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Son says 'I just killed him' on 911 call

In a call to 911 made minutes after police say he murdered his father Monday night in Arlington Heights, an agitated-sounding Steven M. Cole tells an emergency dispatcher, “I just killed him.”

When the dispatcher tries to pin down his whereabouts, Cole first says he is in Des Plaines, only later correcting himself and giving the Arlington Heights address where he lived with his father.

And throughout, Cole repeatedly insists he is a victim of ongoing physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his 69-year-old father, Stuart Cole.

Northwest Central Dispatch got two more related 911 calls that night — one from Cole's sister and the other from a Buffalo Grove nursing home where his mother is staying — each reporting that Steven Cole called them and confessed to his father's slaying.

Cole's sister, whose name was erased by Northwest Central Dispatch before they released the audio, calmly told the dispatcher she was home with her kids while her husband had driven over to check what was going on at Stuart Cole's Stratford Road home — which by then had been blocked off by police.

“He (Steven Cole) said that he stabbed him and hit him with a crowbar in the head. And he stabbed himself and he's sitting at the kitchen table talking to me,” the sister told the 911 operator.

“He said he stabbed him in the heart, stabbed him in the eye, and hit him on the head with a crowbar. If it's true, I can't tell you because my brother, he's not all there at times.”

The sister, who called 911 from her cellphone while her brother was still connected on her home phone, said her brother also claimed to have taken dozens of pills, but added “he's still coherent and talking.”

The dispatcher asked the sister to go back to her brother on her other phone, but the sister came back and reported he had hung up.

The dispatcher asked her how Steven Cole sounded.

“He sounded more calm than he did all day,” the sister told the 911 operator. “He was mad at us for the past two days, at me and everybody else in the world.”

The sister said Cole had said he couldn't take his father yelling at him.

“I don't know what he's talking about half the time,” she said.

Cole also called his mother at the Buffalo Grove nursing home and admitted to killing his father, authorities said.

He called the nursing home a second time, this time telling an employee he had overdosed on pills. “I am dead, please tell my mom,” Steven Cole told him.

Cole's mother tried to call the family home but no one answered, the employee said.

An edited transcript of Steven Cole's call, made public Wednesday, follows:

Cole: My dad has been physically and emotionally abusing me.

Northwest Central Dispatch 911 operator: What's your address? What address are you at?

Cole: At my psychiatrist he last month gave me a fever of 104 from stress ... throwing up and a fever and the psychiatrist said I could have died, and he left and I just killed him. And he's dead right now because I can't take the physical abuse.”

Operator: What address are you in?

Cole: (House number) Hamlin. (House number) Hamlin.

Operator: (House number) Hamlin?

Cole: Yes, I'm being physically and mentally abused.

Operator: What town are you in?

Cole: Des Plaines. (Mumbles something unintelligible) ... in Arlington Heights. I can't take the physical and mental abuse. I'm being totally abused.

Operator: Where is your dad at right now?

Cole: He's dead. He's lying on the ground.

Operator: Are you at (House number) Hamlin right now?

Audible distortion.

Northwest Central Dispatch 911 operator calls Des Plaines police dispatch.

Operator: Do you have a (House number) Hamlin in your town?

Des Plaines dispatcher: (House number) Hamlin? No.

Cole: My dad has been mentally abusing me. He gave me a 105 fever from stress ... the abuse every day, and I can't take it any more, I (expletive) took a knife at him and I killed him.

Des Plaines dispatcher: Where are you?

Cole: I'm in my house. I killed him because he's abusing me and my psychiatrist said he could have killed me. My mom told my dad that the psychiatrist said he could have killed him. And he said he didn't care if I died or not.

Des Plaines dispatcher: What is your address?

Cole: (House number) Hamlin. I mean Stratford.

Des Plaines dispatcher: In what city?

Cole: Arlington Heights.

Operator: Des Plaines we have it.

Des Plaines dispatcher: OK, sorry. Good luck.

Operator: Sir?

Line goes dead.

Northwest Central Dispatch 911 operator calls the Stratford Road house back and gets an automated message.