Death is too kind for Dugan
I was there Feb. 27, 1983. I stood by and watched as they carried the body bag across the field, up the embankment and placed it on my stretcher. I put the body into my car and drove her remains, then unseen to me, to Central DuPage Hospital where the DuPage coroner performed their autopsy. I returned the following day to retrieve what remained of Jeanine Nicarico and return them to the funeral home where I worked to do my duty... embalm and prepare her badly broken, frail, little 10-year-old body for burial.
I'm a funeral director. It's what I've done for 30 years now. Thousands of bodies to the point where they almost become indistinguishable. But then there are the few that you just never forget. Jeanine Nicarico is one of those you never forget. I was a lot younger then, just 4 years out of embalming school. I didn't have children of my own yet, but that would change just a year and a half later with the birth of my first daughter. I was there when she was born; have watched her grow and walked her down the aisle on her wedding day almost two years ago. That's the life of a parent- the way it's supposed to be. The life that was taken away from Tom & Pat Nicarico along with that of their daughter that day in 1983.
I haven't spoken to them since the day we buried their little girl later that week. I don't know what I could say. I can only imagine the pain they've relived time after time, day after day, over and over, again and again- every time they've seen their daughter's picture on the front page of some newspaper. It's brought back memories for me too. Memories you'd like to forget but just can't. Images you carry with you for the rest of your life. I see death almost every day - it's what I do. Brian Dugan does not deserve the peace that death brings. He deserves to live ... to endure the pain and misery and ridicule and punishment of sleepless nights for what he did... for the lives he ended and for the lives he forever changed. Death would be far too merciful and an easy way out.
William Pierson
Hursen Funeral Home
Hillside