Ingleside man gets 50 years for killing at party
James Cooper implored Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Fecarotta Monday to defer to a higher authority when he requested mercy for his nephew Preston J. Cooper, convicted of first-degree murder and concealment of a homicide last month for the 2006 slaying of 20-year-old Jesse Beskow.
"P.J. is not the coldblooded murderer as was alleged," said James Cooper, who read from the books of Deuteronomy and Numbers during Preston Cooper's sentencing hearing Monday in Rolling Meadows.
Fecarotta acknowledged that a judge must show compassion and mercy, but pointed out that this case "has a twist" that justifies a harsh sentence.
"It's not just a murder, but the concealment of a murder, which exacerbates the crime," he said before sentencing Preston Cooper to 53 years in prison - 50 years for the murder and three years for concealing it.
The sentences will run consecutively and Cooper, of the 35000 block of Ravine Lane in Ingleside, must serve every day of the murder sentence.
Cooper, 25, shot Beskow in the head on July 25, 2006, during a party hosted by Cooper and his girlfriend, Jacqueline Gallagher, 21, at a Palatine condominium owned by Gallagher's grandmother.
During testimony, witnesses said Cooper was showing the 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun at the party and told Beskow "I could blow your head off." When Beskow responded, "Go ahead. I'm not afraid to die," Cooper fired, they said.
After the murder, Gallagher helped clean up the scene and dispose of Beskow's body. Gallagher is the mother of the couple's 8-month-old daughter and the their 21/2-year-old son, who died from injuries he sustained in a fire last year. She was arrested in September 2008, shortly before Cooper turned himself in to police and was charged, after an investigation led to the discovery of Beskow's body and then to Cooper.
Gallagher pleaded guilty in March to concealing a homicide and received a three-year-sentence. She was released in September and on Monday wiped away tears throughout her testimony.
"I am sorry to the victim's family," she said after sentencing. "It was a bad decision. We all made bad decisions."
Assistant Public Defender Joe Gump agreed. Insisting the murder resulted from recklessness, not premeditation, he argued that the evidence supported a verdict of involuntary manslaughter.
Cooper bought the gun, which Gump called defective, for protection after he was beaten with a bat in 2004, and had never fired a weapon until that night, Gump said. Immediately afterward, Cooper told witnesses he was sorry and that he didn't know the gun was loaded, Gump said.
Lillian Cooper Taggart, Preston Cooper's mother, called him a kind, considerate, churchgoing man who gave a lot of himself to people and was a devoted father.
"There is nothing in this world he would not do for anyone he considered a friend," Taggart said.
Guns and violence were not part of their household, said Taggart who, with her husband, moved the family from Chicago to Ingleside, which she said offered the children better schools and a safer environment,
But Taggart also admitted her son's behavior was ignorant, foolish and careless.
"We know there are repercussions for his actions whether they are accidents or not," said the tearful Taggart. "I'm beseeching you for clemency."
Cooper deserves none, said Assistant State's Attorney Matthew Thrun, adding that Cooper has two felony convictions for possession of a controlled substance from 2003 and a misdemeanor DUI from 2008.
"This was the vicious murder of an unarmed person. He was playing cards at a party where he thought he was safe," Thrun said. "The senselessness is not mitigation; it's aggravation."
Cooper expressed remorse and apologized to the Beskow family, who were not present at sentencing.
"I believe the defendant comes from a good, God-fearing, loving family," said Fecarotta. "There is pain and suffering on both sides of the fence."
But he said it doesn't compare to the pain Beskow's mother, Christi Frost endures.
"Her loss," he said, "is forever and infinite."