From the murders to manhunt: New book examines ‘human elements’ of Brown’s Chicken killings

Editor’s note: An earlier version gave an incorrect county for Judge Margaret M. O’Connell.

More than 30 years after seven people were executed inside a Brown’s Chicken restaurant in Palatine, it’s easy to forget how much those slayings shocked not only the community, but the entire nation.

A suburban native who was just a kid when the killings occurred is evoking those memories, and taking a look at the case from a new perspective, with his book “Something Big: The True Story of the Brown's Chicken Massacre, A Decade-Long Manhunt, and the Trials That Followed.”

Author Patrick Wohl said he hopes the book, available July 1, gives readers fresh insight into the notorious murders by focusing on the people forever changed by the Jan. 8, 1993, killings and the way the murders affected the community.

To that end, each of the book’s 24 chapters is named after and focuses on a person — from the seven victims, to the two killers, to Palatine’s mayor and police chief at the time.

“I’m trying to tell the story differently than it’s been told before,” said Wohl, who grew up in Park Ridge, graduated from Maine South High School in 2012 and now works as an attorney in Washington, D.C.

“It’s focused more on the human elements of the case, and not the gore of the crime itself,” he added. “I’m trying to portray those who were killed not just as victims, but as people — people who had lives before this.”

To do that, Wohl said he spent more than two years on research. That included interviewing more than 40 people, including victims’ family members, law enforcement officers who investigated the murders, and the attorneys who prosecuted and defended killers James Degorski and Juan Luna.

The book doesn’t offer any startling new twists and Wohl readily admits he’s not treading new ground — there’s no doubt about the killers’ identities, their motives or whether anyone else was involved. But there likely are anecdotes and nuggets of information in the book that will be new even to those familiar with the case.

They include details about Anne Lockett, Degorski’s former girlfriend. She broke open the case in 2002 when she came forward to investigators and implicated him and Luna. Police were able to use her information to tie Luna to the murders through DNA evidence on a partially eaten piece of chicken found at the crime scene.

But according to Wohl, Lockett had been dropping clues about Degorski’s involvement to people around her for years; they just went unnoticed. She even sent a note about the case to the long-running television show “America’s Most Wanted.”

“She would make suggestions to people that she knew something, trying to find a comfortable space to fully come forward,” he said.

Not botched

Wohl said his research convinced him that Palatine police did not deserve the harsh criticism they faced as the investigation dragged on for nearly a decade.

“I think they consistently made the right moves,” he said. “There were ups and downs, as with any investigation, but I think the idea that the investigation was botched is a myth.”

Another nugget

Not long after the murders, then-Palatine Mayor Rita Mullins was in Washington, D.C., for a conference when she spotted actor James Earl Jones in a hotel lobby. She approached and introduced herself, handing Jones her business card.

“He looks down at the card, sees Palatine and says, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’” Wohl recounts. “People knew, just by mention of the word Palatine, what had happened.”

The book will be available beginning in July on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and elsewhere.

Auto part bandit

An Aurora man was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison for stealing catalytic converters from more than 35 vehicles across the region during a seven-month crime spree, authorities said.

Octavio Goytia, 29, also must pay $31,500 in restitution under the sentence DuPage County Judge Margaret M. O’Connell handed down after the Aurora man pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated possession of a motor vehicle.

Goytia was arrested in July 2023, after a two-year investigation into catalytic converter thefts across Cook, DuPage, Kane, Will, DeKalb, Lake, McHenry and Winnebago counties from August 2021 through March 2022.

Authorities said he and co-defendant Pedro Villegas-Mendoza, 24, of Aurora, jacked up vehicles in broad daylight and used a saw to remove the converters. Villegas-Mendoza was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty in August 2024.

A catalytic converter is part of a vehicle’s exhaust system that uses elements of platinum, palladium and rhodium metals, which can be sold for profit.

The investigation was led by the Illinois attorney general’s office and the Carol Stream and Wood Dale police departments. The Aurora and Schaumburg police departments and the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office assisted.

Good boy

After 10 years of dedicated service, Lake County Sheriff’s police dog Duke is heading into a well-deserved retirement.

According to the sheriff’s office, Duke helped locate numerous dangerous offenders over his decade on the force and was instrumental in finding dozens of missing and endangered people.

“His incredible work has left a lasting impact on the safety of our community,” the sheriff’s office wrote on social media.

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