Prosecutors: No concert tickets, so Carol Stream man kills mom

Prosecutors say 39-year-old Robert Lyons counted on his mother for just about everything, from buying his shoes to driving him around because he didn't have a license.

But when Linda Bolek refused her son's demands to ask a friend for Avril Lavigne concert tickets, he reacted violently, authorities said — bashing her head with a liquor bottle before repeatedly stabbing her and showering her body with chemicals. Attorneys for Lyons told a DuPage County jury at the opening of his murder trial Wednesday that the March 14, 2008, slaying was an act of self-defense as Bolek, 61, put a knife to her son's face and threatened to stab him in the eye.

But prosecutors contended that other evidence — including nine stab wounds to Bolek's back and the defendant's own words — will prove otherwise.

“This defendant was so angry with his mother that he bludgeoned her and repeatedly stabbed her in a fit of rage,” Assistant State's Attorney Ann Celine O'Hallaren said.

Authorities found Bolek in a pool of blood in the kitchen of a Carol Stream condominium she shared with Lyons and her boyfriend. The attack was so violent, they said, a knife snapped off in her body and her skull was lacerated. She also was found sopping with household chemicals.

After the killing, Lyons changed clothes and went shopping before settling in with a book at Hooters Restaurant in Schaumburg, where he was later apprehended.

O'Hallaren said Lyons, before he was arrested, called several people claiming his mother had come at him with a knife but at no point did he call 911.

“He said he blocked the knife and somehow the knife ended up in her back,” O'Hallaren said.

Prosecutors said Lyons had often complained about his mother, telling even strangers she was driving him “crazy” and that he'd like to kill her. The morning before the attack, they said, Bolek drove him to a department store and bought him a new pair of shoes before the two returned home. Lyons then went out and bought a pair of yellow dishwashing gloves — later found smeared with blood — along with candy, a can of tea and playing cards.

Bolek's longtime boyfriend, Stan Matusiak, testified that the morning before the killing Bolek called him complaining that Lyons had been nagging her about concert tickets and swearing at her. Matusiak said he threatened to call police.

“She was crying and she was angry,” he testified. “He was just over and over asking her (about the tickets).”

Assistant Public Defender Valerie Pacis acknowledged Lyons exhibited a personality change and mood swings after being diagnosed in 2001 with bipolar disorder. She said he and his mother argued regularly, but it wasn't until Bolek threatened him that violence erupted.

“Robert Lyons reacted,” she told jurors. “He reacted to her gesture of holding up a knife to his eye and threatening to stab him in the eye.”

The trial in Judge Kathryn Creswell's courtroom resumes Thursday.