It’s been three and a half years since Peoria At-Large City Councilmember Zach Oyler took an Alford plea1 to disorderly conduct. This was part of an agreement to have other charges stemming from a July 2019 domestic incident involving his so-to-be-ex-wife, Heather, dropped.
However, within a few months, Heather Oyler gave several interviews with local journalists offering a full recantation of allegations of domestic abuse. She encouraged the State’s Attorney to drop the charges against her then-husband.
Thanks to this recantation, public pressure on Zach Oyler largely dissipated. In 2023, he won re-election to the City Council, placing fourth in a ten-person race for five At-Large City Council seats. The Oylergate saga seemed to have come to an end. Many years passed.
And then….
Out of the blue, Heather recently began writing a series of blog posts revealing the shocking dark side to her marriage with councilmember Oyler. She does not name him, referring to him only as her abuser. She not only recants her recantation of the domestic abuse incident from 2019, but illustrates in detail the manipulative & abusive actions of Zach Oyler.
Of particular note is a paragraph from the blog post “My Recovery Journey: The Events That Led Me to Treatment”:
Sometime in early October of 2019, my abuser encouraged me to come out publicly and share with a local journalist that I wanted to share with the world the story of what “really happened” the night of the incident in July. I reached out to a journalist with the local paper (the journalist that my abuser suggested) on October 11, 2019. On October 13th, I met with this journalist and shared the story that my abuser “helped me remember”. We went over my story many times to make sure that I could correctly share what “really” happened. This article, that was shared both online and then the front page of the local paper created a storm for me that I was not ready to bear—not ready at all.
This could be interpreted as witness tampering, a class 3 felony punishable up to five years in prison. However, the statute of limitations on a class 3 felony is three years, meaning if Zach Oyler did in fact commit witness tampering, he could not be charged for that offense anymore.
In a blog post titled, “My Recovery Journey: Taking My Life Back“, Heather describes in detail the multiple, violent threats on her life she endured for years, and why she was so afraid to leave him:
I told her that I knew our marriage was over; that it had been over for a very long time and that I needed help. I needed to be able to leave and I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. My abuser told me many times over the years when he was angry that I would never be allowed to leave him, that he wouldn’t let me leave. That if he didn’t get to have me, then no one would be able to.
I told my therapist about a time when we were driving on the highway from Lincoln, from a visit seeing my family and he was yelling at me. He was driving and threatened to drive the car off the road and kill us both, because that was what I deserved. I told her about a night in June of 2016 when we were coming home from a movie in the north end of town and he got very angry not even halfway home. He drove incredibly reckless, sped at top speeds down crowded city streets, me crying and begging for him to stop, to let me out of the car. How he tore around the corner into our neighborhood and screamed at me and told me he was going to drive us into the house and kill us both. About him slamming on the breaks and me hopping out of the car into the driveway and running away as fast as I could…
These were just some of the examples why I feared for my life and why my safety plan was created with my other therapists. These were the reasons why I could never leave, because I was not only afraid of things like this happening, but I was terrified of what he said he would do to me on a social and professional level. Threats he made about taking everything so I would be forced to live in a homeless shelter. The threats that he made to me that I would leave empty handed and that I needed to remember “50% of zero is zero.” Threats to take away things that I enjoyed and loved in my life. The threat to take away every dollar that I helped us make, to take away anything that meant anything to me. These were some of the reasons why I always gave in, why I always stayed or let him come back home; because living in hell at the time seemed like a better choice than no longer living.
Rumors in Peoria say Zach Oyler may be considering a run for Mayor of Peoria. The next mayoral election is in 2025.
Heather Oyler declined an interview with Agitation Rising.
Zach Oyler did not respond to a request for comment.
Zach & Heather are in the process of getting divorced.
Correction: This article originally stated Heather & Zach were divorced. As of the publication of this article, they are in the process of getting divorced.
It greatly saddens me that proper journalism is not followed in the writing of this article. It seems to read more “tabloid” than “news.” As a child of divorce myself, I can tell you that marital issues are rarely one-sided. Typically, both parties play a role in any potential issues that evolve. In any case, to put a non-story such as this into “print” and then plaster it online where it can take on a life of its own is simply vulgar and disgusting. In terms of this article, I DO happen to know both parties involved, and you are far from reporting the entire story. Perhaps it might be more prudent to stick to the facts along rather than hearsay and innuendo.
Thanks for your comment.
You don’t seem to know what hearsay & innuendo mean. These are direct statements from one of the parties involved. Other articles in this series contain police reports and court records.
Agitation Rising reached out to City Council member Oyler, and he choose not to respond and offer his side of the story.
If you have information you believe is pertinent to this story, feel free to e-mail it to agitationrising@gmail.com.
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