Jury to resume deliberating 2006 Cary double murder Thursday morning
Jurors will resume deliberations Thursday morning in the trial of Michael Romano, a former Algonquin man accused of gunning down his estranged father and stepmother in their Cary area home in November 2006 for a share of their $2 million estate.
The panel deliberated about two hours Wednesday before being sent home in the case of Romano, 56, who was indicted in January 2014 and extradited from Las Vegas to stand trial.
"It's like a puzzle," McHenry County Assistant State's Attorney John Gibbons told jurors. "That puzzle is not difficult: motive, money with a side order of resentment."
During the week-and-a-half-long trial before Judge Sharon Prather in McHenry County, prosecutors argued Romano was the only person who could have killed Nick Romano Sr., 71, and his wife, Gloria, 65, who were both found shot in the head.
Romano told police he was worried his father didn't return phone messages the previous day, so he went to their home about 3 a.m. Nov. 20, 2006, and found them both shot to death.
Assistant State's Attorney Robert Zalud said Romano was conscious of his guilt and told implausible lies to investigators from the beginning.
"It's not just one thing. It's all of it put together," Zalud said. "Make no mistake about it. He murdered Nick Sr. He murdered Gloria Romano. There is nobody else who had the motive and the means."
Zalud argued that Romano had no job prospects, owed $130,000, resented his father and killed him and his wife for their money.
During the trial, prosecutors showed that on the way to his parents' home to check on them, Romano stopped to get coffee at a White Hen, telling the clerk to keep the change because he just came into an "inheritance."
Romano was at the police station for 15 hours afterward and made up lie after lie about how he could have gotten gunshot residue inside his car, Zalud said.
Only a few people knew Gloria Romano was shot once in the head and Nick Sr. was shot twice, but Michael Romano told a friend this detail only a few days after the killings, Zalud said.
There were no signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle, and no jewelry or any of the $200,000 in the home was stolen.
Once Romano returned home from the police station to his mistress, he whispered to her that he found a Camel cigarette butt at the crime scene, but he withheld this information from police until days later. Police testified the butt was planted at the scene.
While with his mistress that night, Romano acted unemotional about the murders and even searched his home for listening devices, including making his mistress strip off all her clothes before they had sex, according to trial testimony.
An Illinois State Police forensic scientist testified that the three rounds of ammunition used in the murders were a .22-caliber, hollow point Remington "Golden Bullet" variety. The scientist ruled out that the three bullets could have been fired by any of the five guns found at the home of Nick Romano Sr. that used .22-caliber bullets. The state police expert also testified that the recovered bullets were "consistent" with the same "Golden Bullet" that Romano asked a friend for before the murders.
Romano later told police he took the bullets to his dad's house so his dad could shoot at raccoons. But Nick Sr. used a pellet gun to shoot at raccoons on his property and had hundreds of rounds of .22-caliber ammunition at his home, none of it of the "Golden Bullet" type. Finally, Romano inherited about 30 guns from a relative in the early 2000s but the week beforehand deleted the guns records from his computer even though he was required to keep them for 10 years.
"(Michael Romano) borrowed the bullets to kill his father because he needed need money and this was his last resort," Zalud said. "He'd do it twice if he could get double (the money). No other person could have done this."
McHenry County Assistant Public Defender Rick Behof noted that authorities did not recover the murder weapon, and Romano never confessed or made any admissions when he met with Nick Jr., who wore a wire, in March 2007.
Behof also noted that Nick Jr. had a motive because was the sole beneficiary and executor of the estate because Nick Sr. had secretly cut Michael Romano out of the will years beforehand.
Romano did not testify in his own defense. If convicted, he faces life in prison.