Arrest made in Carrick case

From the Saturday, July 19, 2008 edition of the Northwest Herald:

Arrest made in Carrick case
By DIANA SROKA - dsroka@nwherald.com
and JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI - jduchnowski@nwherald.com

WOODSTOCK – A former employee at Val’s Foods, the grocery store where Johnsburg High School senior Brian Carrick last was seen in December 2002, was taken into custody Friday in connection with the disappearance.

Robert Render, 22, was arrested on a charge of concealing a homicidal death in the Carrick case. Render is being held in McHenry County Jail on $40,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in bond court this morning.

McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi said Friday that he was confident that the case was a homicide even though authorities had not found a body.

“We are going to continue until this case is solved,” Bianchi said.

He credited the arrest to a lead followed by State’s Attorney’s Chief Investigator Ron Salgado, Johnsburg police and the FBI.

“Chief [Ken Rydberg] said ‘I won’t rest until this case is solved.’ He inspired us to work on it with him,” Bianchi said of the Johnsburg’s police chief, who publicly has pledged his dedication to the case.

Rydberg could not be reached for comment Friday evening.

Carrick’s disappearance remains one of the area’s biggest unsolved mysteries. The 17-year-old boy last was seen about 6:45 p.m. Dec. 20,

2002, walking into the grocery store across the street from his house where he had worked as a stock boy for about three years.

His phone never was used after that, and his blood was found in a produce cooler and in boxes from a trash compactor at the store.

The family, which includes his 13 siblings, conducted a memorial Mass at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church about a year after the disappearance, and police continued to investigate the case as the flow of leads dwindled.

Then, last year, authorities charged Mario Casciaro, now 25, of McHenry with eight counts of perjury. Casciaro also worked at Val’s Foods.

Casciaro allegedly told another man, Alan Lippert, that Brian Carrick’s body was dismembered and thrown into a river in Iowa, among other statements.

But when asked before a grand jury in February 2007 whether he made that claim to Lippert, Casciaro denied it.

Casciaro also denied telling Lippert that he “directed Shane Lamb to scare Brian Carrick, and things got out of hand.”

Lamb, 24, was released from Taylorville Correctional Center on parole April 30 after serving about two years for an aggravated battery that occurred in DeKalb County, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.

Prosecutors have revealed that they have audio recordings of conversations between Lippert and Casciaro that were made without Casciaro’s knowledge, although the full transcripts have not been made public.

Casciaro was released on $50,000 bond June 19, 2007, about eight days after his arrest. His case next is expected in court Aug. 26.

Concealing a homicidal death is a Class 3 felony punishable by two to five years in prison.

– Northwest Herald reporters Jim Butts and Sarah Sutschek contributed to this report.