STERLING – On a hot, muggy day on June 26, 2008, police made a gruesome discovery: They found the decomposing, badly beaten body of Russell Reed, 93, in the trunk of his 2003 Buick Century, which was parked in the driveway of a Sterling home.

Flies buzzing inside the car indicated that he had been in that trunk for a while, although Reed, who lived by himself in his farmhouse in western rural Sterling, had been reported missing just hours earlier.

The discovery of his body launched a massive manhunt for Nicholas T. Sheley, the man prosecutors say killed him and seven other people in Illinois and Missouri that week.