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Will County, IL


Terry D. Jenkins

A Will County grand jury indicted two men Wednesday for their roles in the theft of heroin from a Will County sheriff’s evidence storage container, naming for the first time a second suspect in the case.

Terry D. Jenkins, 43, of Midlothian and Joseph D. Crutchfield, 22, of Crestwood are each charged with one count of burglary. Crutchfield was taken into custody Wednesday, a Will County Jail employee said, and Judge Richard Schoenstedt ordered him held on $50,000 bail.

Jenkins, meanwhile, was arrested at his home two weeks ago. He’s being held at the jail in lieu of $150,000 bail.

Prosecutors said the two men Oct. 12 broke into the secured evidence storage container at 2402 E. Laraway Road in Joliet. Chuck Colburn of the Illinois appellate prosecutor’s office, who is serving as special prosecutor in the case, has confirmed it was during that burglary three kilograms of heroin went missing.

Colburn is sharing few additional details about the case, but he said a third person involved in the theft died Oct. 22 of heart failure with opiates in his body. Will County records show the 50-year-old man died of opiate intoxication in Crest Hill that day.

“This is the last individual we anticipate being arrested on this matter,” Colburn said of Crutchfield.

Crutchfield has been convicted in Cook County for criminal trespass, telephone harassment and possession of drug paraphernalia, records show. Jenkins, meanwhile, has a history of burglary and drug arrests in Cook and Will counties dating to 1986.

Colburn said investigators have found nothing to support a theory that the October break-in was an inside job. The missing drugs were confiscated from Jose Zamago-Mena of California during a February 2011 traffic stop on Interstate 55.

A spokesman for Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow has said his office still plans to prosecute Zamago-Mena. The material taken by officers from his truck has already tested positive for heroin, prosecutors said.

Contributing: Lauren FitzPatrick and Brian Stanley

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