Aurora murder trial in the jury's hands

On the night of Jan. 2, 1993, Virginia Johannessen sat at a table in her Aurora Township ranch home in her comfort zone of stacks of papers, magazines and other items she had accumulated over the years.

The 75-year-old widow had eight $2 bills -- presumably for her grandchildren -- on the table next to her yearly donation check to the United Way.

Outside, authorities say, Edward Tenney and his drunk, 17-year-old cousin, Donald Lippert, planned to rob her by entering through a basement window.

Lippert was a habitual burglar, but he got scared. So Tenney told him to stand watch outside, where he saw the crime unfold through a large picture window.

An unmasked Tenney went inside, shot Johannessen in the back of the head for the "thrill" and later struck her on the forehead with a hammer, just to make sure she was dead, said Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti in his closing argument Wednesday.

"Burglary may have been what Donald was thinking. It wasn't what Ed Tenney was thinking," Barsanti said. "He did it for the fun. He did it for the blood. He did it for the little gasp at the end."

It took prosecutors six days to present their case to a six-man, six-woman jury. They deliberated about four hours before retiring for the night. They will resume this morning.

Tenney, 48, was convicted in 1998 of Johannessen's murder and sentenced to death. But in 2002 the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the verdict because incriminating statements from Lionel Lane, who was convicted of the crime in 1995, were not allowed to be heard by a jury. The verdict against Lane was vacated after Tenney was charged.

Tenney currently is serving a life sentence for the October 1993 slaying of dairy heiress Mary Jill Oberweis, who lived down the street from Johannessen. He faces another life sentence without the possibility of parole if convicted for Johannessen's death. Lippert received an 80-year sentence for cooperating with prosecutors in both cases.

Defense attorney Herbert Hill argued there was no physical evidence such as footprints, fingerprints, or fibers to put Tenney at Johannessen's home. Hill said there was no way Lippert, who also was high on pot and cocaine, could navigate through the maze of Johannessen's papers without knocking them over or not even remember them.

"This drunken idiot is in this house and he doesn't notice any of this clutter?" Hill said.

Hill emphasized that prosecutors couldn't definitively say that Tenney used a roofer's hatchet recovered from Johannessen's car to hit the woman.

In 1995, authorities recovered Johannessen's jewelry, 1934 high school class ring, alarm clock and other items from a storage locker shared by Tenney, Lippert and other relatives.

But Hill noted that Tenney's uncle testified the items were loaded into the locker in 1992, which was before the murder. A box belonging to Tenney was unsealed when turned over to police. Plus, a .22 calibur slug from the woman's head could not be matched to a handgun owned by Tenney. Hill said Lane's ex-girlfriend told police he and two others went to the woman's home and shot her.

"Reasonable doubt all over the place. It jumps out at you," he said.

Barsanti said Lippert wasn't an "evil genius" but knew details about the crime that others didn't, such as where they drove Johannessen's stolen blue Buick, how to get into the house, and that Tenney hit her with a hammer.

During this trial, Lippert frequently said he could not recall events leading up to the murder. Prosecutors used transcripts from the 1998 trial and an 1995 audio tape from police when Lippert's memory was better.

Tenney also is accused of killing and robbing Jerry D. Weber, a 24-year-old father of two, in April 1993 after his van broke down in a field. DuPage County prosecutors have yet to try that case.