DeKalb County Sheriff's Deputy killed in traffic crash identified

A DeKalb County Sheriff's deputy was killed in a traffic crash Thursday night when her parked vehicle was rear-ended by a truck, officials said.

The deputy was identified as 35-year-old Christina Musil, a five-year veteran of the department who served in the Corrections and Patrol divisions.

Musil was also a military veteran, who served in the U.S. Army National Guard as a military police officer for four years, while also serving in Afghanistan from 2008 to 2009.

According to authorities, Illinois State Police responded just before 10:40 p.m. Thursday evening to the intersection of Illinois Route 23 and Perry Road in rural DeKalb County for reports of a traffic crash involving a vehicle with the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office.

Officials said Musil was sitting inside her vehicle, parked on the right shoulder of southbound Illinois Route 23, when a single-unit Kenworth truck ran off the roadway for unknown reasons and struck the vehicle from behind.

The deputy was rushed to an area hospital with life-threatening injuries where she was later pronounced dead.

Musil's death comes just days after the 12th crash related to Scott's Law in 2024 occurred on I-94 in Chicago, when a driver side-swiped a stationary Illinois State Police squad car.

Both the driver and trooper were hospitalized with non life-threatening injuries following the crash.

Scott's Law, a move-over law that requires motorists to move away from stationary emergency vehicles displaying warning lights, has been in effect in Illinois since 2001 and is named after former Chicago Fire Lieutenant Scott Gillen, who was killed in December 2000 by an intoxicated driver while responding to a crash.

Police have not determined whether the warning lights in Musil's vehicle were activated ahead of the crash, and did not state whether the driver of the truck violated Scott's Law in the collision.

There is no further information available and the crash remains under investigation.