28-year-sentence for violent Westmont home invasion
A convicted murderer was sentenced Wednesday to 28 years in prison for a violent attack on a stepsister whom he felt cheated him out of his inheritance.
William A. Krolik received the near-maximum punishment for the Dec. 4, 2007 encounter in Westmont - a crime that sparked precedent in Illinois law. The 44-year-old Chicago man is eligible for parole after serving half the prison term.
"As I look back on your life, I haven't seen any good," DuPage Circuit Judge Blanche Hill Fawell said. "I have no other choice. It's mostly to protect the public. You've demonstrated you can't control your impulses."
The defendant's stepsister called 911 after her hammer-wielding assailant chased her into her home and tried to kick in the door. Police quickly nabbed Louis P. Demeo, who confessed and identified Krolik, circling the block in a Chevy Blazer, as his co-defendant.
A DuPage County jury convicted him earlier this year of attempted armed robbery and attempted home invasion. Krolik confessed in a videotaped police interrogation to a plan to burglarize the home and take back what he felt was rightfully his, prosecutors Mary K. Cronin and Jae Kwon said. Krolik's father left everything to the stepdaughter who took care of him until his January 2007 death.
"If he can plan this attack on family, I can only imagine what he would do to a stranger," the woman said. "I feel safe with him locked up and would like to keep him there for as long as possible."
Krolik was paroled in May 2005 after serving more than 20 years for a 1982 road-rage murder in Chicago in which 28-year-old Edward Osika was dragged one block by the defendant's car. The 17-year-old Krolik then used an alias last name of "Steffens."
The slain man's widow, Victoria, came to DuPage County court Wednesday in her husband's memory. Their two children, Vanessa and Edward Jr., just 3 and 9 months old when their dad was killed, comforted her. The widow described the tragic event, which unfolded as the family returned from church when her husband yelled at a speeding Krolik to slow down along the residential street.
"He was pinned underneath the car, asking me to help him," Victoria Osika said through tears. "I couldn't."
Krolik received a 30-year term for the murder - which was prosecuted when Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley was the Cook County state's attorney - but appellate court justices reduced it to 20 years in a 1985 opinion, citing the defendant's age and rehabilitative potential.
The DuPage County criminal case set legal precedent in Illinois after prosecutors objected to the defense's request for a six-member jury. The defense attorney, Brian Jacobs, a senior DuPage County public defender, sought a smaller jury than the typical 12 after a defendant in another high-profile case was acquitted with a smaller jury.
DuPage State's Attorney Joe Birkett objected.
In an unanimous ruling last year, the Illinois Supreme Court decreed if a criminal defendant wants a jury with fewer than 12 people and the trial judge allows it, a prosecutor can't stand in the way.
Demeo, 41, of Chicago, received a 12-year prison term in an earlier guilty plea in which he agreed to testify against Krolik.