Local News

Members of the Vandalia Volunteer Fire Department work to extricate the body of a Pennsylvania man who sustained fatal injuries in a one-vehicle accident late Tuesday morning on Interstate 70, just west of the 61-mile exit. According to the Illinois State Police, Maynard Torgerson, 73, of Warminster, Pa., was eastbound in a Ford Explorer when the vehicle went into the median for an unknown reason. The vehicle began rolling over after hitting a concrete drain and came to rest on its top in a creek bed. Torgerson was pronounced dead at the scene by Fayette County Coroner Bruce Bowen.

Five days before her husband went to trial on a charge alleging the manufacture of methamphetamine, a rural Beecher City woman pleaded guilty to that offense.

Diana L. Griffith, 47, accepted a 10-year prison sentence in pleading guilty last Wednesday in Fayette County Circuit Court.

In accepting a plea bargain, Griffith pleaded guilty to the manufacture of less than 400 grams of methamphetamine.

Griffith and her husband, Charles E. Griffith, 48, were arrested on methamphetamine manufacture charges after a raid on their residence by the Fayette County Sheriffs Office.

Ernie Chappel, president of The First National Bank of Vandalia, and Preston Smith, president of The First National Bank of Mulberry Grove, announced on Tuesday that the two institutions have reached an agreement by which First National Bank of Vandalia will purchase The First National Banking Centers located in Mulberry Grove and Greenville.

In that acquisition, The First National Bank of Vandalia will acquire the deposits and certain assets, including loans, of the two Bond County banks.

A Vandalia man convicted in May on three charges alleging sex with a minor was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Tuesday.

A Fayette County jury found Jonathan L. Matthews, 20, guilty on May 29 of two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and one count aggravated criminal sexual abuse. The jury deliberated for 90 minutes before returning the three guilty verdicts.

The felony charges filed by Fayette County States Attorney Stephen Friedel in February alleged that the sex offenses occurred between April 1 and Dec. 27 of last year.