Winfield officials’ discovery that more than $30,000 in cash was missing from a 2023 police raid on a town massage parlor was just the latest in a series of issues facing the troubled police department, town officials admitted on Friday.
The town on Friday issued a statement on its website regarding the internal investigation, dated May 18, when Town Marshal Robert Byrd enlisted the Indiana State Police to investigate more than $30,000 in cash that was missing after it was seized in a November 2023 raid on a town massage parlor. Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter made the request to the ISP on May 25.
Winfield Town Council President Zack Beaver said the town realized in early 2023 that its department, which was formed in 2014, needed a multitude of changes, requiring a “top to down” investigation.
Beaver said that the “top” part of the investigation within the police department occurred in 2023 when town leaders identified concerns regarding the effectiveness of prior senior leadership within the police department. Those concerns included deficiencies related to decision-making, accountability, internal controls, supervision and overall leadership standards expected by the town and the community served, the town’s release said.
It took the town almost two years to change its top cop.
Dan Ball, who became Winfield’s first-ever town marshal on Aug. 26, 2014, was placed on administrative leave after a January 2025 meeting and resigned the following month. Byrd was hired in April of 2025 and a second in command, Todd Koster, was hired as the town’s first deputy chief in August that same year. Both were hired to ensure the department operates in a “professional, transparent and accountable manner,” according to the statement.
In the past year, Beaver said police administrators have been asked to go through everything within the police department, including any missing records or if something wasn’t filled out properly.
“The tone is, we recognize there were issues and because of those prior concerns, we’re going through everything and that’s a lot of what Byrd is doing is digging through everything,” Beaver said.
Byrd said the missing money came to light when 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 money wasn’t in an account held by the town or a local bank, so Byrd and Koster searched a police storage locker on May 1 and 7, recovering about $63,000 in cash stored in plastic storage bins.
Beaver said it was clear town officials needed to request an outside investigation.
In regard to why the missing $30,000 was only found a month ago, Beaver said the discovery is part of some three years of items police are sorting through.
“We can only work so fast. It’s three years of stuff and two or three officers are trying to manage all this and sort it out,” he said.
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Beaver said some of the actions taken ultimately resulted in significant personnel changes within the department, including the discipline, dismissal, and/or resignation of several officers between 2023 and 2026.
The report said any potential suspects in the case of the missing money are undetermined at this time.
The investigation lists numerous witnesses who formerly worked at the Winfield Police Department, including 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, and former part-time Winfield Police Officer George Dickerson.
Garpow, who was the handler for the department’s former K9 RAK, went on administrative leave in the fall of 2024 and eventually resigned.
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.
Stroup was named in an excessive force lawsuit filed in December 2024 at the U.S. District Court in Hammond, along with Billups-Taylor, Ball, and current officers Corporal Paul Shane and Officer Skyler Hofer.
Additional witnesses named in the internal investigation include Byrd, Koster, Shane, Hofer, Battle Ground Town Marshal Benjamin Moyars, and two additional people whose names were redacted.
Deborah Laverty is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.