Families bring emotion to Dugan death penalty hearing

As she hurried off to school that fateful morning, Kathy Nicarico said she peaked in on her younger sister, Jeanine, still asleep while staying home sick with the flu.

She would never see 10-year-old Jeanine alive again.

In emotional testimony, a tearful Kathy Nicarico described Tuesday how she returned hours later that Feb. 25, 1983, to find a kicked-in front door and empty house.

"I got uncomfortable," said Nicarico, recalling how at 13 she frantically ran to a neighbor's house for help. "I didn't want to look through the house."

Two days later, Jeanine's bludgeoned body was discovered along the Illinois Prairie Path, just miles from her Clover Court home near Naperville. Jeanine had been abducted, sexually assaulted and fatally beaten in a horrific crime that sparked a long legal saga that now, nearly 27 years later, is finally coming to a painful close.

A DuPage County jury returns Wednesday to deliberate in the death penalty eligibility phase as long-imprisoned killer Brian Dugan's sentencing hearing continues. If his jury of seven women and five men decides he is eligible for execution, the lengthy sentencing hearing will follow.

Dugan, 53, linked through DNA, pleaded guilty July 28 to the fifth-grader's murder. He has been in prison since 1985 serving life terms for two later sex slayings and a series of other attacks.

He killed 27-year-old nurse Donna Kay Schnorr, of Geneva, on July 15, 1984, and Melissa Ackerman, 7, of Somonauk, on June 2, 1985.

The pain he inflicted so long ago didn't seem so distant Tuesday.

Pat and Tom Nicarico sat in the crowded courtroom gallery near their two other daughters, Kathy, and Christine Roy. This marks a least the sixth trial the family has endured in a criminal case that first brought the wrongfully prosecutions of three other innocent men.

The Nicaricos support the death penalty against Dugan.

So does Roger Schnorr. The Aurora man finally received the opportunity Tuesday to confront his older sister's killer. Schnorr remained composed, but stared long and hard at Dugan. The defendant, who appeared impassive before the jury, met Schnorr's gaze briefly, then looked down.

"Dugan's sitting right there," Schnorr said, pointing at the defendant, when asked to identify him.

It wasn't until the third murder, of Melissa Ackerman, that police linked Dugan to the nurse's slaying. Roger Schnorr described how the family had 24 hours to process the news, then witness Dugan's Nov. 19, 1985, guilty plea for a life sentence in a Kane County courtroom without being offered their input or a chance to testify.

In a methodical opening statement, Assistant DuPage State's Attorney Michael A. Wolfe argued Dugan should be deemed eligible for the death penalty since Jeanine's murder was particularly brutal, committed in the course of other felonies, such as home invasion, aggravated kidnapping and rape, and because he has killed two other people.

Wolfe spoke of the violence of that day, nearly 27 years ago.

Pat Nicarico, a secretary at a nearby school, came home at lunch to fix Jeanine a grilled-cheese sandwich. Jeanine called her at 1 p.m. to talk about a TV program. By 3 p.m., when Kathy Nicarico returned home, Jeanine had vanished. The family dog, Ruffles, later was found hiding.

A neighbor called Pat Nicarico, who immediately returned home and contacted police. The community came together to search and pray. Their prayers went unanswered.

"(Jeanine) did everything she could to stay inside that house," said Wolfe, the criminal prosecution's chief. "She clawed at the wall along the side of that front door as she was being dragged out."

Besides the sexual assault, Jeanine suffered a broken nose, bloody lip, and severe head trauma from about five blows with a blunt object. She was found lying face down, nearly nude, and blindfolded.

"She had short brown hair, but big brown eyes, a gap-tooth smile and dimples," Wolfe said. "He turned that little girl - the Nicarico's youngest daughter - into a mess. We're asking that you find him eligible for a penalty that he richly deserves, and that is the death penalty."

The defense team, led by attorney Steven Greenberg, urged the jury to keep an open mind. His lawyers argue Dugan, through his guilty plea, accepted responsibility for his crimes and has shown remorse.

Dugan tried to confess to Jeanine's murder in 1985, if his life was spared, but prosecutors didn't believe him and wouldn't make a deal.

The wrongly accused men, including Rolando Cruz, were eventually exonerated, but not before two spent more than a decade in prison and faced possible execution. Their exonerations led to the 1999 trial of seven DuPage County law enforcement officials accused of railroading Cruz. They, too, were cleared. But former Gov. George Ryan cited Cruz's case when he set an unofficial moratorium on Illinois executions in 2000 and later commuted all death sentences to life prison terms.

<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>