More than 26 years later, Jeff Formentini remembers the day his image of Carbondale was altered.

Formentini grew up and attended SIUC with Susan Schumake, a student that was raped and murdered on the east side of campus Aug. 17, 1981.

Schumake and marketing student Deborah Sheppard were killed less than eight months apart, and both cases went unsolved for more than 20 years before suspects were arrested and put on trial.

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Formentini, who said he was one of several friends who searched for Schumake the day after she went missing, said he recalls his perception of Carbondale changing in the time after her body was found. After growing up in Chicago Heights, Formentini said he expected Carbondale to be safer than his hometown.

“It makes you realize this doesn’t only happen in Chicago – it could happen in Carbondale, it could happen in Cobden, it could happen in the middle of nowhere. It changes your thinking,” he said.

Although he said the time elapsed has fogged his memory, Formentini said he thought students were more wary when walking around campus that year, especially near the trail where Schumake’s body was found.

The path, nicknamed the “Ho Chi Minh” trail, was popularly used by students traveling to and from the east side of campus, Formentini said. After Schumake’s murder, the university built the overpass between University Park and the Physical Plant above Illinois Rt. 51.

Juli Claussen, who was a student at the time of Schumake’s and Sheppard’s deaths, said she lobbied to have the bridge named after Schumake.

Claussen said that at the time of the killings she was a member of Carbondale’s Rape Action Committee, a group that counseled rape victims and attempted to educate the community on the subject. As a member of the committee, Claussen said she felt she was more acutely aware of the violence that occurred on campus.

“But we weren’t used to murders along with the sexual assaults – you can never get used to that,” Claussen said.

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The prevailing reaction after the killings, especially among young women, was fear, Claussen said.

“There was a lot of anger too among those of us who were young women on campus at the time – anger that we had to think all the time about where we’re going and looking over our shoulder having to always be so hyper-vigilant,” she said.

Joey Helleny, a lecturer in radio-television, said he was the news director at the WCIL radio station in the early 80s and reported on both killings. Helleny said he felt there was a loss of innocence on campus after the deaths of Schumake and Sheppard.

Before the killings, personal security was not a top priority for most students, Helleny said.

“We didn’t have that kind of violent crime, or at least we didn’t think we did,” he said.

Daily Egyptian reporter Joe Crawford can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 254 or [email protected].