Life or death? Jury weighs fate of Brian Dugan
It is a criminal case unparalleled in the history of American justice.
Nearly 27 years ago, a brown-eyed, dimpled 10-year-old child named Jeanine Nicarico was kidnapped, raped, then bludgeoned to death. Three young Aurora men, including Rolando Cruz, were convicted and later exonerated, but not before two of them endured multiple trials and faced possible execution.
Their wrongful prosecutions sparked the indictment of seven DuPage County law enforcement officials. They, too, were acquitted.
The case still is cited as a legal bench mark for changes in Illinois criminal procedures and law. Former Gov. George Ryan also noted it when he set a moratorium on executions in 2000 and later commuted all death sentences.
Now, the final chapter of the legal saga is about to be written.
A DuPage County jury convenes today to begin hearing evidence in the sentencing hearing of three-time convicted killer Brian Dugan, who pleaded guilty July 28 to Jeanine's murder.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. His defense team will ask jurors to allow Dugan, 53, to continue living the rest of his life in prison - where he has languished since 1985 for two other sex slayings.
A hard-fought battle is expected to last several weeks.
Some argue it is a waste of time and money. Others say it is justice, and long overdue.
Lifetime of violence
Brian James Dugan wants something he denied his victims - mercy.
By 16, the high school dropout was well down the path of violent crime.
Dugan moved in and out of youth homes, jails and prisons, but he always managed to win early release.
His extensive criminal history includes convictions in DuPage and Kane counties for arson, battery, criminal damage to property and several burglaries.
On April 21, 1974, a 10-year-old Lisle girl escaped a 17-year-old Dugan's clutches after he tried to grab her. It was the first documented time he tried to force himself on a young female, but far from his last. Another woman accused him of attacking her outside an Aurora gas station in August 1982, but Dugan provided a false alibi.
Six months later, Jeanine was home alone with the flu Feb. 25, 1983. Her mother, Pat Nicarico, a secretary at a nearby elementary school, came home three times and called throughout the day to check in on her daughter, the youngest of three.
They last spoke at 1:30 p.m. Jeanine was gone by 3 p.m. In his guilty plea, Dugan admitted he alone abducted Jeanine, raped her and fatally beat her with a tire iron.
Nearly 17 months later, Dugan spotted Donna Schnorr, sitting alone in her car at a stoplight early July 15, 1984, on Randall Road near Aurora. After running her car off the road, he beat, raped and drowned the 27-year-old Geneva nurse in a Kane County quarry.
Several months later, Dugan went on a monthlong sex-crime binge:
• He followed a 21-year-old North Aurora woman home May 6, 1985, after helping her start her car. He pushed his way into her car, flashed a hunting knife, gagged and blindfolded her. Then he drove her to Batavia and raped her in the back seat. She survived.
• As a 19-year-old Geneva woman walked along Route 31 on May 28, Dugan tried to force her into his car. She escaped.
• The next day, Dugan forced a 16-year-old girl into his car after threatening her with a tire iron. He drove her to Will County, where he put a belt around her neck and raped her. He then took her home. She survived.
Whatever fueled Dugan's rage went off again June 2, 1985. He was a 28-year-old stock handler living in a $50-a-week rooming house in Aurora.
After smoking marijuana, Dugan drove his blue Gremlin aimlessly along Route 34 through the cornfields of LaSalle County - until he saw two young girls riding their bikes in Somonauk. He tried to abduct the girls.
One of them escaped, but 7-year-old Melissa Ackerman was trapped.
Dugan bound the girl's hands, raped her and drowned her in a creek. One day after Melissa's abduction, police focused in on Brian Dugan because they knew he had been in the area after an unrelated traffic stop. They contacted Geneva police, who at the time were investigating the May 28 attempted assault.
Four agencies - Geneva, Kane and DeKalb counties and the FBI - swooped in on Dugan June 3, 1985, while he was driving to work.
Dugan took a plea deal that November. He received two life terms in prison for the murders and 155 years for the monthlong sex attacks. He hasn't walked as a free man again.
Though Dugan long ago offered to plead guilty to Jeanine's murder if his life was spared, prosecutors back then didn't believe him and weren't willing to make a deal.
After the so-called "DuPage 7" trial and malicious prosecution lawsuits were settled, and DNA testing advanced in sophistication, authorities finally went after Dugan.
A grand jury indicted him Nov. 29, 2005 - 10 years after the final two of three wrongfully accused men had been cleared.
DuPage State's Attorney Joseph Birkett, who is personally prosecuting the case, is seeking the death penalty against Dugan. To convince the jury, prosecutors will call many of Dugan's victims who lived to tell their stories, as well as relatives of those who were not as fortunate.
Tom and Pat Nicarico support the death penalty for Dugan for their daughter's murder. Dugan's parents long ago died, but even his own siblings want nothing to do with him. His own sister supports his execution.
Prosecutors also will use Dugan's words.
"I don't deserve life," Dugan said in an October 1986 taped interview the jury will hear. "I know that intellectually, but I'm selfish."
Argument for mercy?
His jury of seven women and five men first will be asked today to determine if Brian Dugan is eligible for the death penalty.
In Illinois, a defendant must be at least 18 and found to be eligible under at least one statutory factor. Prosecutors argue Dugan meets several: that he killed more than one person; did so during another felony, such as rape; and that he acted in a cold, premeditated and calculated manner.
If the jury finds him eligible, the trial's next phase is the sentencing hearing. It takes a unanimous vote to sentence him to death.
To counter all the violence, his defense team - led by attorney Steven Greenberg - will argue Dugan survived a rough upbringing in an unstable home, was raised by alcoholic parents, and suffered physical and sexual abuse while in a youth home and prisons.
Besides mental health expert testimony, a neurologist may take the stand about whether Dugan suffered brain trauma during his difficult birth in Nashua, N.H. From the time he could sit up, Dugan banged his head against the crib. He also had a chronic bed-wetting problem. His headaches were followed by severe vomiting. He took medication until his early teens.
The defense also argues Dugan has shown remorse through his guilty plea and long ago tried to save the wrongly convicted men's lives, as early as 1985 during his plea negotiations for the other murders. Dugan even made a written Nov. 1, 1985, confession his lawyers kept, in the event of his death, to clear the wrongly convicted men.
And at least one anti-death penalty advocate - Rob Warden of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions - may testify that Dugan long ago called him to help the innocent men.
Though he hasn't had a religious epiphany, a clean-and-sober Dugan has received his GED while behind bars and became somewhat of a jailhouse lawyer, even offering help to other inmates, the defense will argue.
They note a fate worse than death may be spending a lifetime in prison. Dugan has been stabbed and repeatedly beaten by other inmates throughout his lengthy incarceration.
In admitting his guilt, an apologetic Dugan prepared a written statement in which he said he hoped to bring Jeanine's parents and the community "a small measure of resolution in their search for the truth."
It also said, "I never imagined it would take a quarter-century to stand where I am today; to take responsibility for the horrible crimes I committed so long ago. For more than two decades, I have been a prisoner of myself; haunted by my own self-loathing and doomed to defend my ugliest moments. I deeply regret all the pain and suffering I caused."
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <!-- Start of Brightcove Player --> <div style="display:none"> </div> <!-- By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and C found at http://corp.brightcove.com/legal/terms_publisher.cfm. --> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js"></script> <object id="myExperience43606475001" class="BrightcoveExperience"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /> <param name="width" value="300" /> <param name="height" value="255" /> <param name="playerID" value="18011347001" /> <param name="publisherID" value="1659832549"/> <param name="isVid" value="true" /> <param name="@videoPlayer" value="43606475001" /> </object> <!-- End of Brightcove Player --> </ul> <h2>Photo Galleries</h2> <ul class="gallery"> <li><a href="/story/?id=325418">Images of Brian Dugan's victims </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325419">Images of Brian Dugan </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325420">Images of Nicarico's wrongly accused </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325421">Images from Brian Dugan's trials </a></li> </ul> <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> <li><a href="/story/?id=326654">Brian Dugan's victims</a></li> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=326645">Cruz: Dugan confessed to save himself <span class="date">[10/02/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325829">Jury picked to decide Dugan's sentencing <span class="date">[10/02/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=317249">Dugan says he tried to confess in '85 to Nicarico slaying <span class="date">[08/28/09]</span></a></li> <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>