Week Family Gets Its Wish as A State Investigator Is Assigned to The Case

August 22,1995

Family met with Doyle last week, and sheriff asked for assistance.

By Jennifer Benesch

Tribune Staff Writer

The state will send a special investigator to Wood County to look into a hit-and-run accident that killed Deidre Week of rural Vesper.

“The Division of Criminal Investigation will work with the Wood County Sheriff’s Department until this matter is brought to a successful conclusion or until all possible leads have been exhausted,” Department of Criminal Investigation Administrator Frank Meyers said in a letter to Wood County Sheriff Brian Illingworth.

“We did have a request from the Wood County sheriff to receive assistance and having considered that request and the request of Mr. and Mrs. Week, we decided it was appropriate to give assistance to see if there is anything else that can be examined to resolve this case,” said Jim Haney, the public relations officer in the attorney general’s office.

The 11-year-old girl was struck and killed March 24 by a hit-and-run driver while riding her bicycle northbound on County Trunk HH, near her home north of Vesper.

Her parents, Brenda and David Week, began circulating petitions last week, asking Attorney General James Doyle to urge the Department of Criminal Investigation to assign a special investigation. The Weeks met with Doyle Thursday in Madison.

The petitions the family took to Madison had about 2,500 signatures, the Weeks said, and Deidre’s cousin, Kelli Sparks, also sent petitions for friends of Deidre that contained more than 100 signatures.

Thursday’s meeting was followed by a letter from Illingworth, making a formal request for the special investigator.

“Even though the family goes to the attorney general’s office and asks for an investigator, they won’t assign an investigator without a request from local law enforcement,” he said Monday. “We have jurisdiction.”

He expects an investigator to be assigned this week.

“We are elated,” David Week said Monday night. “This has been a long, hard road to get to this point. If we weren’t so strong in what we saw and everything, we would not have gotten this far. It will be nice to sit back and let them take care of this.”

“James Doyle himself and his actions when we met him, he was very, very understanding and compassionate person. Brenda and I never thought that we were better than anyone else that had lost a daughter or son, but for him to help us out I was really impressed. If he wasn’t such a great person, it wouldn’t have gone any farther than having a meeting.”

Illingworth said he is putting together a case file for the investigator to review. “The Weeks have conducted their own investigation, and some of their findings are different than ours, and that’s where the problem is,” he said.

Haney said it is impossible to predict when the investigation will start or how long it might take.

“I would hope an individual from an outside agency would be able to look at the information and make a determination,” Illingworth said. “I think our officers have done an excellent job, but at this point, we haven’t made an arrest.”