Pam Bradley McMeen

 

More than 40 years ago, on a cold January night, a young husband and father of two walked into the Streator Police Department holding one of his sons in his arms. With blood on his clothes, the man calmly announced to officers on duty, "I just shot my wife. She's sitting out in my car."

Patrolman Jim Mazak and shift commander Lt. Joe Harcar rushed out of the station to the 1964 Chevy Impala to find 20-year-old Pamela (Bradley) McMeen dead from a single shotgun wound in the right side of her lower back.

The father was Louis A. McMeen Sr., who, 10 years later would become the father of Sara McMeen, the mother now infamous nationwide for killing her three children, her boyfriend and herself in the tiny village of Emington on Dec. 16.

"The thing I remember most (about Louis) was how matter-of-fact the guy was when he told us what he did," said Mazak, now 73 and a court bailiff for LaSalle County Circuit Judge Cynthia Raccuglia. "He was not crying, not upset, he was sober and serious, kind of dazed, I think."

Kenneth Sangston, who was also on duty that Jan. 25, 1971, told The Times Thursday he agreed with Mazak's description of McMeen.

"I would say he (McMeen) was quiet, collected and oddly unemotional that night in the police station," said Sangston, now 70 and a former Illinois Valley Community College security officer.

Both Sangston and Mazak said they knew of McMeen and had seen him around town before the killing, but remembered nothing remarkable about the 20-year-old before that evening.

"The way I remember the circumstance of the murder was that Louis had just gotten out of a mental hospital, and the two had gotten into an argument in the car somewhere on Moon (Point) Cemetery Road southwest of Streator about getting back together," Sangston said. "They quarreled, she started walking away, and he shot her in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun. He put her back into the car and drove straight to the station."

Louis was later found mentally unfit to stand trial and was placed for a time in a state facility. "It seemed he was back on the streets here in Streator just after a couple years or maybe it was a bit longer. I can't really say exactly," he said. "Later on, I guess he moved to Dwight."

Last weekend, when the news out of Emington broke, Sangston said he instantly connected the two tragedies when he heard the McMeen name.

"I just knew that girl had to be related to Louis somehow. I just knew it."