Missing St. Charles Man John Spira's Sister Hires Investigator to Assist in Search

Stephanie McNeil, brother of missing St. Charles resident John Spira, has hired a private detective to investigate his disappearance, according to a Kane County Chronicle report.

According to the report McNeil hired Matthew Hale, of the Naperville-based Illinois Investigative Solutions Inc., to look into his disappearance.

Since Spira's disappearance five years ago, McNeil has not given up hope in finding out what happened to her brother. to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to force the DuPage County Sheriff to open her missing brother's case file. McNeil, who grew up in Winnetka but now lives in Phoenix, first asked the DuPage County Sheriff's Department to share information about her brother's four-year-old case on April 4.

The department refused her request on the grounds that the records are still "part of an on-going investigative file."

Spira was 45 when he vanished in February 2007. He was last seen at the office of his cable construction company, where his parked car was later found. That business burned down five months after his disappearance. 

At the time of his disappearance, Spira, an accomplished blues musician who went by the stage name "Chicago Johnny," was in the midst of a tumultuous split from his wife, Suzanne Spira, McNeil said. He and his wife were living in the same home throughout their divorce proceedings and the domestic arrangement was "hellish," McNeil said.

McNeil, who believes her brother was murdered, returned to St. Charles earlier this year to put up missing posters with her brother's face on it to keep his name in the news.

McNeil has repeatedly voiced suspicions that both her brother's wife and his business partner, Dave Stubben, might know more about Spira's disappearance than they have admitted.

The wife died in October 2010 and the business partner who, according to police reports, made statements to detectives about John Spira racking up "massive debt" and speculated about his possibly skipping town, has passed up numerous opportunities over the last several months to discuss Spira's disappearance.