DRAKE (AP) - McHenry County authorities are still investigating suspicious fires in August.

One of the fires was on the Drake-area farm of Tom Weninger, who says the blaze destroyed his calving barn.

"It was a hip-roof barn with individual pens, so when the cows were calving, we'd bring them inside and calve them in the barn," Weninger said.

Rather than rebuild, he decided to sell his cows. The last 40 went to a neighbor this month.

It was, he said, "one of the hardest things I've done -to sell your cattle when you've worked on them all those years to build something and then it's gone. Pretty tough."

Jeremy Brooks, a fugitive charged with murder in Minnesota, was captured in a field just north of Drake on Aug. 15. McHenry County Sheriff Marv Sola said authorities believe Brooks was in the barn but they have no proof he set the fire. Authorities had reports of two farm fires in the area at the time.

"We knew he was in the area, because the sheriff's department had been driving by our place all night long," Weninger recalled. "I sat up all night with a gun and didn't know what to expect."

Brooks was found hiding in a farm field near Drake.