Road rage led to stabbing death on Edens, police say
State police blamed road rage for causing a fight between two truckers on Friday on the Edens Expressway that killed a 40-year-old Huntley High School graduate.
"They were having an issue and they decided to stop on the shoulder of I-94 and settle their differences," said Illinois State Police Zone 1 Cmdr. Tony Rapacz during a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
David A. Seddon, 49, of Racine, Wis. was charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Allen Lauritzen, 40, of Sparta, Wis. Seddon thought Lauritzen was tailgating him and challenged him via the CB radio to a fight, the Cook County state's attorney's office said.
Judge Marcia Orr denied bond at a hearing Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court in Skokie. His next court date is Feb. 9.
Seddon was arrested without incident about 6:30 a.m. Monday as he made a delivery on the South Side of Chicago. His employer, Star Line Trucking Corp. of New Berlin, Wis., cooperated in the investigation, Rapacz said. Both trucks were empty at the time of the incident and they were returning home, he added.
Sedden and Lauritzen were outbound on the Kennedy Expressway Friday morning while jockeying for position and engaging in CB chatter over a 10-mile stretch of highway. When the approached Tower Road, they parked their trucks on the shoulder.
Sedden told police he suffered a black eye from the fight. Lauritzen was unarmed, while Sedden had a folding knife with a brown handle, police said. Lauritzen suffered a punctured lung and severed aorta when he was stabbed in the stomach, chest and left arm, police said.
Sedden fled after the attack and he told police he threw the knife out of his truck's window between Tower Road in Northfield and Park Avenue in Highland Park while on I-94, Rapacz said. Police closed the expressway's lanes Friday while searching that area but didn't find the knife. However, one of the people who called police with tips said that he was with Sedden when they dumped it in a Racine, Wis. landfill, police said.
"We have two theories; we can't confirm either one," Rapacz said.
Lauritzen, who grew up in the Elgin area, was found Friday outside his semitrailer on the shoulder of the Edens. Paramedics drove Lauritzen to Highland Park Hospital were he was pronounced dead.
Police said road rage between truck drivers is underreported and encouraged motorists to call police before incidents escalate.
"I would say probably 90 percent of the people involved in something like this would never call even to report it," state police District Chicago Cmdr. David Nanninga said.
Sedden has shown anger before. He did not contest a 2006 disorderly conduct charge in Racine where he was accused of hitting a 25-year-old female neighbor with a flashlight and throwing a telephone at her while arguing about moving a car out of a driveway, court records show. A battery charge in the incident was dropped. He's driven trucks for 24 years.
Lauritzen was born on June 29, 1969, in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. He grew up in Elgin and graduated from Huntley High School in 1988.
He married the former Lauren Schmidt on July 6 in South Elgin. After living in Fort Myers, Fla., from 1992 until 1997, they moved to Sparta and he worked for the Local 150 Operating Engineers at Lake County Grading, also driving an over-the-road truck in the winter months. Most recently, he drove for Pehler Trucking Company in Arcadia, Wis.
He is survived by his wife; children Britani and Alex; his father and stepmother, Dale and Lois Lauritzen of Winona, Wis.; siblings, Rick Gillette of Illinois, Randy Gillette of Denver, Bob (Denise) Headburg of West Chicago, Jill Carter of Livingston, Texas, and John Lauritzen of Sparta.
Funeral services will be Friday at 1 p.m. at the Lanham-Miller Funeral Home, Sparta. Visitation is at the funeral home from 11 a.m. Friday to the time of the service.