Lisle man faces murder charges in car crash

Lake County prosecutors have charged a man with using a car to commit first-degree murder in what is believed to be the first such case in the county.

On Tuesday, Donald Mischke, 54, pleaded not guilty to the charge filed in the Dec. 29 death of Elisha Clark of Grayslake.

Police said Mischke, of Lisle, was fleeing from the Waukegan police officer who caught him breaking into a store when he ran a red light and struck Clark's car broadside.

He was originally charged with reckless homicide, aggravated driving under the influence of drugs and aggravated fleeing and eluding, but prosecutors added the more serious charge after presenting the case to a grand jury March 16.

Assistant State's Attorney Reginald Matthews said the law allows the murder charge because Mischke was committing a forcible felony when Clark was killed.

The Waukegan officer had spotted Mischke attempting to break into the Target store at Lewis and Sunset avenues about 2 a.m. on Dec. 29, Matthews said.

Once the officer turned on the emergency lights of her car, Matthews said, Mischke drove off at a high rate of speed and turned left on Green Bay Road from Sunset.

Police broke off the chase because of the volume of traffic on Green Bay Road, Matthews said, but Mischke was still traveling at a high rate of speed when he entered the intersection with Belvedere Road and struck Clark's car.

Clark, 25, the mother of an 8-year-old son who aspired to teach children with developmental disabilities, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash.

Matthews said courts have ruled that someone who is fleeing the scene of a felony is still in the act of committing that felony.

“There is some very good case law on this issue, some of which almost mirrors the facts of our case,” Matthews said after the arraignment. “We feel confident that first-degree murder is the proper charge to bring in this case.”

Matthews said Cook County prosecutors have filed murder charges in several scenarios involving people who kill with cars. Perhaps the most well-known of those cases involved Jeanette Sliwinski of Morton Grove, who in 2005 was charged with murder when she rammed her Ford Mustang into a Honda Civic in Skokie.

Three musicians – Michael Dahlquist, John Glick and Douglas Meis – died in the crash that Sliwinski told police she deliberately caused in an attempt to kill herself.

She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in her 2007 trial, but was sentenced to eight years in prison after being found guilty but mentally ill of reckless homicide.

Clark's mother, Charolette Travis, said after Mischke's arraignment that she saw all sides of the tragedy.

“This entire thing is just sad; it is sad my daughter's gone and it is sad my grandson does not have his mother,” Travis said. “But it is also sad to see that man brought into the courtroom with no family here to support him.”

Mischke, who police said had cocaine in his system at the time of the crash, appeared before Circuit Judge Fred Foreman in a wheelchair because he is still recovering from injuries he suffered in the crash. Foreman scheduled a trial of the case for May 31 and ordered Mischke, who is held on $500,000 bond, to appear in court April 19.

Mischke's attorney, Christopher Lombardo of Waukegan, declined to comment after Tuesday's court session.