Though a year has passed since English professor Bill Feltt was attacked by a group of men on campus, the University Police Department is still no closer to finding his assailants.

“There is so much I just don’t know,” Feltt said. “It’s difficult for me to speculate … maybe they didn’t feel it was important enough.”

While the incident occurred Aug.27, 2002, the UPD seemingly “dropped or pushed aside” the case in the spring, Feltt said.

Feltt was attacked at 1:50 a.m. as he was leaving the Gregg Triad. He was hospitalized at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center and Good Samritan Hospital in Vinceness, Ind. for a brain hemmorage, a skull fracture and a sinus infection.

But police Chief Adam Due said the UPD is still investigating.

Feltt said he cannot remember the last time the UPD contacted him.

“Any information I got from them I had to make an effort to get, except for at the very first,” he said. “Adam Due was not very forthcoming on giving information.”

Due said he cannot remember exactly when the investigating officers spoke to Feltt last, but he estimates it was sometime last semester.

He said the UPD has “exhausted all leads” and “can’t keep going over the same thing when there is nothing new to it.”

“I don’t know what information he may have wanted, but there is some information we can share and some we cannot,” Due said.

Unless there is a need to, the UPD will not share all information about a suspect they are in search of.

A sketch was done of one of Feltt’s attackers weeks after the incident. One or two individuals beat Feltt, but were surrounded by eight to 10 others.

“I still have questions for the police department,” Feltt said. “My biggest question is why they waited or never ever pursued a sketch artist of the suspect until I instigated it.”

After a while, “the memory is a little soft. It would have made sense to do within the first days or even weeks,” Feltt said.

Due said he is unsure if Feltt is the person who suggested the sketch artist because Due was not the officer involved.

“The state police did the sketch and, time frame wise, it’s not necessarily up to us,” Due said.

But the reason to wait on a possible sketch is because there is sometimes not enough information to make an accurate depiction, Due said.

“The description he gave was very vague and fit the majority of the population here,” Due said.

After the sketch was done, some members of the public said “it can be anyone” and the UPD received zero leads from the sketch, Due said.

After the attack occurred, the UPD put out the information to get people to come forward, and asked students to report if they saw or knew of anyone or group involved, Due said. The UPD interviewed Feltt and took a statement so a state police sketch artist could create a sketch, directed by Feltt.

“At one point, when I was in contact with them, they told me there were suspects in Champaign; U of I students,” Feltt said.

The UPD tried to find anyone from campus visiting and, at one point, supposed the group that attacked him was from Champaign, Due said.

Feltt looked at some photographs, but the UPD “said suspects were not being cooperative, but I don’t know why they weren’t compelled to (do so); what were they hiding?”

The UPD pursued the group, but Due said “nothing came of that; we don’t believe they were involved.”

Feltt said the UPD worked with the Champaign Police Department, but never talked to them.

Feltt said he doesn’t know what other resources may have been helpful, but the UPD was not enough.The state police was involved with the sketch only.

“I don’t think they (UPD) did a thorough investigation of the scene. They claim they never found evidence at the scene. I find it hard to believe.”

Feltt said he lost a lot of blood and lost teeth as well.

“I’m a little resentful. Adam Due told the DEN (last year) there were inconsistencies in the report, but my story never changed. Ever.

“If he was referring to (the fact) there was no evidence at the scene, then they didn’t look hard enough,” Feltt said.

Feltt said he walked the UPD to the scene. Feltt said even if he had been mistaken of the exact location, the crime took place within a “30 yard square area, maybe not even that big, maybe 10.”

He said the incident happened on the southwest corner of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union, near the food court.

Due said Feltt had gone back to his apartment after the attack and someone called the UPD, saying it is possible the attack could have caused Feltt problems with his memory.

“The location he gave didn’t really fit with the scenario he gave,” Due said. “There should have been some physical evidence there.”

Due said even Feltt admitted he was not sure if the incident took place at that location.

“There should have been more physical evidence there … we just don’t think it happened there,” Due said.

Feltt said the UPD interviewed him a number of times in the hospital, but some of the evidence was lost or never collected. The clothes cut off of Feltt as well as his shoes were lost.

“I don’t know if it would have done any good to have that stuff, but I don’t think it’s good to lose possible evidence,” Feltt said.

“The English department was fantastic as far as the way they treated me,” Feltt said. Colleagues came to visit him and brought plenty of reading material. “The psychology department had a fund set up for me and made a substantial contribution.”

Students and private individuals also made contributions.

“Even a local artist painted a picture of me and gave it to me”

“As far as administration, I never heard a word from them.”

Dana Ringuette, chair of the English department, helped out with things Feltt was not able to do himself.

Feltt missed almost a month to the day of his classes, and colleagues covered for him. Three instructors took a course each. Feltt already set up the syllabus for the classes, but said it is difficult to teach someone else’s class regardless.

“I wasn’t ready to come back to work, but I had to come back to work,” he said.

Feltt said he also had to return for financial reasons.

“It changed my life, not all for the bad. It taught me the true value of life and living, but caused scarring emotionally and physically.

“It’s no fun being a victim.”

Now, a year after the attack, Feltt said he is “busy, but good. Things are going well,” he said.

As far as teaching, Feltt said his reasons for teaching and style haven’t really changed.

However, he said, “I distrust strangers a little more than before. And I have flashbacks of the incident.”

“I definitely have not been on campus late this semester,” Feltt said. “Possibly the latest I stay is nine, but there is still a bit of activity going on.”

“Don’t walk around by yourself, stay with a group or something,” Feltt advises students. “If it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody.”

Due said it is more unlikely to catch the assailants as time goes by.

He said the UPD followed up leads they had, but there is no new information to work with.

“The case is not closed by any means, but it’s not something we can follow up without any leads,” he said. “We’ve followed up as much as we could and that’s as far as we can go with it.

“I don’t remember what the reward was that was offered, but we were really hoping someone would come forward because of that, if not because it is the right thing to do.”

Now, more than a year after the attack, “we hope one of them might come forward,” Due said. “The story kind of changes to the public. Hopefully people might be able to put it together, but you don’t know.”

Due said the subject continues to be brought up in the news, for example, and hopefully people will see it.

The UPD can only wait for more information to be brought forward “until someone finally decides to start bragging,” Due said.

He is hopeful someone may come forward with information even just to say “Hey, we were there, but we weren’t involved.”

The UPD advises anyone with information of the incident to come forward.

Feltt said the university needs to get police officers out of cars and out on foot.

“It’s crazy to think a campus this small needs police officers cruising and not on foot,” Feltt said. “And if they do that, it’s news to me.”

Campus Editor Jennifer Chiariello can be reached at [email protected].