked and weren't thinking.
 
Of course, the perps may have been well out of town before anyone knew that Donley was missing or that this was his car.
 
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