RICHLAND CO. – With the jury trial to determine Glenn Ramey’s fitness set to commence September 11 in Effingham, tensions are high amongst both counties involved, Richland and Effingham.
Last-minute motions have appeared in the file of the 54-year-old Ramey, most recently of Olney, the man accused of raping, then murdering, 8-year-old Sabrina Stauffenberg in Olney last November.
Set to take place over several days in Effingham is Ramey’s trial to determine mental fitness, which must be conducted before he can proceed on to the trial for the rape and murder charges.
Few trials of this nature have been held in the area, and those ones that have been held haven’t much been covered by local media, largely owing to the fact that such a claim of being “mentally unfit” is generally viewed as something superfluous that must be gotten “out of the way” before the “real trial” (for whatever the suspect was initially accused of) actually goes off, and isn’t worth the ink.
But in this case, the issue IS Ramey’s mental fitness…since that’s the way he got out of serious crimes in the past, crimes that, had he not been able to successfully play the ‘crazy card,’ he might still have been incarcerated and thus locked up on November 23, 2016…the day of Sabrina’s death.
Ramey’s past successes
Ramey, who is a convicted felon in Williamson County with Theft crimes dating back to the mid-80s when he resided in the southernmost portion of that county, was successfully able to overcome any question as to whether or not he was insane when he was charged with Theft in Crawford County in 2011.
There, he’d allegedly stolen antique items and attempted to sell them for scrap, an under-the-table way the social security-receiving Ramey made a living while scamming the taxpayers of the nation.
For whatever reason, then-prosecutor Tom Wiseman opted to turn the case over to the appellate prosecutor’s office, and none other than David “Rollover” Rands earned his nickname by allowing Ramey to raise an issue of fitness and go off to Choate Hospital in Anna for a couple of years. At the end of his stay, in 2013, Ramey returned to Crawford to learn that the case was being dismissed…and he moved to Olney, following the Coil family, into which he’d bred when they were residing in Johnson County with Ramey a couple of years prior.
The Coils moved to Noble and Ramey followed them, continually getting in trouble in one form or another in Richland County, not only with the Coils, but with other infractions, most of them having to do with driving and his lack of skills thereof.
Raising the bona fide doubt
At no point during any of the other crimes charged against him in Richland since 2013 did Ramey pull out the insanity defense, despite the seriousness of them and despite the success in the Crawford theft case.
As an example, an Aggravated DUI while License Suspended or Revoked, charged in May of 2016, contains no effort on Ramey’s part to use the “crazy card” to get out of it.
Only after his late November arrest in the wake of Sabrina’s death did Ramey bring up the “fitness” issue.
Within about two weeks, Ramey convinced his court-appointed attorney, James Lane, that there was a “bona fide doubt” as to Ramey’s sanity, and the question was raised in court. In order to err on the side of caution and the law, Judge Larry Dunn allowed the question to go through. A consequence of that question is that a trial must be held in order to make a determination. If Ramey is found unfit, he will likely be remanded to the custody of Illinois’ Department of Human Services, where he will be institutionalized – despite the murder allegation – and treated, ostensibly until he becomes “fit” and can stand trial. If he’s found unfit, preparations for the murder trial, which have kind of slowed down, will gear back up; dates will be set and hearings will be held leading up to that trial.
All Richland officials except….
But first, the fitness trial must take place. That’s going to be done in Effingham.
It was determined in May that there had been too much pre-trial publicity in Richland County for there to be found an unbiased jury. And while that kind of decision is usually made at the time of voir dire (questioning of the jury panels in order to seat a jury), in Richland, they have a track record dating back several years of changing venue, with Ramey’s being no exception.
So for the fitness trial in Effingham, Dunn will be the judge; Richland’s prosecutorial team, State’s Attorney Brad 
Vaughn and Assistant Cole Shaner, will handle the matter for the state; and Lane will continue on as defense attorney. Effectively, all the Richland County players will be traveling daily to Effingham County, doing their individual things in that county throughout the trial as if they were in Richland.
One difference, however, will be the circuit clerk.
Disclosure has learned that Zac Holder, Richland County Circuit Clerk, will not be the circuit clerk for the fitness trial proceedings. Instead, his duties will be covered by the Effingham County Circuit Clerk’s office. Those would include swearing in the jury and the witnesses, and keeping track of what happens during the proceedings so that accurate documentation and handling of paperwork and evidence can occur.
The matter came to the attention of this paper because of some questions the county board had regarding Holder’s budget and the fact that his department will be responsible for paying for the Effingham County stand-ins.
Apparently the concern was that if Holder himself wasn’t conducting circuit clerk duties and the Effingham County Circuit Clerk’s office was…what was Holder going to be doing?
Ways to determine sanity – behavior
While it hadn’t been confirmed as of press time (September 3, a little more than a week before the trial was set to kick off), speculation has it that Holder is possibly going to have to appear as a witness.
In what might turn out to be a fortuitous event that occurred about eight hours before Sabrina body was found a few blocks away from her home on Whittle, Ramey appeared in front of Judge Kim Harrell with a petition for payment for work he’d done for former Olney Mayor Tommie Fehrenbacher.
Ramey had taken the case to a Small Claims suit, asking for $5,000 he said Fehrenbacher owed him for cutting down ten trees (another way Ramey had been gaming the social security and public aid systems in the state – tree-trimming and wood-cutting, naturally, under the table). Ramey apparently felt the five grand was worth risking losing his “benefits” over and he opted to attempt to collect from Fehrenbacher.
According to witnesses who were in the courtroom that day, November 23, 2016, at the 11 a.m. hearing, Ramey was completely cogent, articulating his case and asking the judge to examine documents and material he claimed proved Fehrenbacher owed him over the tree-cutting.
The hearing lasted about 15 minutes, and was set over for a bench trial with a January 11, 2017 date.
About eight hours later, Sabrina’s body was discovered, about three hours after she went missing off her own front porch.
It is anticipated that Holder might be able to shed light on Ramey’s behavior in the courtroom that day, and that that description of events might lend toward determination of sanity versus insanity.
An examination of the file a week before press time showed no subpoenas entered to ensure Holder’s appearance, however.
If that situation changes, Disclosure will bring it to readers at the website, which is where every detail of the trial will be covered, likely twice daily. Readers are encouraged to mark the website address on a tab and check frequently to keep up with the case, the outcome of which will dictate what will be done with Sabrina’s murder case.