Neighbor describes sounds the night of Palatine killing

The man who lived in the Palatine condo unit below slain teacher Cindy Wolosick described in court Wednesday what he heard the night of her death.

Sometime around 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 12, 2005, he said, he heard footsteps in Wolosick's bedroom -- hers was right above his, he testified -- and then a "groan or a moan."

"It was a human voice," Mark Janusz said, demonstrating the eerie sound.

Afterward, he said, he heard running water and the sound of the washing machine. For Wolosick to use that machine at night, he said, was "very, very unusual."

Janusz's words opened the third day of the murder trial of Diana Thames, a 50-year-old downstate Bloomington woman charged with stabbing Wolosick -- her friend of two decades -- more than 60 times with a kitchen knife in her condominium bedroom.

Thames, who'd just returned from a Mexican vacation with Wolosick and other friends, had been spending the night.

Thames has told police she was asleep in another room when she heard Wolosick's door buzzer, heard Wolosick answer it and heard a man's voice. Hours later, she has said, she awoke to the front door closing, took a shower then found her friend, stabbed and blood-soaked, in her bed.

Janusz, though, testified he never heard the door buzzer sound and never heard anyone else come in all night.

"I don't recall anyone going up those stairs (to Wolosick's unit)," he said, "and I would have woken up (if they did)."

The front door to the condo building was near his unit, he testified, and he insisted that he would always wake up if the buzzer sounded while he was sleeping. He also maintained he would wake up "most times" if there were people climbing up the stairs.

Prosecutors allege Thames attacked Wolosick in her bed after dueling over financial problems related to the home rehab and resale business they opened together in 2002.

While witnesses this week have said they heard Wolosick say she planned to talk to Thames about those issues, prosecutors say that night's argument was prompted specifically by an investor in their business who wanted to get some of his money back -- but, for weeks, never did.

In court Wednesday, the prosecution played a tape of old messages retrieved from Wolosick's answering machine after her death. One was a man's voice saying he was starting to feel like he was being given the run-around.

"To say I'm concerned about the situation," the speaker said, "is an understatement."

Thames' lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, has said financial concerns wouldn't lead her client to put so heinous an end to such a long friendship. Zellner also argued Wolosick had volatile relationships with other people her life.

Wolosick was a 46-year-old teacher at Lake Louise school at the time of her murder.

Also Wednesday, a Palatine police detective described the crime scene, including evidence of cleaned-up blood -- found after testing -- on the kitchen sink and faucet, the guest bathroom doorknob and inside the guest tub.

He described a portion of acrylic nail and a ripped piece of real nail found in the master bedroom. Thames was missing such a nail, according to evidence in the case.

Under cross-examination, Zellner suggested less-than-thorough police work, establishing that various portions of the condo weren't dusted for prints and only Thames and Wolosick had their fingerprints taken, anyway.

No fingerprints were recovered from the knife.

Thames at one point confessed to the crime, saying she killed her friend in self-defense, but those statements -- caught on video -- won't be allowed at her trial.

Cook County Judge John Scotillo tossed them out after Zellner argued her client was denied a lawyer and intimidated into confessing. Prosecutors have said Thames voluntarily waived her right to an attorney before speaking openly to investigators.

The trial is set to continue Monday before Scotillo. It's a bench trial, meaning he alone will hear the evidence and determine the final verdict.