Dead 911 Dispatcher's Parents Still Kept In Dark

CHANNAHON, IL - Tuesday marks the one-month anniversary since the parents of a 23-year-old Will County 911 dispatcher were told Samantha Harer died from a gunshot to her head. The shot was fired inside Harer's Channahon apartment.

Harer's 33-year-old boyfriend, Felipe "Phil" Flores — a troubled police officer employed by the Crest Hill Police Department — was inside the apartment at the time. On the same day Channahon Police broke the tragic news of their former police department intern's death to Harer's parents, Kevin and Heather Harer, Crest Hill Police Chief Ed Clark was also hard at work 19 miles away.

He was writing a memo directed to Flores, who has worked for Crest Hill since 2012.

"You are hereby placed on Administrative Leave," Chief Clark's Feb. 13 memo states.

The letter instructs Flores to turn in his police credentials.

"In addition," it goes on, "you are ordered not to discuss this investigation with anyone, with the exception of your union representation, personal attorney and or investigators assigned to the death investigation of Samantha Harer in Channahon, IL."

On Friday, Joliet Patch obtained Flores' employee personnel file as part of a Freedom of Information Act request made to the city of Crest Hill in February.

SUSPENDED IN 2017

On Jan. 19, 2017, then-interim chief Clark notified Flores he was "hereby suspended for a period of 30 days without pay" based on performance, conduct and violation of federal, state, local or administrative laws, rules or regulations.

The chief's letter noted Flores had brought "discredit to this department" based on the events that occurred on or about March 4-5, 2016, that resulted in an investigation by Illinois State Police District 5.

"Officer Felipe Flores ... consumed alcohol to the point of intoxication, as witnessed by members of the public. Flores also was a known Crest Hill Police Department Officer. Officer Flores operated a motor vehicle while purportedly under the influence of alcohol which brings discredit to the Department.

"Officer Felipe Flores also put himself in a position in which a criminal accusation was alleged against him. Alcohol intoxication may have played a role in this compromising circumstance. This brings heavy discredit on the Crest Hill Police Department," Clark wrote.

The "criminal accusation" at the center of Flores' 30-day unpaid suspension from last year was an allegation of rape. The initial reports were taken at the Crest Hill Police Department by then-Deputy Chief Clark as well as Sgt. Joe Pesavento. Last month, former Crest Hill resident Kristen Kurtz gave Patch permission to publish her name regarding the rape allegation she lodged against the Crest Hill officer in 2016. She was 30 years old at the time. She also obtained a protection order against Flores because she knew he was a Crest Hill cop and feared retaliation. Police reports indicate she had been a friend of Flores's for a couple years, but the two never dated or had a romantic relationship.

On the night in question, Flores and Kurtz bumped into each other at Bobbie's Tap in Joliet. After she left with a friend, Flores decided to follow her home to make sure she made it there safely, Crest Hill police reports note. Two of her other friends, both from Tennessee, were sleeping downstairs.

"Kristen M. Kurtz stated once she was home she passed out in her bed and awoke sometime later to find a male, later identified as Phillip Flores, sexually assaulting, laying on top of her," Sgt. Pesavento's March 5, 2016 report states.

Next, "Kurtz related that when she first woke up, she was still 'groggy,' and at first thought it was a dream ... but then realized that it was not a dream, that it was Phillip Flores and told him to get off of her, that she told him 'no,' that he was not going to do this to her."

For moral support and to vouch for her credibility, a Joliet Police Department sergeant and relative of Kurtz accompanied her to the Crest Hill Police Department for her interview. He had told her she needed to report the incident to Crest Hill Police.

Two days later, on March 7, 2016, then-chief Dwayne Wilkerson of Crest Hill reached out to his colleagues at the Illinois State Police on Route 53. "We are requesting your assistance regarding a criminal investigation where the alleged suspect of this investigation is an officer Felipe Flores with the Crest Hill Police Department," he wrote to Master Sergeant Jeff Padilla. "We have taken the initial report and will turn over all information to you and your investigators ... Thank you in advance for your assistances (sic) in this manner."

NO CHARGES

In the end, the Illinois State Police District 5 chose not to have the Crest Hill patrol officer arrested or charged with any crimes. After his one month of unpaid suspension concluded last year, Flores returned to the Crest Hill police force where he now makes about $83,000 annually plus another $4,400 in holiday pay and longevity compensation as part of his wage schedule as a six-year officer.

The fact that Flores was never charged with a crime after the rape allegation makes the parents of Samantha Harer cringe. They have a genuine fear that a Will County police cover-up might be brewing regarding the death of their 23-year-old daughter.

According to Kevin and Heather Harer, their daughter's romance with Flores was stormy. After their daughter's funeral, several coworkers from Wescom told them that they thought the two were on the outs.

TATTOO PARLOR APPOINTMENT

Last week, after retrieving their daughter's belongings, her parents discovered that Samantha Harer had scheduled an appointment for 3 p.m. Feb. 13 at the Native Rituals tattoo parlor in Midlothian. She already made a $100 advanced deposit for the continued tattoo work on her arm, they noted.

Instead, Flores alerted the authorities in Channahon shortly after 8 a.m. Feb. 13 that he found his girlfriend gravely wounded from a self-inflicted gunshot to her head, according to her parents.

Now, a month later, Harer's parents still have no official cause or manner of death from the Will County Coroner's Office of Patrick O'Neil. Flores remains on indefinite paid suspension from Crest Hill.

Flores and Samantha Harer started dating last May. They took a vacation to Arizona last September. Her parents say they have met Flores at least a dozen times. However, Flores was a no-show at her funeral service at the Fred C. Dames Funeral Home at Black and Essington Roads, her parents told Joliet Patch. Additionally, at no time since their daughter's Feb. 13 death has Flores called them or stopped by to speak with them and offer consolation, they said.

'THIS IS DREW PETERSON LAND'

Kevin and Heather Harer say they can only hope the Channahon Police Department and the Will County-Grundy County Major Crimes Task Force are working hard on their daughter's behalf to make sure they have a rock-solid case for Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow.

On the other hand, they fear the prospect of a Will County police cover up, given the county's long-standing issues with police and judicial corruption.

"We are hoping that the police are on this, working hard, but it is Will County. This is Drew Peterson land," Harer's mother said last week. "None of us in this county have forgotten that."

In 2004, when long-time Bolingbrook Police Officer Drew Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, died under suspicious circumstances inside her house in Bolingbrook, Peterson was given the benefit of the doubt by the Illinois State Police — the same agency that did not arrest Flores in 2016, even though he was accused of raping a sleeping woman.

In 2007, Drew Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, vanished. Savio's death investigation was then reopened, her body exhumed and, ultimately, her death reclassified as a homicide. In 2012, Glasgow successfully prosecuted Drew Peterson for Savio's premeditated murder.

RELATED: Stacy Peterson Still Missing 10 Years Later: Ferak Column

Last October marked the 10-year anniversary of Stacy's disappearance. She has never been found.

"It was a black mark on the Bolingbrook Police Department," Heather Harer said. "Even though there are probably excellent officers there, but, come on, the Bolingbrook Police Department will never be able to live that down. It makes them look bad."

NO HISTORY OF DEPRESSION

Samantha Harer's mother is a public librarian in Channahon and her father is a carpenter in Romeoville. They had a close relationship with their only child, a 2016 criminal justice degree graduate from Joliet's University of St. Francis.

They were shocked that Channahon's Police Department worked off the premise that their daughter shot herself in the head when she had no history of depression or suicidal tendencies.

Plus, no suicide note was left behind.

Furthermore, at the time of her violent death, Samantha cared for a stray cat the Plainfield Police Department rescued last fall and brought to the Wescom dispatch center. She was regarded as one of her 911 center's most dependable and loyal workers.

"I think they thought we were just going to sit, sit and hope for the best; and that is not going to happen," Heather Harer said. "No, it's not. We are going to fight for justice for her, our girl.

"We're all still in a fog," she added. "Why isn't it being taken more seriously?"

Channahon's Deputy Chief of Police Adam Bogart told Patch on Thursday that it's a joint investigation at this stage, involving his police department and the Will County-Grundy County Major Crimes Task Force. He said the death investigation continues to be worked on and in fact, police conducted another interview earlier that day.

Bogart said that police are also awaiting some laboratory testing results. For now, there has been no determination made on the case, homicide or suicide, he indicated.

The fact that Harer died from a single gunshot to her head should be an obvious red flag that even the most inexperienced detectives should notice, her parents say.

"As far as a gunshot to the head, women don't kill themselves that way. They put their cars in their garage, they buy poison, slit their wrists in their bath tub, but women don't shoot themselves in the head. They just don't do it," Heather Harer said.

"And no suicide note. We were like the Three Musketeers. It was just the three us in our family. If she would have decided to take her own life, she would have left a suicide note, a written note. Samantha had a lot going on. She was a tough cookie. This is something that Samantha did not do to herself."

Patch asked Heather Harer if she had a message for the police detectives currently assigned to her daughter's case, as well as to the Will County State's Attorney's Office.
"It's not going to be another Drew Peterson because Will County can't take another one of these," she said.

Still, Heather Harer has not given up hope the police investigators assigned to Samantha's death investigation are giving it their all.

"Everyone is praying that's what they are doing," she said. "OK, maybe we haven't heard anything out of them because that means they are building a really good case against this Crest Hill officer and they don't want to be known as the officers that cover up for the bad, because there's plenty of good officers here in Will County. There are some really, really, good ones that give a darn about their community, and they take their job seriously, they really do."

When asked if she's heard from Flores since her daughter's death, Heather Harer said, "not a peep. (And) I really don't want to. As far as keeping him suspended with pay ... we don't know anything what's going on with him. We don't know any of that."

RELATED COVERAGE: Channahon 911 Dispatcher's Parents Believe She Was Murdered

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She still can't be believe that Kristen Kurtz's 2016 rape allegation was brushed aside to the point where he still stayed on the Crest Hill Police Department, similar to what happened with Drew Peterson in Bolingbrook after Savio's death was not classified as a homicide back in 2004.

"Why do you have him? This is a black eye on your police force," she said.

"We know that we can't bring my Samantha back, but we can bring justice to my girl. We can get a bad cop off the street."