Trial opens for Glen Ellyn man charged with trying to kill dad

Once a proud Army veteran and truck driver, 62-year-old John Mitchell now walks with a cane for balance, gets easily confused and says he has no memory of what happened June 14.

DuPage County prosecutors, however, think Mitchell was the victim early that morning of a violent attack by his son Charles Mitchell, who was afraid his dad would call 911 and send him back to jail for an earlier fight with his brother.

Charles Mitchell, 27, who lived with his father and brother, Joseph, at a hotel on the 600 block of Roosevelt Road in Glen Ellyn, is standing trial this week, charged with attempted first-degree murder and two counts of domestic battery.

Joseph Mitchell, who is in custody on drug possession charges, testified Tuesday that he and Charles Mitchell got into a fight over a cellphone around 1 a.m. June 14.

Joseph Mitchell said his brother punched him in the face and gouged his left eye before Joseph ran to the hotel lobby to call police.

Prosecutors think Charles Mitchell then got into an altercation with his father to prevent him from calling police. As a result of the brutal attack, John Mitchell suffered two brain hemorrhages, a broken jaw, several missing teeth and bruising to his forehead, chest and legs.

He testified that he last remembered a conversation with a co-worker on the afternoon of June 13 but nothing about the attack or the week he spent hospitalized after it.

"You saw me come in here with a cane because I don't have my balance right. And I've got to be careful about where I go because I get confused," John Mitchell testified. "That was the end of everything,"

Charles Mitchell, who is representing himself during the trial, greeted his father during cross-examination for the first time since the attack.

"Good to see you, Dad," he said. "You're doing better."

Several Glen Ellyn police officers and paramedics testified about first being called to the hotel shortly after midnight to tend to Joseph Mitchell's injuries and to arrest Charles Mitchell in connection with their fight.

But they were called back around 1:19 a.m. when Joseph Mitchell returned to the hotel room and found his father collapsed in a pool of blood between the room's two beds.

"He was bleeding really bad and just laying on the floor in a pool of blood," Joseph Mitchell testified. "He was only a little bit responsive, mostly moaning."

Charles Mitchell, in his opening arguments, said he was only defending himself from his abusive father.

"I did not do anything that would have murdered my father," he told jurors. "I would not do anything to hurt my father beyond what I needed to do to defend myself."

Testimony resumes at 9:30 a.m. today with prosecutors expected to play videos recorded during Charles Mitchell's lengthy police interrogation.

Judge Daniel Guerin said he expects the case to go to jurors sometime Friday.