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Sheriff presents board with '07 annual report

JANESVILLE — Sheriff Bob Spoden told the county board Thursday night that 2007 started with a triple homicide and didn’t slow much after that.

Danyetta Lentz and her teenage children Nicole and Scott were found slain Jan. 12, 2007, in their home at Janesville Terrace, a mobile home park just south of Janesville. The suspect, James Koepp, was arrested and the detective bureau spent most of the three months of 2007 investigating the homicides, Spoden said.

The investigation continues today, he said.

In the fall of 2007, suspects were arrested after committing a rash of burglaries in the eastern portion of the county.

The department investigated three suspicious fires in 2007.

The summary was part of Spoden’s presentation of his 2007 annual report to the county board on Thursday night.

Other highlights in the report:

-- The office’s electronic bracelet monitoring program and other diversion programs have increased drastically. On Jan. 1, 2007, the day before Spoden took office, 12 inmates participated in the electronic bracelet program. By the end of the month, the average number of inmates on bracelets was 25. By the end of the year, it increased to 66.

Based on a daily cost of $64, the cost savings totaled $1.2 million in 2007.

-- The average daily jail population dropped to 581 inmates in 2007 from 588 in 2006. Since 1998, the jail’s lowest population was 446 inmates in 2002. The highest was 588. On Thursday, 509 inmates were housed in the jail. The jail’s rated capacity is 477 inmates.

-- One program initiated in 2007 was “Safe and Sober,” a proactive patrol aimed at reducing traffic accidents and preventing underage drinking associated with high school proms.

-- The sheriff’s office used three grants totaling $57,000 to increase patrols in 2007. Fatal crashes were at a five-year low of 13. The total number of people injured in traffic accidents was also at a five-year low and down 36 percent since 2003.

-- The sheriff’s office issued 648 citations to intoxicated drivers. That’s up from 444 in 2006. Since 2003, the number of intoxicated driver arrests was highest in 2004: 651 arrests.

-- Calls for service in 2007 were at a five-year high at 16,863.

-- Violent crimes in areas served by the sheriff’s office—parts of the county not covered by city, village or town police—were down to 38 from 44 in 2007. The triple homicide outside Janesville in early 2007 was the first homicide the sheriff’s office has responded to since before 2003, according to the report.

-- Property crime was up to 647 incidents from 585 in 2006. Spoden told the county board he expects the poor state of the economy will make that number increase.

-- Thirty-five percent of criminal offenses were solved in 2007; 65 percent were unsolved.

-- The department arrested 3,026 people in 2007 including 395 juveniles.