A Mystery Sack of Money

/This building across Court Street from the courthouse housed the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office and the county jail. It also served as the residence of the sheriff. (Kankakee County Museum Photo Archive)

By Jack Klasey February 15, 2025

“Report Mystery Sack of Money Found In County Jail,” headlined the Kankakee Sunday Journal on September 10, 1961.

The newspaper reported that the finding of the sack “cast a shadow of suspicion over operations in the Kankakee County Sheriff’s office.” The sack, containing an estimated $8,000 to $10,000, had been found by a jail employee “among a pile of canned goods in a basement pantry area of the county jail.” (The jail, a two-story brick building on the north side of Court Street across from the Kankakee County Courthouse, also housed the residence of County Sheriff Carl A. McNutt.)

The employee reported the find to Deputy Sheriff William Kraus. Along with Chief Deputy Daniel O’Laughlin, Kraus began an investigation into the source of the cash. “However, before the counting of the money could be completed,” noted the Journal, “Mrs. Vera McNutt, wife of the sheriff, allegedly came in and took the money, saying, ‘It’s ours.’”

Kraus and O’Laughlin reported the incident to Kankakee County State’s Attorney Edward Drolet. In a statement given the newspaper on September 11, Drolet said, “I was advised of the incident related in the Journal article. I have interviewed the key witnesses in the matter, including the sheriff. I’m meeting with the committee of the county board to request the hiring of help to further pursue the investigation. If the circumstances of the possession of the money described, joined with other facts prove that any offense has been committed by any person or persons, I will prosecute.”

The County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on September 12 to authorize Drolet to “hire special investigators to conduct the probe and conduct an audit of the sheriff’s accounts.” The county board’s action followed reading of a five-page typewritten statement submitted by Sheriff McNutt. In the statement, the sheriff described and responded to nine incidents about which McNutt said he had been questioned by Journal reporters during his tenure as sheriff.

McNutt wrote, “I feel that I have been unjustifiably criticized on the majority of these alleged incidents due to the fact that almost all of the criticism was based on hearsay and malicious gossip.” One of the incidents described was the finding of the sack of money in the jail basement. “I have no knowledge other than hearsay on this and have heard that only two people had actually seen it,” he said.

On September 24, 1961, the Journal stated, in a front-page editorial, “The exposure two weeks ago by the Journal of the finding of a mystery bag of money in the basement of the county sheriff’s home has had far-reaching consequences. The Journal article prompted the county board of supervisors to call on the state’s attorney to launch a full-fledged investigation and the sheriff to make a statement that only added fuel to the fire. The Journal has repeatedly pointed out to its readers and to public officials that serious vice exists in the county and city and has demanded action be taken to wipe it out.”

The editorial cited a number of articles over the preceding two years calling attention to houses of prostitution operating openly in the city and county, and to widespread examples of gambling equipment (slot machines, popularly referred to as “one-armed bandits”) in local taverns and restaurants.

The same issue of the newspaper in which the editorial appeared carried two articles related to the editorial’s concerns. One described a raid by city police on a West Avenue “pool hall” suspected of being a house of prostitution; the other was headlined, “Slot Machines Easy to Find, Play in Kankakee Area.”

On October 2, 1961, the newspaper informed its readers, “Perhaps the most important grand jury in Kankakee County in many years was empaneled this morning and charged with the responsibility of investigating alleged irregularities in the sheriff’s office.” Circuit Judge Victor Cardosi explained to the members of the grand jury that they would hear evidence and, if there is a probability a crime was committed, they would return an indictment. “No one may be tried for a crime except through you,” he declared. Proceedings of a grand jury are secret, and only its recommendations are made public.

During the month of October, the grand jury would hear testimony from more than fifty witnesses including state police officers, sheriff’s deputies, former county jail inmates, tavern operators, and County Sheriff Carl McNutt.

McNutt appeared before the jury on October 30, testifying for more than 90 minutes. The Journal reported that the sheriff had asked to testify before the grand jury “to explain the ‘greatly exaggerated’ money incident which touched off the investigation of his office.”

The grand jury completed its work on November 1, voting 13 “true bills” (indictments). The charges and names of the indicted individuals were not revealed, however —Judge Cardosi ordered the indictments suppressed (kept secret) until the named individuals were found and arrested.

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Jack Klasey is a former Journal reporter and a retired publishing executive. He can be contacted  at jwklasey@comcast.net.

Next Week: Arresting the Sheriff