Family troubles for boys found dead began in Algonquin
By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI - jduchnowski@nwherald.com
Local court records show that two missing boys found dead with their father Sunday witnessed strife between their parents when they lived in Algonquin a few years ago.
Duncan and Jack Connolly were 5 and 4, respectively, when their mother, Amy Leichtenberg, requested an order of protection July 13, 2005, only to ask a McHenry County judge to vacate it a week later. Leichtenberg wrote that her then-husband, Michael Connolly, had destroyed pictures and a plaster imprint of Duncan’s baby handprint during an argument.
Connolly previously had threatened to kill Leichtenberg and to “cut open” her and her parents if she ever took the boys from him, Leichtenberg said in McHenry County court records. He also asked her early in April 2006 to sign a letter giving him sole custody of the children if they ever divorced and threatened to destroy pictures if she didn’t make a videotape admitting to child abuse in July 2005.
McHenry County judges either banned Connolly from visiting the boys or allowed limited supervised visitation during that order of protection and others filed during divorce proceedings in 2006.
But McLean County Judge James Souk gave Connolly, 40, permission to take the boys without supervision in November 2008. Leichtenberg had moved to LeRoy, which is southeast of Bloomington, and filed for divorce in McLean County in April 2007 after dropping divorce proceedings in McHenry County about three months earlier. The divorce was finalized in November 2007 after 13 years of marriage.
A psychiatric report provided in McLean County Court indicated that Connolly was not a threat to himself or others but was depressed over the loss of his family.
Connolly did not return the boys March 8 after a weekend visit, and the three were found dead Sunday in rural Putnam County.
Connolly was found with a rope around his neck near a car containing his sons’ bodies, Lt. Jeff Elston, a McLean County investigator, said Tuesday. Authorities believe he killed Duncan, 9, and Jack, 7, but Elston declined to say how because their mother doesn’t want to know.
Since authorities found the bodies, Leichtenberg has lashed out at the court through a statement, and a supporter has started an online petition calling on Souk to resign.
“I feel the judicial system failed me,” Leichtenberg said. “I pray that the courts listen to the warnings from other parents like me.”
An order of protection in effect when the boys disappeared prohibited Connolly from having any contact with Leichtenberg, 39.
LeRoy police logged a total of 57 alleged violations that resulted in Connolly’s arrest in February 2008 for violating the court order. He was placed on 18 months of conditional discharge and ordered to complete domestic violence counseling.
McHenry County court records did not indicate that Connolly violated orders of protection here.
Rather, they show Leichtenberg took her sons and $90,000 from a home equity line of credit and left a note telling Connolly she was seeking a divorce in April 2006.
In a May 1, 2006, request for an order of protection, which was granted, she detailed instances when Connolly had threatened to kill her or himself. She said he had checked her incoming and outgoing cellular phone calls online and called people she had talked with since leaving him.
She also detailed previous instances when he had called her names in front of their sons, told the younger son he was going to find him a younger, pretty, nicer mommy, and asked his sons to call her “the neighborhood drunk.”
• The Associated Press contributed to this report
