When the dark GMC Sierra suddenly sped past him north on Interstate 55 in November 2022, the downstate police officer had to floor it, driving 101 mph to catch up.
The officer flipped on his lights and siren, prompting the truck’s driver to pull off around Springfield’s southern border. When confronted, the truck driver began to cry. He said he didn’t care about a ticket. He faced serious prison time — over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
From a distance, the officer could be heard pleading with the truck driver: “Don’t do this!”
But it was too late. The truck peeled away. It turned north, this time into the southbound lanes of I-55. And soon, police and prosecutors say, it caused a fiery crash involving a maroon Mercury Sable with a simple four-letter license plate: “WEGZ.”
Now Shane Jason Woods, a 47-year-old Taylorville man once sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison for assaulting two people at the U.S. Capitol, faces trial for the first-degree murder of 35-year-old Lauren Wegner of Skokie in that crash detailed in police and court records.
The trial is set to begin Monday in Springfield.
President Donald Trump issued a sweeping pardon in January to nearly everyone convicted for their role in the Capitol riot. Up until then, more than 50 Illinois residents had been charged in connection with the attack. But no case in the state ever turned as tragic as Woods’.
The HVAC repairman from central Illinois allegedly became distraught and suicidal over his federal conviction — which Trump moved to wipe away a little more than two years later.
But Woods remains in custody to this day over the death of Wegner, who had no connection to the Capitol riot but was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She’s not the only one. Two others, a couple from Granite City, were injured in the crash. One suffered broken bones and severe bruising, records show. The other suffered a broken spine, brain bleeding and a concussion.
Officials say Woods’ blood-alcohol content after the collision measured 0.177%. That’s more than twice the legal limit.
Woods’ defense attorney couldn’t be reached for comment.
‘She was happy’
One week after his daughter’s death, Bill Wegner described her to the Chicago Sun-Times as “a ray of sunshine” who “could light up a room walking in.”
He said he liked to call her his “bestest gurl.”
Lauren Wegner went to Niles West High School, her father said. She played volleyball and loved animals, as well as the Green Bay Packers. She worked as a bartender at Morrison Roadhouse in Niles, and she would have turned 38 next month.
She’d been on her way to visit friends in St. Louis the night of the crash, her father said.
Police records show Lauren Wegner’s car had a North Carolina license plate. Her father explained back in 2022 that he’d recently urged her to return home to Skokie. He said she did so, and she told him she was “so happy” shortly before her death.
“Boy, that meant so much to me,” Bill Wegner said in 2022. “That she was happy.”
Now Bill Wegner is suing Woods and the officers involved in the incident over his daughter’s death. His lawsuit alleges officers engaged in an unauthorized pursuit of a suicidal person, leading to the fatal crash.
Bill Wegner told the Sun-Times late last week he doesn’t want Woods “to be able to walk away from this.
“Because my daughter wasn’t able to walk away from it,” Bill Wegner said. “It would be nice for justice to actually be served.”
‘He knows we’re on his side
Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., traced Woods’ politically violent rhetoric to Sept. 29, 2020, the day Trump said during a presidential debate that militia groups like the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by.”
“Us proud boys are his civilian militia in case violence starts,” Woods allegedly wrote in a text message to a friend. “He knows we’re on his side.”
The week after the 2020 election, the feds say Woods spread conspiracy theories, including that fake ballots had been used and that Trump “watermarked the real ones.” Woods allegedly predicted on Jan. 4, 2021, that events in the nation’s capital would be “biblical.”
Then, during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Woods assaulted two people. First, he lowered his shoulder and rammed into an officer who’d already been sprayed with a chemical irritant. Woods knocked her off her feet while she chased the person who sprayed it, and he sent her crashing into a bicycle barricade on the lower west terrace of the Capitol’s northwest corner.
Hours later, Woods took a running start and hit a cameraman with a blindside shoulder-tackle, knocking the cameraman to the ground.
Woods admitted to both assaults, and he pleaded guilty to two criminal charges on Sept. 9, 2022. His plea agreement laid out the maximum prison time he faced: nine years.
‘Don’t do this!’
Divernon Police Officer Patrick Hurley spotted the speeding GMC Sierra at 7:13 p.m. on Nov. 8, 2022, exactly 60 days after Woods’ guilty plea. Hurley turned on his lights and siren, records show, and the truck turned off exit 88 before pulling onto the right shoulder.
Hurley wrote in a report that he “identified” the driver as Woods. But records from the civil suit filed by Lauren Wegner’s father claim “Woods had an ongoing romantic relationship with Hurley’s family member.”
Woods complained he’d been kicked “out of the house” and he was on his way to a motel, according to Hurley’s report. The officer said he asked Woods whether he’d been drinking — Woods denied it — and he told Woods he planned to give him a speeding ticket.
That’s when Woods allegedly said he “didn’t care,” because he was “looking at 10 years in the next couple months and wouldn’t pay it anyway.”
Woods allegedly said he was “worth more dead than alive.”
Hurley’s report didn’t mention Woods’ role in the Capitol riot. Instead, it said Woods referenced “tax evasion for hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
But an assisting Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy wrote in a report that “Officer Hurley stated the driver was Shane Woods and he was going to be going to prison for 10 years due to the capitol incident.” An Illinois State Police trooper who later saw Woods at a hospital noted the Capitol riot “may have been motive” for the crash.
Hurley’s sergeant told him Woods needed to be evaluated at a hospital — voluntarily or involuntarily. But after speaking to the Sangamon County deputy, Hurley returned to Woods’ truck and discovered Woods had started the engine, according to the police reports.
The officer asked Woods to turn off the truck, records show. He wanted Woods to step out and talk.
Woods allegedly refused. He put the truck in drive.
The Sangamon County deputy heard Hurley tell him loudly “don’t do this!” The deputy even noted that Hurley tried to open the driver’s side door of the truck.
That’s when Woods allegedly pulled away, driving west until he reached the southbound exit from I-55. Then, Woods allegedly turned onto the ramp — and traveled north.
Soon, Hurley wrote, he saw “a fire ball in the southbound lanes of I-55.”
Hurley and the Sangamon County deputy carefully made their way onto the highway and called for ambulances, records show. To the north, they eventually found Woods and his truck, records show. Hurley wrote that he yelled out for Woods.
“F— you!” Woods allegedly shouted back. “F— you!”
Hurley found Woods covered in blood, according to the police reports. The officer made note of Woods’ cell phone, which displayed the word “MOM.” When Woods was later removed from the truck, Hurley said he picked up the cell phone.
However, the officer’s report also makes a cryptic reference to a white man wearing a hat, khaki pants and a dark jacket. The person told Woods, “I’m here brother,” Hurley wrote. Then, the person allegedly took Woods’ cell phone out of Hurley’s hands.
“I never saw this individual again,” Hurley wrote.
‘Monstrous’
Federal prosecutors brought up Woods’ alleged tax evasion when it came time for his sentencing in October 2023 in Washington, D.C. They asked U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to sentence Woods to nearly six years behind bars.
Mehta gave him 4 ½ years.
Prosecutors filed a 38-page memo requesting the stiffer sentence. In it, they told the judge how Woods allegedly explained to a probation officer that he’d earned $150,000 a year through his heating and air conditioning business — and that he’d paid no taxes since 2017.
It was more evidence of Woods’ “criminal refusal to abide by the law and his selfish disregard for the impact of his actions on others,” prosecutors wrote.
But they saved their harshest rhetoric for the crash that took Lauren Wegner’s life.
They wrote that Woods’ behavior was “cowardly.” That it was “monstrous.” And they said it was “devoid of any consideration of others.”
They wrote that it was just like his actions “on January 6.”