MONROE — It’s been one week since the Green County Sheriff’s Office was notified that Melissa Ann Trumpy was missing and her whereabouts remain unknown.  

Trumpy, age 37, is a white female, 5-foot-10 in height and weighs approximately 163 pounds. She has blue eyes, long blonde hair and a number of facial piercings.

Green County Sheriff’s Office personnel have been actively involved in the investigation ever since, said Sheriff Jeff Skatrud in a press release Nov. 3. Deputies have physically searched a number of properties where Trumpy has known to frequent. 

Deputies and detectives have interviewed a number of local residents who knew and had contact with Melissa prior to her disappearance. A search warrant was executed at her rural Monticello home. Search warrants and subpoenas have been requested for telephone, social media and financial records in an effort to find any activity that could give clues to her current location. 

Detectives have reviewed surveillance video from multiple locations in Green County. Patrol deputies continuously search rural areas that are accessible to them and personnel have been assigned to travel to Carroll County and Stephenson County, Illinois to assist authorities in those jurisdictions that are searching for any information that could help in locating Trumpy. 

“Our agency has and will continue to target our resources toward areas that have the best chance of locating Melissa,” Skatrud said. 

There have been large scale search parties in Carroll County and Stephenson Counties in Illinois and the investigation has focused on those areas. 

“To leave no stone unturned, we would ask Green County residents that own rural properties, particularly from Monroe to the south to check their properties for anything that is suspicious or out of the ordinary and to report any findings to the Green County Sheriff’s Office at 608-328-9401,” Skatrud said. Carroll County (Ill.) Sheriff’s Department offers 815-244-STOP (7867) as a phone line for information regarding the case.

The Town of Cadiz in Green County put out its own press release on Facebook, asking the public in rural Green County to look into waterways, abandoned buildings and ditches, and to report anything suspicious to authorities.

“Foul play is suspected, although not certain, and searchers have been asked to concentrate on abandoned buildings, ditches, waterways, and any other place where a body could have been dumped. If anything suspicious is found, do not touch. Call law enforcement. The Green County Sheriff’s Department is very involved in the search for Melissa. There has been talk about searching more in Wisconsin since Melissa was last seen in Monroe,” the Cadiz statement wrote. “If you have abandoned buildings on your property, wooded areas near the road, deep ditches or waterways, please check them out, ask someone to check them out for you or contact law enforcement. If you know someone with rural property between here and Shannon, or anywhere near Shannon, ask them to check their property.”

Trumpy is from Monticello and has ties to both Monroe and Shannon – at one time she lived south of Monroe. She has three children, parents, siblings, and an extended family, and friends, from all over Green County and in the Town of Cadiz. 

Hammer is from Shannon. He has a criminal history of domestic violence, including being charged with second-degree kidnapping, coerced with force or threat of force, domestic battery by strangulation and assault with a deadly weapon in a previous incident near Las Vegas in 2016.

He was arrested after a brief standoff with authorities Oct. 27 which caused a soft lockdown for Eastland Elementary School in Shannon.

“There was a police incident at a home near the school, and through consultation with our school resource officer, and directive through the Carroll County Sherrif’s (sic) office, EES went on soft lockdown. All students and staff were safe at all times. In a soft lockdown, students and staff are instructed to primarily remain in their classrooms, limit their movement through the school, and no one outside,” Eastland Superintendent Alex Kashner wrote to parents in the district. “Again, all students and staff were safe at all times. I apologize for the delay, but we were instructed to not communicate to the public of the soft lockdown until the incident was under control out of an abundance of caution. At 12:35 pm, we were notified that the incident was over. I want to thank our school resource officer, local law enforcement, and staff for their swift communication and care to keep our kids safe.”