KILLER
Posted on 11/04/2011 2:19:05 PM PDT by GunPkrBkr
A 38-year-old parolee with a long criminal history was denied bail Friday, charged with murdering an Indian Head Park teen last week.
John L. Wilson of Chicago was charged with first-degree murder and residential burglary in the stabbing death of 14-year-old Kelli O’Laughlin.
Judge Peter A. Felice ordered Wilson held without bond during an appearance at the Cook County courthouse in Bridgeview, just as funeral services were being held a few miles away for the freshman at Lyons Township High School.
“He does pose a threat,” Felice said, denying bail.
Wilson, in a gray sweatshirt that covered his arm tattoos, did not speak during the hearing, which took place in a courtroom packed with spectators that included prosecutors, public defenders and sitting judges.
Wilson, of the 7900 block of South Lafayette Avenue, was arrested in the first block of East 95th Street in Chicago on Wednesday, a source said.
Assistant State’s Attorney Peter Troy said he stole Kelli’s cell phone and iPod touch, later using the phone to send taunting texts to her mother. Police found the phone on Wilson when he was arrested, Troy said.
Prosecutors said the U.S. Secret Service was able to use cell-phone tracking technology to determine that Kelli’s phone and Wilson’s phone were traveling together throughout Chicago.
At a press conference in Indian Head Park Friday, neither Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez nor Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart would reveal details of the taunts.
“A horrific crime was committed here, and then to have the mother of the victim subject to taunts by the person who did it ... I can’t describe it,” Dart said.
Alvarez said even hardened investigators became tearful at the horror of the case.
Added Dart: “I don’t think words can express what people saw and felt. The loss that the O’Laughlin family experienced — I don’t think anybody could imagine something so horrible in their life.”
Orland Park police Chief Tim McCarthy, head of the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force that worked on the case, said investigators worked thousands of hours to crack it.
Dart said it was their sense of loss for the family that “drove people so relentlessly until someone was charged.
“You name it, we did it.”
Added Indian Head Park Police Chief Frank Alonzo, “All of our hearts go out to the family of Kelli O’Laughlin.”
Kelli was attacked Oct. 27 when she encountered Wilson in her home in the southwest suburb, authorities said.
An eight-inch butcher knife apparently taken from the block on a kitchen counter was found next to a pool of blood in the family room, where police believe Kelli was killed, prosecutors said.
She had been stabbed in the back, chest and neck, Troy said. It was her mother who found Kelli’s body in the ransacked home, authorities said.
A source previously said Wilson did not have the murder weapon on him when he was arrested. He actually had some kind of “interaction” with another suburban police force the day of the murder but he was not arrested.
Alvarez said he used a rock tucked inside a knit cap to break a window to get into the O’Laughlin home. DNA recovered from the hat matched Wilson, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors offered no motive for why he killed Kelli.
He was paroled in November 2010 after serving some seven years of an 11-year prison sentence from a 2002 carjacking charge, according to records from the Illinois Department of Corrections.
He had served prison time on prior convictions for drug possession, carjacking, aggravated battery and possessing a stolen vehicle.
Meanwhile, mourners lined the roads Friday near St. John of the Cross Church in Western Springs, where Kelli’s funeral was being held Friday morning.
They had packed a La Grange funeral home the previous two nights for her visitation.
Contributing: Mark Konkol, Matthew Bruce, LeeAnn Shelton, Victoria Johnson, Rosemary Sobol
This kind of stuff brings me close to shedding a tear. She was a beautiful young girl who had not even experienced her 16th birthday, learning to drive, prom, marriage, kids, etc...It is disgusting that Quinn and his liberal cronies basically allowed this scumbag to murder her. I'm sick and tired of hearing about these stories. I hope the family sues Quinn somehow.
KILLER
At a press conference in Indian Head Park on Friday, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez confirmed Wilson used Kelli’s cell phone to send messages of a “taunting or disturbing nature” to her mother after the crime.
He doesn’t deserve to live.
Prayers for the family. Such a terrible loss to them. I don’t think they will ever, EVER be able to fully get over something like this. I know I wouldn’t.
*** If you are serious about moving to Wisconsin, GunPkrBkr... there are a lot of Wisconsin FR’s who could give you advice about their area. Just a thought.
Pictures of the perp and the victim at the link. She was an innocent, beautiful girl. The tragedy will be compounded by a sentence something like 15 yrs. to life, so he can be out on parole in 7.
Take this savage out in back of the court house and shoot him in the head.
Prosecutors said the U.S. Secret Service was able to use cell-phone tracking technology to determine that Kelli’s phone and Wilson’s phone were traveling together throughout Chicago.
This fool wanted to go back to prison.
There is no way he could be so stupid as to carry around incriminating evidence for a murder rap like that. He had to want to go to prison!
“There is no way he could be so stupid as to carry around incriminating evidence for a murder rap like that.”
Apparenlty there are some people who are willing to scrape by on welfare in order to avoid work. It’s possible that some are willing to spend their lives in prison for similar reasons.
Of course they are counting the crime scene investigator technicians here.
It did not take the regular detectives that long to get their man because he was calling in what might as well have been a confession on the victim’s cell phone.
This guy can’t be that stupid!!
OK I can understand the hat with his DNA but carrying around the cell phone and using it to taunt the mother is just asking the cops to come and get you.
It could be that he has more social standing in prison.
If he is big enough and tough enough on the inside he may be top dog.
On the outside he is only an excon who can’t get a job and has no money so he has no social standing except on what ever slum street corner he can lay claim.
Along with renewed American 2nd Amendment freedoms, there should be a major restoration of swift and sure capital punishment, unburdened by irresponsible federal judges, who use arguments of minutiae to extend for decades a penalty that should consistently be enforced within two years.
Conviction of one or more heinous acts of homicide, as defined by individual states, do deserve a single hearing before that states federal district judge, based on past abuses.
But this hearing should be all-inclusive of any and all appellate arguments, and except for gross constitutional violations, not petty arguments, such cases should not be overturned, but returned to the trial court for reconsideration, if serious errors or questions of guilt are alleged.
Taking into consideration the arguments of the states federal district judge, the jury should then be asked to reconsider both the guilty verdict and the sentence. If they affirm both, then the execution should commence without further delay.
There still remains the ability of that states’ governor to provide clemency, but this is the only barrier that should exist.
This also means that it is entirely up to the states how to carry out the sentence, taking away from federal judges involvement in how it is carried out, removing from them the determination of cruel and unusual punishment, as it relates to execution.
Importantly, it is up to the congress of the United States to determine the purview of the federal courts. They could easily enact these changes, and these changes could not face challenge in the federal court system.
And while they were at it, congress could also take from the federal judiciary the power to hear cases of homosexuals discharged from the military for their homosexuality, as the composition of the military is exclusively a congressional prerogative.
Ugh.. I can’t even finish reading this, I literally get naseous. All I can say is I pray for the family of this girl and that if this was my daughter, there wouldn’t be a trial.
He deserves a trial.
If found guilty, he deserves public impalement.
But a trial first.
You’re right. Trial first, then execution. I put the cart before the horse.
Funny how the judge and the politicians rise to the occasion when the camera’s are on and the suck a## media are looking for opinions. Where we’re these a##wipes when this guy was allowed parole?
Here’s a thought, every time one of these thugs let out on parole kills someone, every one of the parole board who let him out needs to be hung in public.
“Take this savage out in back of the court house and shoot him in the head.”
Charge anyone who wants to witness it $5. Put the money into a victim’s fund.
Black guy gratuitously murders a young white girl, then taunts the parents of the girl. No hate crime here, no, none at all...
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