ago of taking part in a macabre kidnap-for-ransom
plot in which a businessman was lured from his home
and buried alive.
Testifying before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board in
Chicago, Nancy Rish's supporters described her as a
woman ensnared in an abusive relationship with the
drug dealer who concocted the 1987 kidnapping of
Kankakee businessman Stephen Small. They said she
knew nothing of her boyfriend's plans even as he had
her pick him up from the remote, wooded burial site and
drive him between phone booths where he made
ransom calls.
"She doesn't have it in her to do something so
horrendous," Rish's sister Lori Guimond told the panel,
dabbing her eyes with a tissue.
Small was a member of a prominent media family from
Kankakee, in eastern Illinois, and a great-grandson of
Len Small, Illinois' governor in the 1920s. He was buried
alive in a plywood box under several feet of sand and
suffocated when a crudely fashioned breathing tube
running to the surface failed before a ransom could be
paid.
Rish's boyfriend, Daniel Edwards, told police after his
arrest that he acted alone, but he did not say that at trial
as he fought to avoid the death penalty. Now, having
abandoned his own appeals, Edwards has provided two
affidavits stating that he alone committed the crime and
concealed his plans from Rish.
Assistant Illinois Attorney General Erin O'Connell told the
review board the state still firmly believes Rish was a
willing participant.
"There's been some suggestion that what happened to
her was horrible, but let's be more direct: Stephen Small
was buried alive," O'Connell said. "He was buried alive
because Nancy Rish and Danny Edwards wanted to
coerce $1 million from his family."
The panel could vote within weeks. If clemency is
recommended, Gov. Pat Quinn would have no deadline
for a decision.
Edwards put Small in the box with water, candy bars
and a light. He recorded a message from Small in which
the terrified man asks his wife to deliver $1 million to his
kidnapper with the plea, "It's no joke. I'm inside … a
box. Grave." Edwards played the recording into the
phone during ransom calls.
Besides the affidavits from Edwards, the clemency
petition details missteps by Rish's trial attorneys. It says
her lawyers, to the detriment of her defense, instructed
her not to testify about conversations with Edwards,
including her repeated demands to know what was
going on and his violent refusals.
The petition also accuses prosecutors of withholding
information and misstating facts. It mentions the
prosecution's assertion at trial that Rish had made the
first call to lure Small from his house, even though
Small's son, who first picked up the phone, told police
still searching for a suspect that it was a man's voice.
In one of several victim impact letters filed with the
review board, Small's son, Ramsey, now refers to Rish
having made that call.
Rish's attorney, Margaret Byrne, challenged that.
"I would just like to state respectfully that the evidence
does not support what Mr. Small says," she told the
panel.
Members of the Small family did not attend.
Rish's son from an earlier marriage was 8 when she was
arrested. Now 36 and with two sons of his own, he is
hopeful.
"It's time for her to come home," he said in an interview
before the hearing. "I see her being a grandmother to
my children, I see her taking care of her elderly mother
and just being back with her family. That's all we want."
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