O’FALLON, Ill. – After a family in O’Fallon, Ill., experienced random property damage several times last summer, police have worked their way to the bottom of the case.
Around 4:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning last July, victims were left terrified after their pool had motor oil in it and their windows were broken from landscaping blocks.
“My 9-year-old cried herself to sleep on night one and was worried they were going to come back and light the house on fire,” Suzanne Gibson, homeowner, said last summer.
She and her husband live in the home with their two children.
“It’s not just like somebody’s mailbox got smashed or something along those lines,” Lt. Patrick Feldrake said. “This was very extensive and elaborate—the damage to the pool, then throwing landscaping bricks through the home—that’s potentially a very dangerous kind of situation, too.”
Investigators were puzzled by the case. Then, two weeks later, the Gibson’s were targeted again.
This time, Suzanne’s car tire was slashed outside of Skyzone Trampoline Park in Fairview Heights.
A truck was shown on surveillance video parked in front of Gibson’s vehicle at the Skyzone as she, her son, and his friends were inside the trampoline park.
Police eventually traced the truck to Ryan Martin, 36, of Ballwin. He was charged with multiple counts of criminal property damage and stalking.
In a plea deal, Martin was sentenced to 30 months of probation and ordered to pay nearly $44,000 in restitution for damage to the Gibson home and pool.
Records show that he’d been sentenced to prison twice in Missouri in the past for offenses ranging from forgery to assaulting police.
Still, there was no known connection between him and the victims.
“There ended up being 11 search warrants issued and executed during the course of this investigation… more than 40 reports being typed, just a bunch of different leads, a bunch of different angles guys were trying to track, to try and figure out who did it,” Lt. Feldrake said.
In the end, all the searching paid off.
Fox 2 News obtained police documents through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Joni Burke, 32, was a disgruntled parent and former volunteer coach in a youth sports program that was operated by the Gibson’s. She is also the former girlfriend of Martin, whom she had been texting hours before the pool vandalism and later deleted the message thread.
Burke has been charged with felony destruction of evidence in the case.
