Jury hears old Dugan recordings, Gacy connection

In hours of old audio recordings, Brian Dugan described his killings in a matter-of-fact tone as if he had just swatted a fly.

There was the pretty Geneva nurse he ran off the road July 15, 1984, after sideswiping her car. That next summer, he asked for directions from a 7-year-old girl riding her bicycle in LaSalle County.

Dugan detailed how he abducted, raped and drowned both after promising his victims he'd let them go. The rapist said he didn't set out to kill, but decided he had to or risk getting caught.

"I really don't like to think about it," he said. "It puts me in a bad mood. I've been keeping my sanity mainly by trying not to think about it."

A riveted DuPage County jury listened Thursday to 31/2 hours of Dugan's recorded conversations from October 1986 with Robert Thorud, then a state police mental health expert conducting a study on sexual predators.

Dugan voluntarily took part in the study one year after he began serving natural-life prison terms for the two sex slayings and unrelated rapes.

Jurors are hearing evidence before deciding whether Dugan should be executed for a third murder - which was his first - in the Feb. 25, 1983, abduction, rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville. Dugan, 53, pleaded guilty July 28.

Her parents, Tom and Pat Nicarico, sat quietly in the courtroom gallery listening to the killer's remorseless words. Nearby, Karen Schweitzer and Roger Schnorr for the first time in 25 years heard what Dugan said he did to their sister - Donna Schnorr, 27, a nurse, who fought with her last breath to survive.

"I'm not going to let myself get emotional," Dugan said after describing Donna's last moments. "What's done is done."

One quarter-century later, the siblings' pain remains razor sharp. Both left court Thursday visibly shaken. They join the Nicaricos in supporting Dugan's execution.

Thorud said Dugan agreed to answer his questions, partly in an effort to understand how he could commit such violence, as long as certain rules were followed. Specifically, Thorud said they were not to discuss Jeanine since Dugan at the time had not been charged.

"The ground rules were not to speak about other criminal acts that were not in his best interest," said Thorud, who now works at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, counseling veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dugan never named Jeanine in their conversations, but he slipped up a couple of times with veiled admissions. Thorud later contacted prosecutors.

In their first conversation on Oct. 1, 1986, Dugan described a normal and happy childhood in New Hampshire that began to sour after age 9 when his family moved to Lisle and both parents abused alcohol.

Dugan lost his virginity at 14, he told Thorud, and experimented with homosexual sex play with younger relatives.

Dugan said he was sexually abused around 1972 by a man he later believed to be serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Dugan said he was walking to a grocery store in Lisle when he accepted a ride from the stranger, who asked him if he needed a job. The man drove him to secluded area, where Dugan said he was forced to model bikini briefs and submit to sexual acts. Afterward, Dugan said the man drove him to the grocery store and gave him $20.

It wasn't until years later that Dugan said he made the connection to Gacy after seeing his face during media coverage in 1978, when Gacy confessed to the torture, rape and murder of 33 young men, most of whom he buried in a crawl space under the floorboards of his house near Des Plaines.

Dugan also detailed a litany of burglaries and other abduction attempts. There was the 10-year-old girl walking in Lisle, or others at an Aurora gas station and in a laundromat. They escaped his clutches.

Melissa "Missy" Ackerman was not as fortunate. In great detail, Dugan was recorded explaining how after he abducted and raped Missy early June 2, 1985, he killed her because of incriminating physical evidence he left behind during the sexual assault.

"I knew that I was in trouble," he said. "When I did the others, it was like I was safe. Everything went perfect. (With Missy), I felt like I was going to get caught."

"It was crazy. It was stupid. There was no reason for it," Dugan said, "but I didn't feel sorry about it, not back then. That (not getting caught) was my main concern. It's callous, but it's true."

Police closed in on Dugan that next day, forever ending his horrific crimes. Thorud's testimony, and more audio recordings, continue this morning.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <!-- Start of Brightcove Player --> <div style="display:none"> </div> <!-- By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and C found at http://corp.brightcove.com/legal/terms_publisher.cfm. --> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js"></script> <object id="myExperience43606475001" class="BrightcoveExperience"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /> <param name="width" value="300" /> <param name="height" value="255" /> <param name="playerID" value="18011347001" /> <param name="publisherID" value="1659832549"/> <param name="isVid" value="true" /> <param name="@videoPlayer" value="43606475001" /> </object> <!-- End of Brightcove Player --> </ul> <h2>Photo Galleries</h2> <ul class="gallery"> <li><a href="/story/?id=325418">Images of Brian Dugan's victims </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325419">Images of Brian Dugan </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325420">Images of Nicarico's wrongly accused </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325421">Images from Brian Dugan's trial </a></li> </ul> <h2>Related links</h2> <ul class="moreWeb"> <li><a href="/story/?id=308729">Dugan's criminal background</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308727">Timeline of Nicarico murder investigation, trials</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=326654">Brian Dugan's victims</a></li> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=326645">Cruz: Dugan confessed to save himself <span class="date">[10/02/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=325829">Jury picked to decide Dugan's sentencing <span class="date">[10/02/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=317249">Dugan says he tried to confess in '85 to Nicarico slaying <span class="date">[08/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310026">The statement Brian Dugan wanted to read in court <span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310014">Nicarico neighbor recalls the search for Jeanine, painful aftermath? <span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310033">State moratorium on executions - 10 years and counting <span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=310040">A timeline of the Nicarico-Dugan cases <span class="date">[07/28/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308853">After a lifetime of violence, will jury show Dugan mercy? <span class="date">[07/23/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308535">Guilty plea expected in Nicarico murder <span class="date">[07/22/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=203555">Did one Chicago-area killer create another? <span class="date">[06/05/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308721">Inside the FBI files of Brian Dugan <span class="date">[01/07/07]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=308724">Grand jury indicts Dugan in Nicarico murder <span class="date">[11/30/05]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>