Man had motive and means, but denies slaying of ex-girlfriend

When Antwoine Mitchelle arrived to have dinner with his girlfriend that summer evening, something was blocking the entrance of her Hanover Park home after he unlocked the door.

Mitchelle pushed the door a little harder. As he tried to squeeze his way inside, the Glendale Heights man testified Wednesday, he discovered Pamela Sue Howat's brutalized body, covered in blood and cold to the touch.

"I saw Pam laying there," said Mitchelle, struggling to remain composed. "Her hands were above her head. She was laying flat on her back. I called her name and I tried to shake her."

The grisly discovery June 6, 2009, sparked a fierce police investigation that quickly led to Howat's ex-boyfriend, Ronald O'Rourke, a former co-worker she briefly dated years earlier and to whom she often loaned money.

His trial opened Wednesday before a DuPage County jury. O'Rourke, 47, of Crystal Lake, is charged with first-degree murder, home invasion and residential burglary.

Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty if O'Rourke is convicted.

O'Rourke, a self-admitted crack addict, is accused of beating and stabbing the 51-year-old Howat after she interrupted him burglarizing her home near County Farm Road and Lawrence Avenue.

Mitchelle said he discovered his slain girlfriend about 6 p.m. after he arrived at her home with a pizza and drinks. Howat was found lying near the door in the first-floor utility room, where prosecutors said the fatal confrontation took place, with as many as 10 stab wounds about her neck and head.

Howat likely surprised her attacker after arriving home from a local grocery store, where the mother of three adult children was last seen alive about 9:30 a.m., Prosecutor Ann Celine O'Hallaren said. Some of the grocery bags remained in Howat's car.

"Pam Howat opened her door and saw the face of this defendant," said O'Hallaren, pointing at O'Rourke, clad in a beige suit and seated at the defense table. "It was a face she knew; a face that did not belong in her home. In an uncontrollable rage, this defendant hit and repeatedly stabbed her in the face and neck until she fell to the floor. Why? Drugs don't come cheap and certainly not his drug of choice - crack cocaine."

Howat always kept a spare house key in her unlocked garage, which her daughter, Amy, said was common knowledge to anyone her mother knew and trusted.

O'Rourke, a former truck driver who at the time was a door-to-door meat salesman, missed work the day of the slaying. He has pleaded not guilty and is expected to testify.

He admits going to Howat's home to borrow drug money but insists he left her alive, his defense attorney Michael Mara said in his opening statement. Mara said O'Rourke returned to Howat's house after being unable to score drugs, and fled without calling 911 after discovering her slain body.

"Ron freaked out. He didn't know what to do," Mara said. "He had been using crack earlier in the day and was still high."

O'Rourke voluntarily went to the Hanover Park police department that June 7 to answer detectives' questions. Prosecutors are expected to play a lengthy videotaped interview for the jury in which O'Rourke ultimately admits fighting with Howat in her home but said her injuries were inflicted accidentally after she came at him.

Beside the incriminating statements, O'Hallaren said, prosecutors have phone records showing O'Rourke called Howat's house at 7:46 a.m. the day of the murder. O'Hallaren said O'Rourke's DNA also was found on Howat's keys, discarded on her driveway near her car.

"The defendant engaged in denials, lies and excuses for what happened on June 6, 2009," O'Hallaren said. "The defendant's own words speak volumes about how he gets himself tangled in his own deception. Pam Howat's defensive wounds belie any claim that anything happened other than that this defendant killed her."

O'Rourke is being held in the DuPage County jail without bond. His trial, before DuPage Circuit Judge Kathryn Creswell, is expected to stretch into next week.