State police told to turn over Carbondale shooting records

ST. LOUIS -- Illinois State Police improperly withheld information and must turn over investigative records sought by the father of a 21-year-old Carbondale woman killed in a shooting, the state attorney general's office has determined.

Former Southern Illinois University student Molly Marie Young died in March 2012 at the apartment of her ex-boyfriend, Richie Minton, a Carbondale police dispatcher.

Her case remains open after a special state prosecutor couldn't determine whether a single gunshot to her head was an accident, suicide or homicide.

Larry Young, who is running a "Justice for Molly" campaign to solve his daughter's unexplained death, appealed to the top Illinois prosecutor's Public Access Bureau after the state police denied his January 2014 records request.

The agency said it already had given Young all the records to which he is legally entitled and said it could provide no more because of the then-pending special state prosecutor's investigation, which was completed in November.

The bureau ruled Monday that Illinois State Police violated the Freedom of Information Act and ordered it to release additional documents.

"ISP has not articulated a legal rationale that justifies withholding personal information concerning Ms. Young from her father, including her death-scene and autopsy images," wrote Joshua Jones, the Public Access Bureau's supervising attorney.

Jones' eight-page letter, a copy of which Young provided to The Associated Press, notes state police waited more than one year before providing the attorney general's office with copies of the records Young had sought.

Illinois State Police officials did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Minton, who no longer works for the police department, has denied wrongdoing.

He told Carbondale Police Department colleagues in a 911 call his ex-girlfriend had suffered a drug overdose.

He told investigators he didn't hear the gunshot because he was passed out drunk. He said two long scratches on his side occurred when Young grabbed him while he performed CPR.

A state prosecutor's report issued in October was inconclusive, citing a series of suicidal text messages sent from Young's phone to Minton and others the night she died, as well as handwritten suicide notes found at the home she shared with her grandmother.

At the same time, the report noted "the trajectory of the bullet does not exclude Minton as the shooter."

A Jackson County judge dismissed Young's wrongful-death lawsuit against Minton in May.

The judge said Young failed to file his suit within two years of his daughter's death, as required by law.

The lawsuit was filed in June 2014, three months after the two-year window expired.