Heart Surgeon Arrested in Wife's Slaying
The Kentucky Wizard
Associated Press Writer
December 19, 2002, 2:49 AM EST
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. -- Dr. Richard Illes was a suspect in his wife's death
almost from the beginning. The two were involved in bitter divorce
proceedings, including a custody battle over their young son. And police
said the prominent heart surgeon asked strange questions almost immediately
after Miriam Illes' body was found.
Four years after the murder, Illes was arrested Tuesday in Spokane, Wash.,
and charged with criminal homicide. A news conference was scheduled for
Friday morning.
Prosecutors said in court documents that materials found in Illes' home
matched both the .22-caliber rifle believed to have killed Miriam Illes and
the homemade silencer used to conceal the crime.
George Lepley Jr., Illes' attorney, said Wednesday that Illes "absolutely"
maintains his innocence, and that he would not challenge extradition. He
said there was no new evidence against his client.
Richard and Miriam Illes met in St. Louis, where he trained as a heart
surgeon and she operated a heart-lung machine, and later worked together at
Williamsport Hospital. But after their son was born in 1993, the marriage
had begun to sour. They separated, and court records show that by 1998 they
were involved in a bitter fight over money and custody of their young son.
Prosecutors said Illes picked up his son for a weekend visit Jan. 15, 1999.
Miriam Illes was on a long-distance telephone call with a friend that night
when a single bullet came through her kitchen window and pierced her heart.
She was found dead in her home two days later when she did not show up to
teach Sunday school.
Police found prints in the snow from Reebok basketball shoes, and a homemade
silencer was found near the back of the house.
Dropping off his son just hours after his wife's body was found, Illes asked
what evidence was found at the scene, prosecutors said. The boy was Illes'
alibi -- Illes said he was traveling on Route 15 toward his sister's home in
suburban Philadelphia at the time of the shooting -- but Illes refused to
allow his son to speak to police for some 20 months, insisting that a child
psychologist be present.
Letters arrived later at Lepley's office claiming that Illes was being
framed and that Mrs. Illes was killed because she was a racist, a charge her
friends deny. "The Lord has sent me to harvest the racist ones," read one
letter. But prosecutors discounted the letters as simply rehashing evidence
police had already presented to Illes.
Mrs. Illes' family offered a reward worth $250,000 -- some of it money from
the doctor that his wife won in the divorce settlement.
Searches of two homes and a cabin where Illes lived produced material that
matched the materials used to make the silencer.
In June 1999, a .22-caliber rifle -- fitted with a scope and with the serial
number erased -- was found in a rural area of Lycoming County, near Route
15, "the first remote area a person could quickly access, for discarding of
evidence, when traveling south away from ... Williamsport," prosecutors
said. The rifle matched one once owned by Illes' father.
Nine months later, a search in the same area turned up a pair of shoes with
fibers that matched those found in a vacuum cleaner at one of Illes' homes,
prosecutors said.
Reagan said Illes' son, now 9 years old, was placed in temporary foster
care.