Prosecutors won't seek death penalty in DuPage repair shop slaying
Prosecutors in DuPage County opted against seeking the death penalty against a young man who they said admitted fatally beating a Bloomingdale repair shop owner.
Timothy Bailey-Woodson is accused of attacking 53-year-old David G. Coungeris with a metal auto part March 5 during a dispute between the two at High Tech Auto & Truck Repair, 250 S. Gary Ave., Bloomingdale.
A DuPage County grand jury indicted Bailey-Woodson, 23, earlier this week on charges of first-degree murder and armed robbery. Authorities allege he stole Coungeris' cellular phone and computer during the crime.
On Friday, prosecutors Steven Knight and Thomas O'Connor announced in court they are not seeking a death sentence if Bailey-Woodson is convicted. The law requires prosecutors to state their intentions within 120 days of indictment.
Illinois' unofficial moratorium on the death penalty remains in place, but judges and juries across the state still hand out death sentences, albeit with less frequency.
There are 15 condemned men on Illinois' death row - which former Gov. George Ryan cleared out six years ago before leaving office when commuting 167 death sentences to life terms.
No one in Illinois has been put to death by lethal injection since the March 16, 1999, execution of Andrew Kokoraleis, prosecuted for his role in nearly 20 cultlike mutilation sex slayings of women in the 1980s in Cook and DuPage counties.
Of Illinois' condemned, 32-year-old Anthony Mertz is first in line to face execution, but he still hasn't exhausted his appeal rights yet for the 2001 murder of Rolling Meadows native Shannon McNamara, 21, at Eastern Illinois University.
In the Bailey-Woodson case, DuPage County prosecutors considered his young age and minor criminal history, as well as other mitigating factors, in reaching their decision. They argue, though, he is eligible for an extended prison term of life.
Workers discovered Coungeris' body late March 5 and called 911. Police soon developed as a suspect Bailey-Woodson, who would do odd jobs around the shop. They notified Chicago police to be on the lookout for him if he showed up at his last known address on the 2100 block of Dickens Avenue in Chicago, where he was arrested the next day.
Prosecutors said Bailey-Woodson confessed in a videotaped statement to beating Coungeris on the head some 25 times "until his arm was tired," after he said the victim made sexual demands of him while the two slept in the same bed.
Bailey-Woodson did not have a prior violent criminal history. But weeks before the murder, he was placed on two years' probation after he admitted stealing a car.
Bailey-Woodson is due back before DuPage Circuit Judge George Bakalis June 8. The defendant is being held in the DuPage County jail without bond.