Dugan admits Nicarico murder without deal to save own life

After 26 years filled with wrongful convictions, disgraced public officials, lawsuits and death penalty reforms, Brian Dugan admitted Tuesday he killed 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico.

The convicted killer made it clear he acted alone.

"No one aided, abetted or helped me," he said before a packed DuPage County courtroom.

The 52-year-old former Aurora man pleaded guilty before DuPage Circuit Judge George Bakalis without the prosecution's guarantee he won't face execution.

Instead, Dugan is rolling the dice that his acceptance of responsibility for the 1983 abduction, rape and murder of the Naperville girl might sway a jury to spare his life.

DuPage State's Attorney Joseph Birkett said he'll offer Dugan "no deals." Birkett showed Bakalis heart-wrenching photos of the slain girl while detailing the horror of her final moments in a nearly one-hour statement he read in court.

A lengthy sentencing hearing in which he will explore Dugan's lifetime of violence - including two later murders and a series of unrelated sex attacks for which he is serving life prison terms - will begin in September.

The slain girl's parents, Tom and Pat Nicarico, said Dugan deserves to die for killing their beloved child.

"Another life sentence is no punishment at all," said Tom Nicarico, reached at the couple's South Carolina home, who explained the long legal saga only prolongs his family's pain. "It gets less sharp over time. This stuff just awakens it."

Jeanine was a bubbly fifth-grader who loved horses, hated bullies, overcame difficulty in learning how to read, had funny little toes and could con her dad out of his favorite candy bar, Snickers, with a flash of her twin dimples.

She was home alone for a couple hours Feb. 25, 1983, while recovering from the flu when she was abducted. Her mother last heard from Jeanine about 1 p.m. when she called with excitement about a television program. By 3 p.m., she was gone. One of her two sisters returned to an empty house to find the front door kicked in and the family dog, Ruffles, cowering near the laundry room.

"There were small finger marks from Jeanine's hands that ran across the front door," Birkett said, as he described how the little girl tried in vain to resist her attacker.

Two days later, after the community came together to search and pray, Jeanine's 65-pound, bludgeoned body was found near the Illinois Prairie Path, just west of Naperville.

One year later, three young Aurora men were charged. Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez twice were convicted but both successfully appealed the juries' decisions. Stephen Buckley's trial ended in a hung jury, and prosecutors soon dropped the case against him.

Cruz, who spent most of his decade in prison on death row, was acquitted at his third trial in November 1995 after new evidence was revealed. Charges were dropped against Hernandez less than one month later.

"He needs to suffer," Cruz said Tuesday of Dugan. "I'm surviving, but I'm not really living. I lost 4,473 days of my life. I hope he rots the rest of his natural life."

It was DuPage Circuit Judge Ronald Mehling who acquitted Cruz. The nearly 18-year judge retired in 2002, but he said Tuesday he made his decision that day without doubt.

"I'm glad they finally got it right," Mehling said of the plea. "I've never felt I needed to be vindicated. I never had any doubt that I reached the right decision that day."

The exoneration led to the indictment of four DuPage County sheriff's officials and three former prosecutors. The so-called DuPage 7 later were found innocent of conspiring to frame Cruz. Afterward, the county settled malicious prosecution lawsuits for $3.5 million. Cruz would get another $100,000 years later after George Ryan, in the final days of his term as governor, granted him clemency in December 2002.

Birkett, a strong death-penalty supporter who took office in 1996, charged Dugan through a murder indictment in November 2005, citing improved DNA evidence through semen and a hair that he said linked him to the crime.

Dugan, in prison since 1985 for the murders of Geneva nurse Donna Schnorr and 7-year-old Melissa Ackerman of Somonauk, long ago offered to plead guilty to killing Jeanine if his life were spared. He did so Tuesday, but without a promise of mercy.

"It has been his desire to admit to this crime for 25 years," said Steven Greenberg, one of his attorneys. "The record has always been clear on that."

For Tom and Pat Nicarico, who dutifully attended all of the former defendants' trials, the truth of whether Dugan did act alone still is unknown.

"The issue is not completely cleared up for us," Tom Nicarico said, "but it's over for us. We're just learned to live with it and to accept it. We're not obsessed with any part of them."

Murder: Judge who acquitted Cruz 'glad they finally got it right'

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Related links</h2> <ul class="moreWeb"> <li><a href="/story/?id=308729">Dugan's criminal background</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308727">Timeline of Nicarico murder investigation, trials</a></li> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=310026">The statement Brian Dugan wanted to read in court<span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310014">Nicarico neighbor recalls the search for Jeanine, painful aftermath?<span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310033">State moratorium on executions - 10 years and counting<span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310040">A timeline of the Nicarico-Dugan cases<span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308853">After a lifetime of violence, will jury show Dugan mercy?<span class="date">[07/23/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308535">Guilty plea expected in Nicarico murder <span class="date">[07/22/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=203555">Did one Chicago-area killer create another? <span class="date">[06/05/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308721">Inside the FBI files of Brian Dugan <span class="date">[01/07/07]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308724">Grand jury indicts Dugan in Nicarico murder <span class="date">[11/30/05]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>