Decades after murder, politics, errors - the smile endures
Editor's Note: Immediately after Brian Dugan was officially charged in 2005 with Jeanine Nicarico's murder, Burt Constable visited the child's grave for a remembrance. This is a repeat of the column he wrote at the time about that experience.
That wonderful, happy smile on permanent display in Jeanine Nicarico's photograph is about 23 years old. The criminal investigation into her Feb. 25, 1983, savage murder has lasted more than twice as long as the Naperville girl's 10 years of life.
The confession of Brian Dugan, an already convicted killer officially charged ... with Jeanine's murder, also is older than that unfortunate little girl ever got the chance to be. So is the gravestone marking the final resting place for Jeanine's raped and beaten body.
On this cloudy, frigid Wednesday, Jeanine's likeness smiles from her tombstone as it has for more than two decades. Etched forever in the stone, the girl's toothy grin is framed by matching dimples and sparkling eyes.
Jeanine would be 33 now, maybe a wife and mother, subjected to jokes about being "old as Christ," who the Bible says was executed at that age.
Instead, her remains lie in the St. Francis of Assisi section of Ss. Peter & Paul Cemetery in Naperville, next to the graves of long-dead adults such as Henry, "Kitty" and Mary, some of whom died after Jeanine's murder.
While the cemetery's many trees no longer have leaves as a buffer against the noise of surrounding suburban traffic, the spot still manages to achieve tranquility, beauty even.
The colorful flowers of the fuchsia plant that grows at the base of her tombstone lie dormant for the winter, but Jeanine's smile remains in full bloom.
"Shining eyes, dimpled smile, caring heart," reads the inscription on Jeanine's gravestone. "Her gift of joy ... lives on in our hearts."
On the back of the stone is the letter "J" and an etched silhouette of a rider clinging to a jumping horse. In addition to her piano lessons and other childhood pursuits, Jeanine loved horses and her English riding classes. "Now I've done everything I want to do," she told her dad on the day she mastered the art of jumping bushes. "I've done it all."
Her parents told me that story in an interview more than 15 years ago - in the wake of the second murder conviction for a suspect prosecutors wrongly assured them was the man who killed their daughter. Evidence showed otherwise, the man was pardoned, and Thomas and Patricia Nicarico continue on the emotional journey of anguish and torment that still surrounds their daughter's murder.
The long-suffering parents told Daily Herald legal affairs writer Christy Gutowski ... that they hope Dugan, already serving a life sentence with no hope of parole, is convicted and sentenced to death.
The case has fueled debates about DNA evidence, grand juries, murder investigations, confessions, the death penalty, prosecutorial conduct and political motivations.
But it is one story told by Jeanine's mother 15 years ago that still sticks with me. "I would always tell her when she was little, if she saw a penny, pick it up, it would bring good luck," her mom told me in 1990.
Two months before her daughter's murder, Patricia Nicarico was preparing for a surgery and trying to get the house in order before she left for the hospital.
"There were all these pennies on the bedroom floor. Oh, what a mess," the mom remembered. A very pleased-with-herself Jeanine had prepared the untidy display of coins. "Mom," she said, "it's good luck." Her mom gave her a hug and said, "Oh, Jeanine, you little imp." So many awful things have happened since that day. Jeanine had her life stolen, and the Nicarico family had their future put on perpetual hold.
But if you visit Jeanine's grave, linger a bit, and look at that smile, you just might think of her life instead of her murder, and smile back at that 10-year-old girl.