SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Another defendant charged with theft and trafficking of native American artifacts in Southern Utah has been found dead from an apparent suicide in Illinois.
An official with the DeKalb County Illinois Sheriff's office told ABC 4 News 56-year-old Steven Shrader was found with a gunshot wound to the chest. He was flown to a hospital in Winnebago County Illinois where he was later pronounced dead. Police in the Village of Shabonna were responding to a call of a despondent man who had left a relative's home on foot. After a search using tracking dogs, Shrader was found behind a public school. Rescue crews tried to revive Shrader, who was flown to Rockford, Illinois where he was declared dead on arrival.
Police investigators have determined Shrader's death as a suicide. He was listed as a resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Shrader was scheduled to appear in a Salt Lake City federal court on Friday, and had not yet entered a plea in the artifacts case.
Shrader is the second defendant recently charged with native American artifact theft and trafficking out the southern Utah and the Four Corners area who has died from apparent suicide.
Blanding doctor James Redd was found dead on his property on June 11, 2009, the day after he and 19 other southern Utah residents were arrested over allegations that they had stolen and tried to sell native American artifacts from the Four Corners area. It is alleged that 23 defendants tried to sell some artifacts to undercover officers. Their indictments were announced at a press conference attended by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in Salt Lake City on June 10.
The investigation of the defendants in the archaeological thefts cases has drawn some criticism that law enforcement acted too harsh as the defendants were arrested. Utah Senators Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the arrests, suggesting the manner in which the defendants were taken into custody did not fit the severity of the alleged crimes.
