Man who killed mom: 'I didn't stop until she was dead'
Rob Lyons stood before a DuPage County judge Friday and repeatedly confessed to murdering his mother.
She had it coming, he said.
“I stabbed her. I hit her with a cognac bottle. I poured chemicals on her,” Lyons said. “I completely lost control — and I didn't stop until she was dead.”
The 39-year-old Carol Stream man is facing up to 100 years in prison when he is sentenced Monday for the March 2008 murder of Linda Bolek, 61.
In his final statement in front of Judge Kathryn Creswell, Lyons admitted Friday that he carried out the grisly slaying but claimed the victim was to blame.
“My mom seriously provoked me with her relentless verbal abuse,” he said. “I told her I would never take her verbal abuse again. Apparently that was too much to ask.”
Prosecutors have said Lyons hatched a plan to kill Bolek after she refused to ask a friend for skybox tickets to see pop singer Avril Lavigne.
But Lyons called that theory “ridiculous.” He said his anger had been brewing for decades and that he “snapped” after his mother criticized him for taking flowers to waitresses at a steakhouse.
“If I had planned this, would I leave every single piece of evidence in a pile in the kitchen?” Lyons said. “If I had planned this I would have taken my time.”
Lyons, who has a history of mental illness, told the judge he did not plot to kill his mother. He said he was in a manic state and had been awake for 30 hours when he attacked her in their kitchen. He claimed she had reached for a knife.
Bolek was beaten in the head with a full liquor bottle and stabbed nine times in the back before she was showered with household chemicals, said Assistant State's Attorney Ann Celine O'Hallaren.
She said Lyons stabbed his mother with such force that the knife snapped off in her body.
“He killed his own mother like a spoiled little child, because he did not get what he wanted,” O'Hallaren said.
Bolek's boyfriend, Stan Matusiak, said Bolek was a “wonderful mother” who let her adult son to move in several years ago to help get him on the right track.
He said Bolek did just about everything for Lyons, from driving him around to buying him food, clothes and other necessities.
“Why she was taken away from me will always be puzzling,” Matusiak testified, fighting back tears. “Linda loved Rob so much that no matter what he needed ... she was always accommodating to him.”
Lyons, who was convicted by a jury in September, spoke for about 45 minutes Friday, He apologized to dozens of family members by name, as well as to his attorneys for not telling them the truth about the case.
“This is the first time they're hearing it,” he said.
Lyons also told Creswell she was “classy” and thanked her for “being so nice to me.” He asked that she consider sentencing him to 20 to 30 years.
“If your sentence is a lot longer than that, it's OK,” he said.