Lemak murders still resonate in Naperville after 10 years
Allan Munch still recalls how he and his fellow jurors searched in vain for an explanation.
Jack Donahue never forgot the nightmares or waking up gasping for air as if suffocating.
And the dispatcher's cracking voice as he fought back tears while alerting police to the scene of a triple child homicide remains clear in Ray McGury's mind.
It was 10 years ago today that Marilyn Lemak drugged and suffocated her three children in Naperville.
She is serving a life sentence at Dwight Correction Center, the state's only maximum security women's prison. The 51-year-old former surgical nurse is one of 2,657 women behind bars in Illinois. Of them, 12.3 percent are in for murder.
For many, the passage of time hasn't erased the horrific images of March 4, 1999, or the anguish left in the crime's aftermath.
One decade later, Naperville Mayor George Pradel said it still is a hard subject to discuss.
"I know all of us still grieve for those children," Pradel said. "I think we've suffered for 10 years and still have anxiety over what happened and whether it could ever occur again. I really think we, as a part of this anniversary, should try to get some relief and move on."
The jury deliberated for nine hours during two days after a three-week trial in December 2001 before finding Lemak was sane when she sedated and suffocated Nicholas, 7, Emily, 6, and 3-year-old Thomas. The panel rejected alternate verdicts of guilty but mentally ill or not guilty by reason of insanity.
Jurors considered two sharply contrasting portraits.
Prosecutors contended an outraged Marilyn Lemak committed murder in an act of rage and retribution against her estranged husband, David, who had moved out of the house at her urging three weeks earlier and began dating another woman, whom he later married.
The defense team countered with claims of insanity, arguing a suicidal Lemak spiraled into a depression so severe it left her with the delusion that she and the children would wake up together in a happy place free from their problems.
The former Lemak house, on Loomis Street, still stands. Its owners last year donated the 1885 structure to North Central College as part of a $4 million gift. Its dark history, though, still haunts.
"When I walked into the house, it was as if everything was frozen in time," recalled McGury, a retired Naperville police sergeant who now serves as the park district's executive director. "You got a sick feeling in your stomach. I'll always wonder what was going on in those poor kids' minds, and how could a mother do this?"
Defense attorney Jack Donahue said it remains his most traumatic case.
"I never had a case before that gave me nightmares," said Donahue, an attorney for nearly 40 years. "I actually woke up a couple of mornings suffocating. It's something that you'll never forget - the facts, circumstances and the people. It was a chilling experience."
Allan Munch of Lombard had retired as an airplane mechanic one month before being tapped Juror No. 194. Munch said Lemak's premeditation and hatred toward her estranged husband made for a clear verdict.
He said only one juror was on the fence, but that had more to do with her views against the death penalty. Munch said the jury knew Lemak would never get executed.
"It was obvious she was not in her right mind, but was she legally insane? The evidence just wasn't there," said Munch, 72, who later moved out of state. "She wanted to make sure he never got to see those kids again. She knew that was the best way to hurt him."
But jurors also groped for an explanation for the killings.
"Everyone kept looking for something to excuse her actions," he said, "but it just wasn't there."
Lemak had a history of postpartum and depression and had long sought treatment.
After killing her children, she attempted suicide by slitting her wrist.
Though mental health experts on each side disagreed on her sanity, they concurred her psychological state has worsened since the murders after she realized what she had done, all that she lost and her likely future in prison.
DuPage State's Attorney Joseph Birkett initially sought the death penalty against Lemak, saying the premeditated and heinous nature of her crime merited execution. Birkett later changed his mind, though, in part citing her deteriorating mental health.
Birkett still sees his decision for Lemak as a fate worse than death.
To this day, there's never been any books written or movies filmed about the tragedy. The case did not break new legal ground. Lemak has never spoken publicly.
She and her family declined Daily Herald requests to be interviewed, but Donahue said a medicated Lemak is surviving in prison and using her nursing background to help other inmates. David Lemak, now living in Michigan, also was unavailable. He agreed with Birkett about the punishment at the 2002 sentencing.
"My family and I believe the punishment most befitting Marilyn Morrissey is to spend the rest of her life in prison," he said. "There, she will have to live each day with the knowledge of the horror she is accountable for. There, she cannot harm any of us ever again.
"There, gratefully, justice is served."
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Related documents</h2> <ul class="morePdf"> <li><a href="/pdf/361999.pdf">Daily Herald front page from March 6, 1999</a></li> <li><a href="/pdf/12202001.pdf">Daily Herald front page from Dec. 20, 2001</a></li> <li><a href="/pdf/492002.pdf">Daily Herald front page from April 9, 2002</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>