Lawyer says Benion was never a fugitive

An Elgin boy's attorney denied Friday that his client went into hiding after he and his mother were accused of killing a teenager he had squabbled with over a girl.

Rather, Lacorbek Benion, 16, relocated to Arkansas with an aunt because of threats he had received regarding the death of 16-year-old Elgin resident John W. Keyes III, said defense attorney Van Richards.

Richards provided the court with a December letter to an Elgin police detective that said Benion would surrender if charged.

"There was no secret as to where he was," Richards said in court. "At no time was he a fugitive."

Benion was arrested on first-degree murder charges earlier this month at a high school in Earle, Ark., after a grand jury indicted him in Keyes' death on Nov. 8, 2009. On Friday, he went in front of Kane County Judge Allen M. Anderson to request his $3 million bond be reduced to $200,000.

Richards said the former Larkin High School student, who has no prior criminal history, had anticipated being charged and made arrangements before his indictment to surrender when necessary. But, he said, police instead "spent thousands" needlessly tracking his client to another state and transporting him back to Illinois.

"All they had to do was pick up the phone and he would have been there," Richards said.

Benion's mother, Timera D. Branch, 34, of Streamwood, was charged almost immediately after Keyes' death. She is accused of driving a car into the boy, crushing him against an Elgin apartment building, before Benion arrived and beat Keyes in the head with a baseball bat, according to prosecutors.

Assistant State's Attorney Greg Sams told the judge Friday that the killing happened a day after Keyes punched Benion in the face in an altercation over a girl who had danced with Keyes. He said Benion then fled to Arkansas.

"His mother did not flee the state; however, this defendant did," he said.

Sams said the state has at least seven eyewitnesses who say they saw Keyes being beaten after Benion and his mother drove around Elgin in separate vehicles, trying to find him. Anderson said he needed more information before deciding whether to reduce Benion's bond, and continued the hearing to April 27.

"I want to know something about the circumstances of where he is going to be living," the judge said. "I want to know where he is going to go to school. I need details of what his day-to-day life will be."