Victor Yehling

 Rockford Ald. D. William “Bill” Robertson, I-14, who served as Rockford Fire Chief for 17 years before entering politics, died Saturday morning after an extended battle with cancer.

Flags on city buildings were ordered flown at half staff in his honor.

“He was dedicated to the community in his role of Fire Chief, as a member of the Rockford Fire Department for 37 years, and as an alderman,” said current Fire Chief Derek Bergsten. “Our thoughts go out to his entire family in this time of great sorrow.”

"Maria's got her justice."

Jack McCullough heard his guilty verdict Friday in a packed courtroom on the third floor of the DeKalb County Courthouse, less than 10 blocks from where he snatched Maria Ridulph on the snowy evening of Dec. 3, 1957.

Known in those days as John Tessier, the 72-year-old convicted kidnapper and murderer sat through five days of a bench trial before Judge James Hallock and heard a parade of prosecution witnesses detail circumstantial evidence that tied him to the seven-year-old girl’s disappearance from the corner of Archie Place and Center Cross Street in Sycamore.

Testimony is over in the murder-kidnap trial of Jack Daniel McCullough, accused of abducting and killing 7-year-old Maria Ridulph from a street corner just three doors from her Sycamore home on the evening of Dec. 3, 1957.

The child's badly decomposed body was found a few months later in a wooded area off U.S. 20 near Woodbine in Jo Daviess County.

The defendant's fate is now in the hands of Judge James Hallock.