Christopher T. Laird
RICHLAND CO. – A man known for his fits of violence over the years in Richland County – as well as, at one point, reported as being the last person to see a particular Olney woman alive – has been hemmed up again, this time on a misdemeanor.
Christopher T. Laird, 36, known locally as “Taz” due to his explosive temper and propensity to act on it, was arrested and charged after a May 7 report of Unlawful Violation of an Order of Protection.
Laird, who’s residing in Olney when he’s between stints in Illinois Department of Corrections, was cited and arrested on May 7 when it was alleged that he was at 224 S. East Street in the presence of Tiffany Woods, a protected person.
Woods is the one who took out the OP on Laird this past November, shortly before Laird was arrested and charged with Aggravated Fleeing Causing Bodily Injury, and Accident Involving Injury or Death, both Class 4 felonies and both enough to ship him back off to prison, from which he was paroled back in March of 2017.
Laird’s frequent outings into the public from behind bars usually last about 6 months, so on this one, he actually got 7 out of it before landing back in trouble.
Why he continues to be allowed to offend is probably best and most easily answered in the number of significant drug arrests that accompany his 6 or 7 months of freedom before he screws up so irretrievably that authorities have no choice but to send him back, as even IDOC has rules they must abide by, even if those aren’t the same rules that govern counties.
In the case of Laird, both the November 2017 felonies have been dismissed, this occurring in March of this year and with no explanation; he didn’t even have that much bond to post to pay fines and fees on his other outstanding cases in Richland, one of which is a juvenile felony with restitution ordered dating back to 1996.
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Between March 16 and the date of filing of the OP violation, Taz kept a low profile, which becomes an impossible feat after a couple of months, and so on May 7 came that cutoff time for getting in trouble, which happened, and he’s still locked up in Andy’s House of U-Been-Bad, aka Richland County Jail on a DOC hold…meaning that this charge will probably be dismissed too, soon as authorities get what they need for more arrests out of Taz.
Taz Laird was said to have been one of the last people to see Jaimee Rupe alive in early 2004 when the woman, suffering from unaddressed psychoses, went to the courtroom in Richland County trying to relate her mental problems to Judge Larry Dunn. As is commonly the situation, because she didn’t have an open case, Dunn couldn’t do anything to help her and had a full courtroom, so he had to basically have her removed.
She went back to her trailer, and no one saw her for several days. When the family – in California – asked for a welfare check, she was found dead on her bed with her head hanging off the side, black from the neck up as if she’d been strangled, then left in that position. But most tragic about it was the fact that her two-year-old son’s body was found nearby; he had died of dehydration and starvation, having attempted to nurse off his mother’s body in his final hours.
While Dunn was unfairly blamed for Rupe’s death, the real horror came when there was literally no investigation done into it, the body was cremated, and never analyzed for signs of strangulation, drug use, or any other such cause of death, and no one in her limited circle (which included Laird) was interviewed, leaving Rupe’s death one of many in Richland County completely unresolved and having occurred under strange circumstances (others over the years have also included Ed Hataway in 2012 and Joe Galyean in 2014).
Laird may or may not know what happened with Rupe, but if he does, he hasn’t dished it in the ensuing 14 years, apparently keeping to the nark realm when running his mouth instead of insisting an unresolved death be resolved.
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