A Winfield Police internal investigation detailed how and when police discovered more than $30,000 in cash went missing after it was seized in a November 2023 raid on a town massage parlor.
The report, dated May 18, concluded with a request by Town Marshal Robert Byrd for Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter to enlist the Indiana State Police to investigate, which Carter did Monday.
Missing evidence raises the question of whether that will be grounds to dismiss the pending criminal case against a couple charged with allegedly using their two massage parlors as a front for prostitution, while concealing massive amounts of cash from taxes.
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“Certainly, it is embarrassing, and it puts our integrity into question, which is why we’re being proactive in asking the Indiana State Police to investigate,” Byrd said Wednesday.
Carter did not respond to a request for comment on whether this or other cases out of Winfield could potentially be dismissed due to chain-of-custody issues with evidence.
In the report, Byrd said Frank Martinez, the Civil Forfeiture attorney for the Lake County Prosecutor’s Office, contacted him on April 22 about the location of $97,014.37 in cash and a 2017 Porsche Cayenne that were seized via search warrant in 2023. Those searches led to a criminal case against a couple — Guan Yu and Wujiao Liu — who owned Jade Massage, 9001 E. 109th Avenue in Winfield, and Relax Massage, 1451 Summit Street in Crown Point.
The Porsche was located at a police impound lot in Hebron, the report stated.
Byrd, who became head of the department in April 2025, assumed that the money had been placed in a secure account established through the Winfield Clerk-treasurer’s Office or a local bank, but neither entity was aware of any accounts holding money for WPD.
The report stated that the money was never observed in the old Winfield police station or the new one that opened in 2025.
On May 1, Byrd visited a police rental storage locker to search for the money and found a large amount stored in multiple plastic storage bins with lids. At that time, Byrd took the money to secure it inside the Winfield Police Evidence Room at the station, the report stated.
Byrd and Deputy Chief Todd Koster went to a local bank on May 6, and, using cash counting machines, counted $61,544 in bills and $376.86 in coins. A day later, Koster and Byrd returned to the storage locker and found another $1,553 in bills, the report stated.
Byrd said the storage locker has been thoroughly searched — “We turned that place upside down” — since the discovery of the cash.
When asked how many people may have had access to the locker, Byrd said he didn’t want to get ahead of the ISP’s investigation, but said they would probably be examining dates and times of when people may have entered the locker via electronic keypad as well as security footage.
There is a discrepancy in the amount of money missing as Detective Corporal Jordan Billups-Taylor calculated that $94,129.37 in cash was seized, while Martinez told Byrd that the total should be $97,014.37.
The report said any potential suspects in the case of the missing money are undetermined at this time.
Witnesses listed in the report include Byrd, Koster, former Winfield Town Marshal Daniel Ball, former Winfield Detective-Corporal Jordan Billups-Taylor, former Winfield Police Sergeant Stephen Garpow, former Winfield Police Corporal Chad Stroup, former Winfield Police Officer Ryan Mattis, former part-time Winfield Police Officer George Dickerson, Winfield Police Corporal Paul Shane, Winfield Police Officer Skyler Hofer, Battle Ground Town Marshal Benjamin Moyars, and two additional people whose names were redacted.
Billups-Taylor, who serves on the Lake Station school board, is on administrative leave due to a separate, ongoing investigation; Byrd declined to elaborate on the type of investigation.
Billups-Taylor’s LinkedIn page states that his employment in Winfield ended in February 2026, and he is currently employed as a part-time patrolman with the Ogden Dunes Police Department and as a senior investigator with Veracity IIR, a security firm headquartered in Carmel, Indiana.