Jurors view photos, videos in Nellessen murder trial
Prosecutors showed jurors photographs of George Nellessen's bound wrists and feet and blood splattered on the ceiling above the victim as the murder trial of his son entered its fourth day.
Prosecutors say greed motivated Matthew Nellessen, 22, to beat and stab to death his father George on April 12, 2011, while the 55-year-old widower was bound to a chair in the family room of his Arlington Heights home.
Nellessen's defense attorneys say co-defendant Marlon Green, a self-confessed Chicago gang member, plotted to kill both father and son.
Monday at the Rolling Meadows courthouse, Palatine Police Cmdr. Dave Daigle testified about evidence recovered from the Nellessen family's Wilshire Lane home. Daigle is a member of the Major Case Assistance Team, which was established in 1998 to assist member police departments with criminal investigations. Evidence collected from the scene included a slip of paper with Green's name and phone number, several withdrawal receipts from Chase Bank on Chicago's South Side and receipts from purchases made at a South Side Walgreens, Daigle said. Police also recovered a bloodstained rug, sweatpants, T-shirt and other items from the kitchen garbage can, Daigle said.
Prosecutors say Nellessen recruited Green, 23, to help rob his father. Green testified he enlisted help from his friends Armon Braden, 23, who supplied a pellet gun, and brother Azari Braden, 22, who drove Green and Armon Braden to the Nellessen home on April 12, 2011, Green said. Prosecutors say the co-defendants tried unsuccessfully to access George Nellessen's bank accounts, then confronted him when he arrived home from work. Green held the gun on George Nellessen while Matthew Nellessen and Armon Braden tied him to the chair and forced him to divulge his account information and sign a blank check, which Green made out to Matthew Nellessen for $100,000, according to Green's testimony.
Green testified Matthew beat his father with a baseball bat and stabbed him in the neck, then changed clothes and drove Green to Chicago's South Side in George Nellessen's Mercury Grand Marquis. They used George's debit card to withdraw money from a Chase ATM and bought cellphones from a South Side Walgreens and other items from nearby stores, he said.
Prosecutors played surveillance video from the stores, as well as from the Chicago motel where prosecutors say Nellessen and Green stayed after the murder.
A friend of George Nellessen found his body on April 14. Matthew Nellessen, who was home at the time, fled in his father's car, triggering a police chase that ended in East Dundee with his arrest.
Monday's proceedings also included testimony from FBI Agent Joseph Raschke, who analyzed cellphone calls and tests among the defendants around the time of the murder. Raschke's analysis pointed to Nellessen being on the South Side around the time Green said he was.
Testimony continues today in Rolling Meadows.