Medical examiner testifies in Hoffman Estates murder trial
From his seat in the front row, Jeffrey Ziegler listened stoically as a retired Cook County assistant medical examiner testified in a Rolling Meadows courtroom Thursday about the autopsy he performed on Ziegler’s 19-year-old son Joseph, who was found shot to death in the basement of the family’s Hoffman Estates home in September 2008.
Dr. Joseph Cogan’s testimony about the fatal gunshot wound to the head of the Schaumburg High School graduate suffered elicited tears from several of the nearly two dozen Ziegler supporters attending the murder trial of 23-year-old Matthew Zucco, of Hanover Park, who prosecutors say killed Ziegler during an attempted armed robbery with co-defendant Clinton Johnson, 25, of Streamwood.
As part of a plea agreement, Johnson — who had initially been charged with first-degree murder along with Zucco — agreed to testify against his former friend and plead guilty to the lesser charge of attempted armed robbery in exchange for a 15-year sentence, with the possibility of parole after he serves 50 percent of the time. The sentence for a first-degree murder conviction ranges from 20 to 60 years. Parole is not an option.
The bullet, which Cogan testified was fired at close range with the gun muzzle touching Ziegler’s scalp, entered above his right ear and broke apart with some fragments lodging inside his brain while others exited his body. The wound would have incapacitated Ziegler who may have survived as long as five minutes, Cogan said.
Cogan further testified that his autopsy revealed no signs of a struggle.
Zucco’s attorneys deny their client went to Ziegler’s house to rob him. They say he went there to buy marijuana from Ziegler — who prosecutors acknowledged made money selling pot — but a dispute arose leading to a struggle over a .38-caliber revolver, which Johnson testified belonged to Zucco. It was during that struggle that Ziegler was shot, with some of the bullet fragments entering Zucco’s chest, his attorneys say.
Johnson testified that after the shooting, he and Zucco cleaned up the scene to eliminate fingerprints and fled, dropping the revolver into a sewer near the crime scene. Police recovered the revolver and a sock containing 40 unfired .38-caliber cartridges, which Johnson said he threw into a sewer near his home because they were the same caliber as the gun used in the shooting.
Firearms expert Gary Lind, of the Northeast Regional Illinois Crime Laboratory identified as .38 caliber the bullet fragments recovered from Ziegler’s body. He further testified that size of bullet could have been fired from a 9 mm handgun. Johnson testified earlier that he owned a 9 mm but claimed he did not bring it with him to Ziegler’s house. Firearms identification expert Diana Pratt testified the bullet fragments were fired from the same firearm, but couldn’t say conclusively they were fired from the weapon police recovered from the sewer.
Prosecutors also called longtime Zucco friend Jesse Miller to the stand. The Hoffman Estates resident was in Cook County Jail on drug delivery charges when he ran into Zucco in a holding pen in September 2010. Miller testified Zucco told him he and Johnson went to rob someone but the “guy lunged at him and Matt accidentally shot him.”
Miller’s attorney negotiated a plea deal whereby Miller would testify to their conversation and plead guilty to the lesser charge of drug possession in exchange for a 2½ year prison sentence, which defense attorney William Beattie pointed out, is less than half of the six-year minimum sentence he faced.
Testimony continues Friday in Rolling Meadows.