The Bully of Toulon

From our September 2002 issue: For years, a rough-hewn man named Curt Thompson threatened and intimidated his neighbors in the small farming community of Toulon, Illinois. Many complained about him, and a few filed charges, yet little was done, and residents learned to alter their lives to avoid him. Then one night, authorities say, a newcomer paid him a call, and the town’s worst fears came true

By Robert Kurson

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At the Stark County courthouse in Toulon, where Abraham Lincoln spoke in 1858, records of legal proceedings are still entered by hand in hefty leather diaries. Under the letter "T," going back more than 30 years, are myriad cases against Curt Thompson.

Some appear harmless enough: a dispute with an employer; traffic citations; failure to keep a dog's vaccination records current; violation of a litter ordinance. But others seem bonded by a common theme—vendetta.

For decades, Thompson maintained grudges against various Toulon residents. Anyone who had taken him to court, or who he perceived had complained about him or violated his sense of territory, made his enemies list, and it was a list often written in indelible ink. As town talk had it, those who angered Thompson might expect to live in constant fear.

"Fear" does not mean in Toulon what it means in Chicago. In Toulon, where most residents live a few blocks from each other and pass on the street several times a day, having an enemy virtually assures a meeting with him in public. When that enemy is Curt Thompson, an intelligent man with time on his hands who dedicated thought and energy to creating fear, it could ruin your life.

Thompson's modus operandi, at least in recent years, was predictable and intimidating. According to many, he would drive his pickup truck past the home of his foe, slow to a crawl, and glare. He might follow his enemy down the rural roads that led out of Toulon, or block him with his truck at intersections. Always, he would glare.

"He was a bully," says Jim Pearson, who worked as a Stark County deputy from 1982 to 1987, and who now works as a Peoria County sheriff's lieutenant. "The glaring, the following, the threatening—he even did it to elderly people."

"Everyone knew about his temper," says one of Thompson's neighbors, who asked that his name be withheld. "He held a grudge. If someone bothered him, he'd bother them back, and he'd stay at it. I told Curt, 'I don't hold grudges.' He said, 'Well, I do.'"

Early on, Toulon evolved a defense against Thompson that seemed to run counter to its instinct to unify against threats. Whereas the town would mobilize to save a school or care for a sick child, it largely decided to ignore Thompson, to maintain a safe distance, to cross to the other side of the street.

"People talked about Thompson being crazy," says Art Mott, who has lived in Toulon for ten years. "The thinking was to stay away from him."

"It was a small-town mentality," says another Toulon resident. "People thought: Nothing major is going to happen; he's just crazy; ignore him; he's been harassing people for years, so just ignore him."

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No one remembers any formative incident in Thompson's life that might explain the roots of his temper. Rather, it appears that his encyclopedia of grudges grew out of his particular notions about territory. "He wouldn't have a problem with a stranger on the street," says one person who knew Thompson. "But if your trash blew onto his lawn, he'd have a big problem with that. Personal space was a big issue with him."

Unlike most bullies, Thompson targeted more than the weak. Sheriffs, politicians, even black belts in karate qualified for vendetta if they managed to wrong Thompson.

In 1984, Toulon's mayor, Rick Collins, followed up on a citizen's complaint against one of Thompson's dogs. "That started Curt's grudge against me," says Collins, now a commercial pilot for a major airline. The next year, he and Thompson attended a retirement party for a bus driver at a restaurant just outside Toulon.

"I nodded across the table, a friendly hello," Collins says. "He glared. Later, as I was leaving, Curt came up behind me, threatening me with all kinds of profanities. I ignored it. He struck me a couple blows to the head, then pushed me down a small flight of stairs. I hit the bottom on my hands and knees, but just got up and kept going. Had I gone after him, the only way the confrontation would have ended would have been death or jail." Neither the Toulon city policeman nor the Stark County sheriff, Collins says, was interested in pursuing the matter, claiming it to be outside their jurisdictions.

In 1980, Thompson had a run-in with Kenneth Richardson, then the Toulon city policeman. Thompson and Richardson owned adjoining properties. While working outside, Thompson and Richardson began to argue about the property line. A struggle ensued, during which Richardson managed to get atop Thompson and hold him down.

"I had gone to take a bottle of pop to my husband," recalls Sandra Richardson, Kenneth's wife. "When Curt saw me, he yelled to his son, 'She's going to hit me with that bottle! Get her or I'll get you!'" She alleged in a lawsuit that Thompson's son, a football player, ran and tackled her and broke her wrist in six places.

The Richardsons filed two lawsuits. The first, by Kenneth, claimed that Thompson had punched him, and had been "verbally abusive, hostile and obscene" for weeks before the incident. The second was filed by Sandra against Thompson's son, Curtis Jr.

"After that," Sandra says, "Curt would set at the stop sign at the end of our driveway and glare."

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One law enforcement official who seemed willing to confront Thompson was Kenneth "Buck" Dison, the Stark County sheriff from 1970 to 1982. For nearly 30 years—well into Dison's old age and retirement—Thompson maintained a feud with the sheriff.

No one knows for certain the origins of the dispute. Court records show that Dison arrested Thompson in 1971 after Thompson allegedly threatened a man at a Toulon feed store. It didn't take long, according to many, for the feud to blaze.

"Curt would come after Dad every time he saw him," says Kathy Ptasnik, Dison's daughter. "He backed up his truck and glared into the house when my parents were socializing. He'd follow Dad and flip him the finger. Dad was afraid of Curt having revenge. He told us never to walk past his house." Even among her siblings, Ptasnik says, the instinct was to turn away from Thompson. "My brother and I begged Dad to ignore him," she says.

"Dison didn't take any shit," says Collins, the former mayor. "He wasn't afraid to stand up to Curt." Others say Dison gave as good as he got. "After Buck had retired, I saw him flip Curt the bird when Curt was just minding his own business," says a friend of Thompson's who asked to remain anonymous.

In 1987, Thompson pulled his pickup in front of Dison's car on a rural road, blocking the former sheriff. Thompson got out of his truck and approached Dison's car. The two men argued and, Dison claimed, Thompson threatened him (Dison was 68 years old at the time; Thompson was 46). Thompson was charged with reckless driving and disorderly conduct.

At trial in the plain white courthouse on Main Street, Thompson testified that Dison had been harassing his family. He stopped the former sheriff, he said, to warn him against bothering his family. "I told him, 'You fucking old man, you pull it again, and I'm coming after you.'" When asked if he always stopped those he was angry with on a public road, Thompson testified, "It depends on where they are."

The jury convicted Thompson on both charges. He was fined $150 and sentenced to 21 days in jail. The disorderly conduct verdict, however, was reversed by the Third District appellate court, which reasoned that the trial judge had improperly excluded testimony about the long-running feud between Dison and Thompson and his family.

Seven years later, in 1994, Dison claimed that Thompson approached his car in the parking lot of the local grocery and threatened him. This time, Thompson was charged with aggravated assault and disorderly conduct. At trial, he denied leaving his truck, but acknowledged the gist of the remarks. "I told him to go on in the store or I'd bury his ass," Thompson told the court. In arguments before the judge, prosecutor James Owens called Thompson "a street thug" and "a schoolyard bully who never left the schoolyard." Thompson was convicted of disorderly conduct, but not the more serious charge of aggravated assault. He was sentenced to a year of probation, $111 in court costs, and 100 hours of community service.

"Up until the end of Dad's life, Curt harassed him," Ptasnik says. "Dad was an old man in very poor health. He used a walker! And Curt would still pull up beside him and give him that glare. [Dad] was so upset that nothing could be done about Curt, but not just for himself. He was convinced Curt could kill someone."

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The Richardson "pop bottle" cases lay dormant for four years before being dismissed for lack of pursuit by the plaintiffs. "I think they dropped it because the judge was retiring," Sandra says. "No one was interested in pursuing it."

The idea of "not pursuing it" became central to Toulon's approach to dealing with Thompson. A few, like the Richardsons, filed charges and took Thompson to court. Many more opted to ignore him.

"People would come in and complain," says Pearson, the former deputy. "They would tell me about the intimidation. But almost no one would file charges. They just put up with him for the most part. The thinking was to ignore him, and hopefully things would get better."

"I think people rationalized that the problem wasn't severe enough to justify the effort required to resolve it," says Jim Nowlan, editor of the Stark County News, a weekly newspaper. "I might have been guilty of it myself."

Nowlan and others in Toulon tell of hearing several years ago that the Toulon City Council did not intend to enforce a litter ordinance against Thompson. "That infuriated me," Nowlan says. "I thought the whole town should go over there at once and confront Thompson. I thought we should be united. But my passion cooled and I ultimately forgot about it, and that was probably pretty typical."

Some suggest, too, that law enforcement was afraid of Thompson.

"The various police from the town and county over the years, not all of them, but some, have been fearful of Thompson," Nowlan says. "Not in terms of the old-fashioned fistfight, but for fear of an extremely violent reaction."

Pearson has another take. "We were in a tough situation," he says of law enforcement. "It's not against the law to drive your car down a public road or an alley and glare at someone. When [Thompson] did something more serious and someone was willing to file charges, action was taken by the police. But most people chose just to ignore him."

And the few in Toulon who were willing to file charges were the people Thompson was on his way to see after he allegedly killed Deputy Streicher.

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