Ingleside man guilty in '06 Palatine slaying

A 25-year-old man from Ingleside was found guilty of first-degree murder this evening in the 2006 shooting death of 19-year-old Jesse Beskow of Fox Lake.

Jurors didn't buy the defense's claims that Preston J. Cooper shot Beskow in the head accidentally on July 25, 2006, at a party at a Palatine condominium.

In his closing arguments earlier today, Assistant State's Attorney Michael Clarke said the case boiled down to "the defendant's choices, and then afterward, a self-serving claim (that) it was an accident."

During the course of the trial, witnesses testified that everyone at the party had been drinking. Prosecutors have said that Cooper and Beskow had been toying around with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun when Cooper casually remarked, "I could blow your brains out."

Prosecutors said Cooper shot Beskow after he reportedly responded, "Go ahead. I'm not afraid to die."

Clarke said Cooper expected fear from Beskow when he pointed the gun at his head. But when Beskow was defiant, "in P.J.'s (Cooper's) world, he was not going to lose that game of chicken, and he pulled the trigger. For whatever reason he had that gun pointed at Jesse Beskow ... Bad decisions are made quickly and that is what happened in this case. The law does not require premeditation."

It was two years before police found Beskow's body on Chicago's South Side.

Prosecutors said Cooper enlisted the help of his girlfriend, Jacqueline Gallagher, and his father, Donell Taggart, to dump Beskow's naked body in a swampy area.

Last March, Gallagher, of Round Lake Heights, pleaded guilty to helping hide the body and was sentenced to three years in prison. She was released on parole last month.

No charges were filed against Taggart, who voluntarily led police to the location where Beskow's remains were found.

"Was it an accident when they stuffed a body in a chest and put it in a trunk?" Clarke said. "Is that what people do when it's an accident, or is that covering up a crime?"

Prosecutors said Cooper bragged about killing Beskow to several people who testified during the trial, which shows that he felt no remorse.

"Just because he regretted it afterward doesn't mean it wasn't knowing or intentional," Clarke said. "What he did with the body, with the remains, and how he talked about it. He went to great lengths to conceal it, cleaning up that scene."

Public Defender Joe Gump argued Cooper was merely showing off with the gun, which he had bought for his protection after being attacked with a baseball bat in April 2004. Everyone at the party had been passing around the gun, and Cooper didn't know it was loaded, he added.

"It was reckless. It was unintentional. And indeed, it was stupid," Gump said. "Any one of those kids could have pulled that trigger. No one bothered to look if there was a bullet in that chamber."

Gump said there was no evidence Cooper and Beskow had been quarreling that day. He also tried to discredit the testimony of two witnesses who said there was a drug deal and possible racial slurs that led to the shooting.

The jury found Cooper guilty of first-degree murder and concealment of the crime.

The trial, which began Tuesday, has been traumatic for the families of Beskow and Cooper who were present in Rolling Meadows court.

Beskow's mother, Christi Frost of Twin Lakes, Wis., sobbed during closing arguments, while across the aisle several of Cooper's family members also cried heartily.

Cooper's expression remained stoic throughout the trial.

"What really hurts me the most is that no one said anything," Frost said. "I looked for my son for almost three years and all these people knew what had happened and no one said anything."

Frost, 41, said she knew something was wrong when Beskow didn't call on her birthday, Aug. 9, two weeks after the murder.

Frost and Cooper's mother Lillian Taggart hugged, cried and consoled each other outside the courtroom during a short recess.

"I'm sorry you don't get to see your son," Lillian Taggart said to Frost. "Everybody is suffering. Hopefully, in time, things will heal."

Lillian Taggart said Cooper went into deep depression after the shooting and started abusing alcohol and drugs.

"He did not mean for that to happen," said the 48-year-old Ingleside resident. "My son became a recluse. His conscience ate him up. He does have remorse about it."

Lillian Taggart said she encouraged Cooper to turn himself in to authorities but he was afraid no one would believe he didn't intentionally kill Beskow because of the race factor.

"This situation is really tragic," she said.

Frost said she hopes something good will come out of Beskow's death and that more parents will step up to stop gun violence.

"We really need to do something with our children and teach them that guns aren't toys," Frost said. "Too many children are dying because of people that think guns are an answer, and they are not. It didn't just kill Jesse. This affected a lot of people and I'm not the only one who hurts."