Streamwood man pleads guilty to killing father

A Streamwood man admitted Monday to stabbing and strangling his elderly father before setting the bedroom on fire to cover his tracks.

Kevin Wallace, 47, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and residential arson and was immediately sentenced to 40 years in prison. He'd been eligible for the death penalty.

"Chances are, you won't survive your prison sentence," Cook County Judge Thomas Fecarotta Jr. told Wallace, who has to serve his entire sentence.

Prosecutors say Wallace was living with his 74-year-old father, Ronald, when the two got into an argument on Dec. 2, 2006.

Kevin Wallace used a kitchen knife and a screwdriver to stab his father multiple times and then strangled him with a lamp electrical cord. A medical examiner ruled the latter was the cause of death.

Prosecutors say that in a crude attempt to cover up the crime, Wallace set fire to the bedroom where his father lay on the floor. The fire left 60 percent of Ronald Wallace's body covered in burns, the medical examiner said.

Kevin Wallace then left with $50 from his father's wallet to go buy cocaine, according to court testimony.

"I do feel sorry for what I did," Wallace said in court Monday.

He added that he also feels sorry for "all the ones who had to suffer child abuse."

Kevin's brother Keith Wallace, who was in the courtroom for the hearing Monday, said later that Kevin and their late older brother were "abused and molested as children over the years."

Not that he's excusing his brother's actions.

"Nobody deserves to go through what my father went through," Keith Wallace said. "But this is how he taught his son to be."

Keith Wallace said he's reluctant to say much more until the 30-day appeal period expires, but he doesn't want his father to appear the only victim.

"I may sound cold but (Ronald Wallace) was a cold individual. He was very abusive to all of us," he said. "Had my father done differently, Kevin wouldn't be in this situation."

Defense attorney Kristina Yi declined to comment.

Wallace received credit for 450 days served. He served more than six years in prison in the 1990s for attempted murder and armed robbery in Kane County.