West Chicago man's trial starts in lawyer's '09 murder

A jury will hear opening statements Tuesday in the trial of a West Chicago man accused of suffocating his former attorney and robbing the 82-year-old victim of his prized gun collection.

DuPage County prosecutors allege Terry Bratcher worked in unison with another man, Keith Allen, who pleaded guilty this year to Carl Kuhn's murder and is now serving 46 years in prison.

Bratcher has opted for a rare six-person jury, which was selected Monday. The trial in Judge Blanche Hill Fawell's court is expected to last through the week. Whether Allen, 23, of Chicago will be called to testify was unclear.

Kuhn, a former criminal defense attorney who represented and befriended Bratcher, was found dead in August 2009 in an upstairs bedroom at his home near Bartlett. Authorities said he had been suffocated with a pillow and 43 guns were missing from his vast collection.

Allen and Bratcher, 45, were arrested days later after police found the stolen firearms in Bratcher's garage in West Chicago. Sheriff's detectives obtained video-recorded confessions from both men, authorities said, including one in which Bratcher demonstrated how he suffocated Kuhn, they said.

The slaying happened as the men carried out a scheme to steal and sell some of Kuhn's valuable guns, according to the charges.

Prosecutors allege Bratcher went into Kuhn's home first before summoning Allen, who was outside with a loaded gun. When Kuhn refused to give the combination to his gun safe, authorities said, the robbers put a jacket over his head and forced him to an upstairs guest bed.

According to his plea, Allen admitted checking Kuhn's pulse while Bratcher smothered the elderly man's face into a pillow. Kuhn's gun safe was found sawed open.

At a sentencing hearing in April, Allen said he was “naive and so stupid for letting (Bratcher) con me into this.”

“I was afraid and I didn't know if Terry would harm me,” he told Fawell.

Bratcher, an ex-con who had been represented by Kuhn, often visited the former attorney, taking him to movies and working on his car, authorities said. Allen had moved to Chicago from Milwaukee the year before the murder to study computers, according to prosecutors.

Kuhn, who practiced law for 50 years, was an avid gun-rights activist and an Army veteran of World War II, family members have said.

“He was an honorable, noble man,” Kuhn's son Evan, of Lakemoor, said at an earlier court appearance. “I'm in disbelief that my father lost his life due to his hobby and his passion.”

On Monday, prosecutors questioned several potential jurors about their opinions on gun ownership and the Second Amendment. A total of eight jurors, including two alternates, were selected from a group of about 60.

Bratcher faces charges of murder, home invasion and armed robbery. He is being prosecuted by State's Attorney Robert Berlin, who is lead trial attorney, and Assistant State's Attorney Mary Cronin. Assistant Public Defenders Jaime Escuder and Mike Mara are representing him.

Bratcher is being held without bond in the DuPage jail, where he's been since Aug. 23, 2009, jail records show. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to natural life in prison, prosecutors said.

Allen is serving his sentence at downstate Menard Correctional Center, state records show.