Peoria councilman's wife claims he hid her from investigators after domestic dispute

The estranged wife of Peoria city councilman Zach Oyler has levied a series of accusations against him that include both physical and mental abuse she says occurred during their marriage.

In addition to claiming Zach Oyler coaxed her to lie to the Journal Star in a 2019 interview about a domestic violence case that led to Zach Oyler's arrest, Heather Oyler also claims in a blog post that her husband engaged in a monthslong effort to hide her from investigators.

Zach Oyler was arrested in 2019 and charged with aggravated domestic battery. His wife, Heather Oyler, claimed he threw her to the ground and attempted to choke her, according to court records and a 911 call.

More: Estranged wife of Peoria councilman says he coaxed her to lie about domestic violence case

Heather Oyler says she was hidden from investigators

Heather Oyler alleges in her series of blog posts that Zach Oyler attempted to hide her from state investigators so she would not be subpoenaed and would not be able to testify in court against him.

After speaking with a victim's advocate from the state's attorney's office, Heather Oyler claims Zach Oyler began to hide her from the public eye so she could not be subpoenaed. She said in a blog post published March 14 that he would make her lie down in the back seat of their car when they were driving in their neighborhood so she couldn't be seen.

Heather Oyler also says that it was decided for her she should only leave the house when it was "safe" and she was limited in where she could go and who she could talk to.

"I was allowed to go to a couple homes of my abuser’s good friends from time to time because he said they could be trusted not to share that I was home, and I went to therapy, or rather, I went to therapy in the beginning. Every so often he would take me to Bloomington to eat," she wrote on March 14 of this year. "I left the house on a few other rare occasions, but not often."

While Heather Oyler was at home alone, she says Zach Oyler was often at the bar with his friends.

Heather Oyler says she was also told not to take her cellphone when she left the house, out of fears state's attorney investigators were tracking her location.

"I was yearning to be able to leave, to do anything outside the home," Heather Oyler wrote on March 14. "While at home, I was generally not allowed to leave the master bedroom. That summer and fall there were contractors in and out of the home for renovations and I spent almost all of my time in there as a result."

Zach Oyler allegedly attacked Heather Oyler again during this time, she claims in the blog post.

This next incident allegedly happened after he couple attended a pool party at one of Zach Oyler's friend's homes, where she says Zach Oyler drank heavily. The couple got into an argument over who should drive home from the party. Heather Oyler says she was sober but an intoxicated Zach insisted he should drive home so she could stay hidden in the backseat.

"Things were said about the reasons why I had to hide and as usual it was 'my fault' because I was the reason why this trial was occurring and I should have known better than to call 911 and get him into trouble," Heather Oyler wrote on March 14.

When they arrived home, Heather says Zach continued to yell at her and was telling her she better not call 911 again. She locked herself in their guest bedroom, she says, but Zach broke his way in and wrestled the phone from her hands.

"He began to fight me and climbed on top of me to try and get my phone," Heather wrote on March 14. "All of his body weight was on me, and I was completely panicked."

She then says Zach stopped the attack when she promised not to call 911.

During another alleged incident, Zach and Heather were driving to a friend's lake house, with Heather lying down in the backseat when Zach Oyler began to panic behind the wheel. He was being pulled over.

Zach Oyler, she says, instructed her to remain lying down in the back seat. Somehow, Heather claims, the traffic stop was completed without the officer ever noticing she was lying in the backseat.

"Still to this day, I don’t understand how the investigator didn’t see me in the backseat," Heather wrote on March 14. "Deep down inside I wish that he would have seen me. I wish that I had been discovered. I wonder what would have happened if he had seen me? I wonder if it would have completely changed the next couple of years of my life."

Court cases and divorce proceedings

During all of this, state's attorney investigators, having a hard time locating Heather, subpoenaed her stepfather instead to testify over the original domestic abuse charges. This prompted Heather to go to the courthouse and accept her subpoena.

She says the state's attorney's investigators told her they had worried about her safety during the time they could not locate her.

In 2019, the Journal Star reported that the state prosecutor's office was having difficulty issuing a subpoena to Heather Oyler, causing Zach Oyler's case to be delayed in court at least once.

Zach Oyler then accepted a plea deal from prosecutors that reduced his domestic violence charge to a disorderly conduct charge which alleged he "acted in an alarming way on July 30, 2019."

The original domestic violence charge, according to court records, cited Zach Oyler as having assaulted his wife and taking her cellphone. He was sentenced to nine months of court supervision, which is a form of non-reporting probation, and was ordered to complete domestic violence counseling.

"I sat in my silence. I knew my truth. I was still scared," Heather wrote on March 14. "That night, my abuser went out to the bar with his friends, I stayed home. I knew that I had a lot of things to figure out and decisions to make and I no longer knew what my future had in store for me, but I knew that my future had changes ahead. I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t allow myself to stay in this situation and I was going to change my life."

The Oylers are in the middle of a divorce. It is slated to go to trial on July 16.

In a statement to the Journal Star regarding the blog posts, Zach Oyler said:

"Divorce is a painful experience for all involved and even more challenging to live it out in public.  As we enter the final weeks of the divorce process; I am disappointed to learn of these blog posts.  There are most certainly two sides to every story and these are filled with inaccuracies as even others mentioned in them will attest.  It is not my character to publicly speak negatively of someone else and I will continue to let my business and public reputation speak for themselves. I wish her nothing but the best in her journey."

When the Journal Star contacted Heather Oyler by phone in March about the blog posts, she directed the newspaper to the public relations firm she hired to coordinate an interview. Almost two months passed, and the Journal Star was never contacted to set up an interview date. Multiple phone calls and emails made to the firm since April 19 were not returned.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Estranged wife alleges Peoria councilman hid her from investigators