Chad Schipper: Bunker Kidnapping, 60-Year Sentence, Jail Letters

Chad Schipper is a former Geneseo, Illinois financial advisor who, in February 2017, kidnapped a retired couple from his church at gunpoint, held them for roughly 48 hours in a soundproof underground bunker on his rural property, and tried to extort a $350,000 cashier’s check before one victim slipped a note to a bank teller. He pleaded guilty in 2018 and was sentenced in April 2019 to 60 years in prison.¹

The February 2017 Kidnapping

Shortly before 4 a.m. on February 7, 2017, Schipper broke into the Erie, Illinois home of Larry and Connie Van Oosten, a couple in their 60s. Armed with a gun, he forced them into the trunk of his car and drove about 20 miles to a property he owned in Geneseo.²

Schipper and the Van Oostens knew each other from church. Roughly three years earlier, he had tried to recruit them as clients of his financial advisory business, and they had turned him down.²

At the Geneseo property he locked them in a secret underground room he had built out with soundproofing, four surveillance cameras, a microphone, and an intercom. He kept the couple blindfolded and handcuffed, tasered them repeatedly, and when he spoke to them wore a mask and a voice distorter so they would not recognize him. He watched them from an upstairs room on a master video feed.²

How the Scheme Fell Apart

On the afternoon of February 8, Schipper drove the couple to the 1st Trust and Savings Bank in Albany, Illinois, and ordered Connie Van Oosten inside to obtain a $350,000 cashier’s check. He told her he would kill her husband if she failed. Inside the bank, she passed a handwritten note to a teller explaining that they were being held at gunpoint and needed help. The bank called police.²

Authorities were notified at 4:45 p.m. Investigators tied the cashier’s check to Schipper’s business and identified him as the suspect. When officers tried to stop him, he fled, and the high-speed chase ended when he crashed. He was arrested at the scene with non-life-threatening injuries and taken to a hospital in police custody.³ He confessed to the kidnapping shortly after the crash. Around 5 a.m. on February 9, 2017, police found the Van Oostens alive inside the underground room in Geneseo. Both were hospitalized.²

A Failing Business and Years of Theft

Schipper owned Schipper Financial Services LLC and presented himself as a successful advisor. He was in fact hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. After his arrest he told investigators he “felt desperate” and was “trying to buy time” to save his failing business.² The FBI described the abduction as financially motivated.³

The kidnapping was not his first crime against people who trusted him. In July 2017 his own parents, Marlyn and Linda Schipper, sued him in Whiteside County Court, alleging he had stolen $444,135.78 from them over four years while managing their investments, including closing a Principal annuity worth about $221,000 without their knowledge and opening a credit card in their names.⁴ The First Trust and Savings Bank in Erie separately filed to foreclose on an Erie property he owned to recover about $44,000 on a 2013 line of credit.⁵

According to reporting on the case, Schipper began planning the kidnapping around 2015, after the Van Oostens declined to let him manage their money. He saw them as a source of funds that could keep his business afloat.²

Charges, Plea, and 60-Year Sentence

Schipper was originally charged with 16 felonies in Whiteside County, including home invasion, eight counts of aggravated kidnapping, theft, two counts of armed violence, two counts of aggravated battery, and two counts of aggravated unlawful restraint. His bond was set at $1 million.³

On November 14, 2018, he pleaded guilty to three counts: aggravated kidnapping, aggravated kidnapping with a concealed identity, and home invasion with a dangerous weapon. The remaining 14 original counts were dismissed under the plea, along with four counts of harassing a witness that had been filed separately in June 2018.⁶

On April 3, 2019, Judge Stanley Steines sentenced Schipper to 60 years in prison. Because the victims were over 60, prosecutors were able to seek a sentencing enhancement. State’s Attorney Terry Costello had asked for the maximum and called Schipper “cold, calculating and dangerous.” Judge Steines called the crime one of the most heinous he had encountered, telling the courtroom: “Someone breaking into our home while we were asleep, with a mask and a firearm — that’s something that we only see in movies, not here in Whiteside County.”¹

The “Elouisa Mae” Letters From Jail

While awaiting sentencing in April 2018, Schipper wrote two letters to the Van Oostens posing as a fictional Southern woman named “Elouisa Mae,” who claimed to be a fellow kidnapping survivor. In the letters, the persona said she had forgiven her kidnapper and urged the Van Oostens to ask the judge for a lenient sentence for Schipper. Those letters produced the four witness-harassment charges that were later folded into his plea.⁶

Schipper sent letters using the same persona to his then-wife, Donielle Showvay, trying to get her to forgive him. Their daughter Grace later said those letters were what finally changed her view of him: “I think it was the Elouisa Mae letters actually that really sunk it in me that he was doing this and that he was not a good person.”⁷

Aftermath for the Victims

The Van Oostens gave victim impact statements at sentencing. Costello told the court: “They got a life sentence, no matter what you do with Chad Schipper today, the Van Oostens got a life sentence. They didn’t ask for it, they didn’t do anything to get it but they have it.”² Judge Steines acknowledged from the bench that no sentence could fully compensate them.¹

Aftermath for His Family

Schipper and Donielle had been married for 17 years and had six children when he was arrested. Police arrived at the family home in the middle of the night and broke down the front door. Grace, then 14, said she was “absolutely terrified” and thought the officers were intruders. When she learned the next day that her father had been arrested, she said, “I was sure they had the wrong person.” She later recalled that shortly before the kidnapping, her father had asked her to wrap a sledgehammer in black electrical tape in exchange for a treat, a task she did not understand until after his arrest.⁷

Donielle and all six children later changed their surname to “Showvay,” a name she coined by inverting the letters of her maiden name, Mohs, and joining it with a version of the French word “sauver,” meaning “to save.” Donielle and Schipper divorced, and in 2022 she married Billy Oliver, a high school sweetheart she reconnected with after the divorce; he also took the Showvay surname.⁸

Donielle’s parents, Tim and Karen Mohs, later described warning signs they had noticed about Schipper years before the kidnapping. He cheated openly at family board games, and when Karen confronted him, he told her: “Well, I believe that if you cheat and you can get away with it, it’s okay.” Tim called his former son-in-law charming but “phoney,” a person who performed for company. Donielle told her parents that once outsiders left the house, “a switch goes off and he’s totally different.”⁹

Where Chad Schipper Is Now

Schipper is incarcerated at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester, Illinois, serving his 60-year sentence. His projected parole date is January 30, 2068.² The case is the subject of the third episode of the ABC and Hulu docuseries Betrayal: Secrets & Lies, titled “The Bible Study Kidnapper,” which premiered on April 12, 2026, and features interviews with Donielle and Grace Showvay.¹⁰

1
Shaw Local News Network. Kidnapper Gets 60 Years for Terrorizing Erie Couple
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People. Where Is Chad Schipper Now
3
Chicago Sun-Times. Man Charged With Abducting Couple in Rural Illinois
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Shaw Local News Network. Parents of Accused Kidnapper Suing Him
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KWQC. Accused Kidnapper Faces Foreclosure and Financial Lawsuit
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Shaw Local News Network. Another Charge Filed Against Kidnapper
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People. Daughter of Man Who Held Couple Captive Recalls Police Breaking Down the Door
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AOL. Former In-Laws of Man Who Held Couple Captive Recall Early Red Flags
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People. Former In-Laws Recall Early Red Flag From Family Game Night
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People. Betrayal Secrets and Lies Bible Study Kidnapper Docuseries