Springfield, IL  (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – 100 years in prison is the sentence handed down Friday afternoon to the man who was found guilty for the murder of a DCFS worker.

In August, Benjamin Reed was found guilty, but mentally ill, for the 2022 murder of Diedre Silas. Working as a child protection specialist with DCFS, Silas was investigating allegations of child abuse or neglect at a home in Thayer.  Evidence presented in the trial showed Reed grabbed Silas from behind, stabbed her, and then hit her with a sledgehammer at the residence before fleeing to Decatur, where he was later arrested.

A verdict of guilty, but mentally ill means that the defendant was suffering mental illness, but not insanity, at the time he committed the murder.

At sentencing, Circuit Judge John Madonia told Reed, “Whatever rehabilitative potential you had, you neglected, you ignored, and let it consume you – and it cost Ms. Silas her life.”

Reed will be held in a Department of Corrections facility and not a mental health facility. Reed has been receiving mental health treatment while awaiting sentencing and that will continue while he is incarcerated.