Jeanine Nicarico's death

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October 23, 2009

BY STEFANO ESPOSITIO Staff Reporter

The parents of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico told a DuPage County jury today that they blame themselves for not being able to protect her from convicted killer Brian Dugan.

Reading an emotional victim impact statement, Jeanine’s mother, Pat Nicarico, said: “I still have many nights when I cry myself to sleep, thinking about what Jeanine, my baby, went through that day. If only I had not left her home alone. Jeanine trusted me to keep her safe.”

Jeanine’s father, Tom Nicarico, expressed similar regret in his statement.

“Where was her father when she needed him?...I was unable to help her. I did not keep her safe,” he said.

The Nicaricos were the last witnesses called by prosecutors to testify before a DuPage County jury trying to determine whether triple-murderer Dugan deserves a death sentence for Jeanine’s 1983 murder.

Dugan was convicted of beating the Naperville girl to death after breaking into the Nicaricos’ house and raping her on a day the fifth-grader had stayed home sick from school.

“No longer is it safe to leave the doors unlocked, as was the custom of many at the time of this crime. No longer is it safe to leave even responsible children alone and unprotected. No longer is the boogeyman a fairy tale. He is for real,” Tom Nicarico said in court.

Pat Nicarico said: “I believe it is too late for sympathy or remorse. The damage has been done. The horror still exists.”

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/18...102309.article

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Tom and Pat Nicarico, parents of murdered daughter, Jeanine, leave DuPage court in Wheaton after testifying at a death penalty hearing for Brian Dugan Friday.


Family has its say at Brian Dugan trial

October 24, 2009

By ERIKA WURST ewurst@scn1.com


Before the victim impact statements were even made, jurors could see the toll Brian Dugan had taken on the Nicarico family in 1983 when he kicked down the front door of the Naperville family's home and snatched up 10-year-old Jeanine as she watched TV in her Disney pajamas.

For three weeks now, the Nicarico family — Tom, Pat, Chris, Kathy and their loved ones — have sat puffy-eyed in the seats of a DuPage County courtroom, listening again to excruciating details about the abduction, rape and murder of their youngest family member. Holding hands and wiping tears, the former Naperville family takes up the entire third row of Judge George Bakalis' courtroom — but it's obvious that someone among them is missing.

What would Jeanine Nicarico be like today? It's hard not to wonder. Would she look just like her sisters? Pretty, put-together and strong?

Would she be married, have children, a home, and the blue horse-riding ribbon she wanted as a child? On Feb. 25, 1983, Brian Dugan made sure the world would never find out.

"This event has continued to haunt us and bring fear to our lives that we didn't even know existed over the years," Chris Nicarico said during her impact statement Friday, staring out into a courtroom where the audience included several of Dugan's victims.

Opal Horton, whom Dugan attempted to abduct along with 7-year-old Melissa Ackerman in 1985, was in attendance, along with several other women who had testified earlier in the week.

Friday's courtroom was packed with people who showed up to witness the prosecution's final day of aggravation testimony. Dugan's defense will begin calling witnesses Wednesday when jurors return to court. They will decide if Dugan receives a life sentence for the death of Jeanine, or is sent to Illinois' death row. He is already serving two life sentences for the murders of Melissa Ackerman and 27-year-old Geneva nurse Donna Schnorr.

Jeanine's parents testify

"I believe it is too late for sympathy or remorse," Jeanine's mother, Pat Nicarico, told jurors from the stand.

"The damage has been done, the horror still exists. … There is no apology that can take away the pain and fear that our little Jeanine endured."

For Jeanine's father, Tom, this is the hardest part — thinking about the way his daughter was bludgeoned to death and disposed of by a complete stranger after he deemed himself through with her body. The way he sexually assaulted her over and over again while she was blindfolded, tied-up and helpless. These are images that will never escape Tom Nicarico's mind.

"The single most troubling aspect of this crime for me, the one that I personally have the most difficulty coping with, is what happened to her on that Friday," he read. " … Where was her father when she needed him? Where was the family's provider and protector? I was unable to help her; I did not keep her safe."

Prosecutors will tell you that it didn't matter where Jeanine was — behind locked doors, or riding her bike down the road — whatever Brian Dugan wanted, Brian Dugan was going to take. He took Donna Schnorr from her car on the side of the road, he took Melissa Ackerman from her bike off the street, and he would take Jeanine Nicarico from her own home.

"No longer is the boogeyman a fairy tale," Tom Nicarico read. "He is for real. He came to the Nicarico house in February 1983."

Sisters tell of anguish

For years after their sister's death, Kathy and Chris Nicarico were left with not only the pain, but the fear Dugan had forced them to endure.

As teenagers, the remaining Nicarico sisters refused to come home to an empty house. Their high school and college years were spent reliving the horrible event through the many trials in the case.

"Kathy and I have had several benchmarks in our lives shadowed by Jeanine's death," Chris said Friday. The three sisters would never debate over who would throw who a baby shower, or who would serve as maid of honor in each other's weddings.

"Instead, after each of our weddings, we drove along the peaceful streets of downtown Naperville from the church to the cemetery with our bridal parties and stood around Jeanine's grave. … She would always be our maid of honor for eternity."

As tears flowed from Chris' eyes, she spoke about growing up, "no longer a family of five who actually enjoyed fitting into a restaurant booth," or, "as three sisters squeezing into one double-size bed on vacations."

When Dugan took Jeanine from her home that February morning, he also took with him years of memories. Family holidays, Chris said, were never the same. One less Nicarico meant one less basket on the table Easter morning, and one less stocking stuffed on Christmas.

"Most importantly," Chris said, "We missed out on seeing Jeanine with her nieces and nephews, and especially, her own children."

A father's final say

Several jurors wiped their eyes as the Nicaricos read their statements. Other simply bowed their heads as they listened an angry father get his final say — a moment 26 years in the making.

"However, as time has passed, while these are no longer 24-hour-a-day feelings or thoughts (of dread and helplessness), their depth has not been diluted," Tom Nicarico said.

"They do not wait to be prompted by court proceedings or media releases in order to spring into my mind. … Events as simple as a passing, giggling little brown-haired girl can suddenly open the gates of intense feeling ranging from nostalgia to absolute dread."

Despite the pain, Tom Nicarico said with the support of friends, family, community and complete strangers, they have continued to heal.

"We have built bridges over the chasm in our hearts," he said, "even though those chasms are sometimes overflowing with tears.

"We're determined not to allow the evil done to Jeanine to also rape and bury us."

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/b...102309.article

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October 24, 2009
By ERIKA WURST ewurst@scn1.com

Convicted murderer Brian Dugan smirked slightly as several of his jailhouse letters were read out loud to jurors Friday in DuPage County court.

"I look through the window and see an image of freedom, and listen to voices on the phone and picture faces and the fun my friends are having," Dugan wrote to a friend in May of 1984 while incarcerated. "But I'm not down, out or depressed and the reason is that I'm content with myself…

Prosecutors are hoping that jurors will find Dugan has little remorse for the crimes he committed in the past, and most importantly, for the murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville, for whose murder he faces possible execution.

"Some people just don't understand about life and the responsibilities we have to face," Dugan said before describing the men he is incarcerated with as "cold-hearted rapists and murderers."

He references Aurora men who were jailed for the murder of Jeanine Nicarico -- but freed years later. Dugan, ultimately, would confess to killing the girl alone.

"Guess who we have here?" Dugan ask a friend casually. "We have Buckley, Hernandez and Cruz. The infamous trio from Aurora who we all know are sick baby killers."

Stephen Buckley was never convicted in the Nicarico case. Rolando Cruz and Alex Hernandez were jailed until the late 1990s, when they were acquitted in the Nicarico murder and freed.

Dugan's handwritten letters are littered with smiley faces, and reference looking at pornography from his cell, and swinging from his jailhouse bars like a monkey.

In one letter, Dugan talks about the changes he's made while locked up.

"Don't worry about me going to prison," he boasted. "I won't. I'm too smart for that… I'm content with the good person I've become… It's not a big thing to be in jail. It used to be, but now I'm so content with myself that I'm happy wherever I am."

Dugan, who seems genuinely concerned for his friends at times in the letters, makes no mention of remorse for his murders. At one point, however, he talks about getting out and making restitution for his crimes, which he never names specifically. That day would never come.

"This is my world now," Dugan wrote in 1992. "It sucks, but it's all that is left for me. I'm doing as well as can be expected under the circumstance…I miss everything. I wish I was anywhere but here."

Dugan received two life sentences for the murders of Donna Schnorr, 27, of Geneva, and Melissa Ackerman, 7, of Somonauk. This summer, he pleaded guilty to the Nicarico murder.

Jurors will decide if Dugan will be given another life sentence, or the death penalty, for the murder, rape and abduction of Nicarico. Nicarico's family is expected to make victim impact statements when trial continues this afternoon.


http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/b...102309.article

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October 31, 2009

BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter/drozek@suntimes.com

A forensic psychologist may testify that triple-murderer Brian Dugan is a psychopath who has brain "deficiencies," a DuPage County judge ruled Friday.

But psychologist Kent Kiehl can't show jurors electronic images of Dugan's brain to support his testimony -- nor can he say that Dugan's mental condition prevented him from controlling his violent actions, Judge George Bakalis said.

Kiehl is expected to be a key witness next week as defense attorneys try to persuade jurors to spare Dugan's life for the brutal 1983 murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico.

Defense attorneys plan to call Kiehl to testify at Dugan's sentencing hearing about a brain-scan he conducted on Dugan earlier this year using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

That test indicated that Dugan, 53, is a psychopath, in part because he lacks empathy and remorse, defense attorney Allan Sincox said.

Kiehl will be allowed to testify about the exam and the results that he says indicate Dugan is a psychopath who has "areas of deficiencies in the brain," Bakalis said.

But Bakalis blocked the University of New Mexico professor from telling jurors that Dugan's mental condition prevented him from controlling his emotions and his deadly actions.

"There's no scientific evidence he couldn't control his urges," Bakalis said in his ruling.

The judge also barred Kiehl from showing electronic images of Dugan's brain scans to jurors, saying they would add little worthwhile information.

DuPage County prosecutors had specifically sought to block the brain scan images from being shown to jurors.

"It adds confusion and prejudice," DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett said.

Birkett also argued against allowing Kiehl to testify about Dugan's mental state, insisting that the test conducted in September 2009 doesn't address Dugan's condition on Feb. 25, 1983, when he kidnapped, raped and killed the Naperville girl.

Dugan already is serving life sentences for two other murders. If he avoids a death sentence for Jeanine's murder, he will receive another life term.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/18...ugan31.article

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November 3, 2009
By ERIKA WURST ewurst@scn1.com

Brian Dugan considered himself a lunatic long before the court system and media outlets portrayed him as one, jurors heard today.

"I knew I was an (expletive) lunatic before," he said in a taped interview with a psychologist from Northwestern University in September. "I didn't know what to do about it. There was no way I could go anywhere to get help. There's no 1-800-Nuts line that people can call -- there should be."

Dugan's defense will attempt to persuade jurors in DuPage County Court that Dugan – a triple murderer facing death row for the 1983 kidnapping, rape and murder of 10-year old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville — had recognized his own dangerous behaviors and sought help to no avail before his crimes progressed.

"I did these things, and I'm afraid I might do it again," Dugan remembered thinking of the murders of Nicarico in 1983 and Melissa Ackerman, 7, of Somonauk, and Donna Schnorr, 27, of Geneva in the following two years.

Before he got caught, Dugan had committed a string of violent sexual assaults and kidnappings of young women across the Fox Valley.

Some of the women Dugan let go. But Ackerman, Schnorr and Nicarico wouldn't get to flee.

"I don't think I would see any of them like regular human beings," Dugan said in the taped interview. When asked about his motive for killing Jeanine, when he'd let so many other women go, Dugan was almost speechless.

"I don't know why," he said, putting his head down and beginning to sigh. "I just don't know what I was feeling. I think I wanted to protect myself, but I don't know."

During Dr. Kent Kiehl's interview, Dugan expresses remorse for his crimes, although admits he can lie and manipulate on command.

"I understand who I am now," Dugan told the doctor. "I didn't understand what I was before…I didn't know the full range of how bad it was."

He talks about his Jekyll-and-Hyde personality and the "clicking" of something in his brain that turned his non-violent property crimes into rape and murder.

Dugan said he should have been taken from his home as a child, entered into foster care and given psychiatric evaluations.

"The murders didn't happen just on bad day. I wasn't having a bad day, I was a bad guy," Dugan said when asked about motive.

But today, he said, he regrets his actions.

"I want to tell (the Nicaricos) that I'm sorry for what I did. I know I destroyed their life. I didn't understand that Jeanine was a real person, but the more I learned about her life and her difficulties and what she went through before she met me…" his feelings began to change.

"I think I have remorse. I think I do. I have guilt…and I have empathy, too. But it just stops. I tear up a little, but something starts in here and just blocks it out…I fear going past a certain point to show my emotions."

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Nicarico's violent death. Dugan is already serving two life sentences for the deaths of Schnorr and Ackerman. Jurors will decide if Dugan will receive another life term -- or the death penalty. The trial continues this afternoon with more medical testimony from Dugan's doctors.

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/b...110309.article

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'He has changed,' psychiatrist says of man who killed Jeanine Nicarico


November 5, 2009

BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter

Brian Dugan repeatedly expressed remorse for murdering 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico and even talked about committing suicide as a way to demonstrate his regret, a defense psychiatrist testified Wednesday.

Dr. James Cavanaugh told a DuPage County jury that Dugan wrote in a letter earlier this year that he had considered killing himself while jailed to show he is sorry for murdering the Naperville girl in 1983.

“It is the most profound gesture I could make to express my remorse for my crimes,” Dugan wrote in the May 30, 2009, letter to Cavanaugh, which the noted psychiatrist read to jurors.

The jury is charged with determining whether to sentence the 53-year-old Dugan to death for murdering Jeanine in her home on Feb. 25, 1983. Dugan already is serving life sentences for the 1984 murder of 27-year-old Donna Schnorr and the 1985 murder of 7-year-old Melissa Ackerman.

If jurors reject the death penalty for Jeanine’s killing, Dugan will receive another life sentence.

Cavanaugh, who interviewed Dugan earlier this year in jail, testified that he believes Dugan is a psychopath who has difficulty controlling his actions and emotions. But he said Dugan finally appears to be coming to terms with the brutal kidnapping, rape and murder he committed against the Naperville girl. He cited Dugan’s July guilty plea to the killing and his claims of remorse as examples of how Dugan has accepted at least some responsibility for his violent acts.

“He has changed,” said Cavanaugh, who teaches at Rush Medical College in Chicago. “He is not today the same, exact individual he was in 1983, 1984 and 1985.”

Cavanaugh rejected claims by prosecutors that Dugan’s alleged remorse — including talking about suicide and reading about psychiatric issues — is simply an attempt to sway jurors to spare his life.

“A more reasonable explanation is he’s trying to understand why he did what he did,” said Cavanaugh, who is the second mental health expert called by defense attorneys to testify that Dugan’s mental state makes it difficult for him to control himself.

Dugan said he had come to feel so badly about murdering Jeanine that he has considered committing suicide as a way to “atone” for his crime, Cavanaugh testified. Dugan said he has even fantasized about killing himself by attacking terrorists or doing something else that would have a positive effect, Cavanaugh testified.

“He would prefer if he had the choice — which he doesn’t — to do it in a way that would have some sort of value to society,” Cavanaugh said.

Questioned by prosecutors, Cavanaugh agreed there are no indications Dugan — who has been jailed since 1985 — has ever attempted suicide.

Another defense expert is expected to testify during Dugan’s sentencing that electronic scans of Dugan’s brain show it doesn’t function normally, causing him to lack empathy and self-control.

Prosecutors plan to call at least one medical expert to testify that even though Dugan is a psychopath, he still has the ability to control himself.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/18...110409.article

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November 6, 2009

BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter/drozek@suntimes.com

Triple murderer Brian Dugan displays more severe psychopathic traits than all but a half-percent of the population, a defense psychologist testified Thursday.

"His score is in the highest range of any inmate I've ever met," said Kent Kiehl, a psychologist at the University of New Mexico who has tested about 1,000 prison inmates while studying the mental disorder.

Tests done earlier this year to measure the severity of his psychopathy gave Dugan a score of 37 out of a possible 40 points -- ranking him higher than 99.5 percent of the population, Kiehl testified.

Kiehl was likely the last witness called by defense attorneys trying to persuade a DuPage County jury to spare Dugan's life for his notorious 1983 murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico. The 53-year-old Dugan, already serving life sentences for two other murders, will receive another life term if jurors choose not to sentence him to death for fatally bludgeoning the Naperville girl.

Defense attorneys have called several mental health experts, including Kiehl, to testify Dugan is a psychopath who has difficulty controlling his actions and emotions.

His defense team is expected to rest its case today, though prosecutors plan to call their own psychological experts to testify about Dugan's mental state. Jurors could begin deliberating his fate next week.

Kiehl tested Dugan on Sept. 5 using a new technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging -- and concluded Dugan's brain doesn't function properly because of the severity of his mental disorder.

"It constitutes a brain disturbance," Kiehl testified.

Kiehl said he believes Dugan also had the disorder when Jeanine was slain.

"I can say with certainty he was a psychopath," Kiehl said.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/18...ugan06.article

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Testimony wraps up; jurors to hear closing arguments Tuesday

By Art Barnum and Ted Gregory Tribune reporters

November 7, 2009

After five weeks of testimony and about 70 witnesses, a DuPage County jury will hear closing arguments Tuesday in the death penalty sentencing hearing for Brian Dugan for the 1983 rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico, of Naperville.

On the final day of testimony, Dugan told Judge George Bakalis that he was declining to testify on his own behalf, a decision supported by his team of five defense attorneys.

The last witness to testify was Dr. Jonathon Brodie, a New York psychiatrist called by DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett as a rebuttal witness to the three main defense witnesses. The defense witnesses had detailed Dugan's various mental health deficiencies and tried to show through new technology that Dugan's outrageous and vicious crimes could have been attributed in some part to brain abnormalities.

Brodie testified that "it would take a leap of faith" to use the new technology to predict criminals or specific criminal action. He said that a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging test possibly "can be used to draw conclusions about groups," but he said that a scan of Dugan's brain taken in September "tells me nothing about what happened 25 years ago."

Also on Friday, Bakalis denied a final motion to bar the death penalty from being used against Dugan.

Steven Greenberg, a defense attorney, said that everyone agrees that Dugan is a psychopath and "therefore suffers from a mental illness, and we don't execute our mentally ill."

Bakalis ruled that state law prohibits the execution of the mentally retarded, and Dugan doesn't fit that definition.

Dugan pleaded guilty to the Nicarico crimes in July. The girl's parents, Tom and Pat Nicarico, were in court every day of the two weeks of jury selection and five weeks of arguments and testimony.

None of Dugan's four siblings, a sister and three brothers, was called to testify at the hearing, and none attended. Dugan has said that he has not had contact with family members in several decades. His parents are dead.

A unanimous jury decision is required to sentence Dugan to death; otherwise, he will be sentenced to a third life sentence in prison. He already is serving two life sentences for the murders of Melissa Ackerman, 7, of Somonauk, in 1985 and Donna Schnorr, 27, of Geneva, in 1984.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...,4373404.story

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November 12, 2009
By ERIKA WURST ewurst@scn1.com

WHEATON — Convicted murderer Brian Dugan will spend his final years out of protective custody and on Death Row after jurors found him not only eligible, but deserving, of death Wednesday, after more than 10 hours of deliberation.

Dugan, who was sentenced for the kidnapping, rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in 1983, is already serving two life sentences for the murders of Donna Schnorr, 27, of Geneva, and Melissa Ackerman, 7, of Somonauk.


Brian Dugan (left) on Wednesday was sentenced to die for the kidnapping, rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville in 1983.

Family members of all three victims have spent more than five weeks in court, listening to hundreds of hours of testimony from witnesses ranging from living victims and Dugan's attorneys to psychiatrists and police officers.

It was a trying month for all of those involved, and became even harder Tuesday evening.

After a long day of closing arguments, jurors began to deliberate about 5 p.m. They came back with several questions, and requested doctors' notes and videotaped interviews from the long list of exhibits introduced over the course of the sentencing hearing.

After five hours, just as Judge George Bakalis was about to ask jurors to retire, word of a verdict rang through the courthouse. Media masses, which had camped out for hours, rushed the courtroom as the Nicaricos were led in. Emotions were high as the 26-year saga was about to reach an end.

Jurors, however, would need a few moments, Bakalis said, and after 45 minutes they never entered the room. The family was dismissed again, only to be called back minutes later and told jurors would spend the night in a hotel and deliberation would begin again Wednesday morning.

"Welcome to this case," Pat Nicarico said, tears of frustration in her eyes as she heard that news.

By 2 p.m. Wednesday, however, her tears would turn from frustration to joy. Huddled closely with her family, a bulletproof wall separating them from the man who murdered their youngest child, Pat Nicarico waited anxiously for the news. It would only take one juror to save Dugan's life, and that possibility was real.

Dugan knew that better than anyone, as he entered court Wednesday for the verdict. For the first time in weeks he studied the jury, as if searching for a clue. But as they took their seats, avoiding eye contact with the serial killer, it seemed he knew his fate was sealed.

Dugan showed no emotion as the death penalty verdict was read. In the gallery, however, gasps of relief rang out.

The Nicaricos could quit holding their breath.

"This decision is definitely a relief," Pat Nicarico said in front of dozens of news cameras and microphones. These aren't tears of sadness, but of joy."

The "small measure of closure" comes in knowing that Brian Dugan is in a place he never wanted to be.

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/n...111109.article

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Birkett says Dugan may have committed other murders

November 13, 2009
By THOMAS FRISBIE AND DAN ROZEK Sun-Times Media

Now that a DuPage County jury has given serial killer Brian Dugan the death penalty, authorities are investigating his possible connection to other long-unsolved crimes.

Dugan has been convicted of three murders, but authorities believe he may have committed up to four more.


Brian Dugan, now sentenced to die for the murder of Jeanine Nicarico (bottom, from left) in 1983, already was in prison for the 1984 murder of Donna Schnorr and the 1985 killing of Melissa Ackerman. Authorities say Dugan may be responsible for as many as four other murders.

DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett said he wants those slayings investigated thoroughly to prevent a situation similar to the case of 1970s serial killer Ted Bundy.

Bundy confessed to more than 30 murders but sought a last-minute stay of execution by offering information on additional cases. He was executed in 1989.

Birkett said he wants to prevent Dugan, 53, from possibly stalling the execution process at the last minute by offering to help solve open cases.

Dugan long has been suspected of additional crimes because in the 1985 plea negotiations he confessed only to crimes in which he had reason to think he already was a suspect and because his first known murder, that of Jeanine, fit the pattern of a repeat murderer.

All four of the cases now under examination took place in Chicago's collar counties before Dugan was imprisoned for good in 1985. None happened in DuPage County, but Birkett said he has met with law officials in other counties to make sure the cases are re-examined.

Two cases that appear more likely to be linked to Dugan took place in McHenry and Kane counties, Birkett said, and there may be two others.

Birkett declined to discuss the McHenry case but confirmed the Kane County one was the April 4, 1983, slaying of Kathryn Alice Pollock, 64.

Pollock, a widow who lived alone in the 100 block of South Randall Road on Aurora's West Side, was found bludgeoned to death. Her car was stolen, and police recovered it several blocks away.

Possible links to Dugan were that he is known to have bludgeoned other victims, Pollack's car was found near the apartment of a Dugan relative with whom Dugan may have been living at the time and a Dugan associate said Dugan had admitted doing burglaries on Aurora's West Side because residents had more money.

The associate said Dugan knocked on doors to ask if yard work needed to be done. If no one answered the door, he broke in to burglarize the home.

As in the Nicarico case, time cards showed Dugan did not go to work on the day of Pollock's murder.

Also, a witness saw an unidentified man the morning of the murder outside Pollock's home. Although the description did not match Dugan in other respects, the witness described a blue-gray jacket that resembled one Dugan wore during other crimes and that was found in his apartment after he was arrested for the 1985 murder of Melissa Ackerman.

Dugan didn't linger long in the DuPage County jail following his sentencing Wednesday -- he was transferred Thursday morning to the Stateville Correctional Center, said Januari Smith, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Dugan will be processed there, Smith said, but it's not clear when he will be transferred to the Pontiac Correctional Center, the site of Illinois' Death Row.

Dugan returns to Wheaton on Dec. 16 when Judge George Bakalis formally imposes his sentence.

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/b...091113.article