40 years for Carol Stream man in mom’s murder
A Carol Stream man who confessed to stabbing his mother to death in a fit of rage was sentence Monday to 40 years in prison.
DuPage County Judge Kathryn Creswell imposed the term on Rob Lyons, 39, who was convicted in September of 61-year-old Linda Bolek’s murder.
In court last week, Lyons admitted he beat Bolek in the head with a liquor bottle and repeatedly stabbed her, but he claimed the March 2008 slaying was not premeditated.
On Monday, Creswell said she didn’t believe Lyons planned the killing but that he was still guilty of first-degree murder.
“In the defendant’s own words, she was begging him to stop and he didn’t stop,” Creswell said, calling the attack “brutally vicious.”
The 40-year term brought some level of closure to the victim’s boyfriend, Stan Matusiak, who lived with the mother and son.
“Forty years is 40 years, and it’s like a life sentence,” he said outside of court. “It’s sad. Two lives are gone now.”
Prosecutors had said Lyons was enraged because his mother wouldn’t help him get skybox tickets to see pop singer Avril Lavigne. But in his statement to the judge, Lyons disputed that. He instead accused his mother of “relentless verbal abuse” and said she “pushed me too far” after she criticized him for taking flowers to waitresses at a steakhouse.
He claimed he attacked her when she reached for a knife during an argument in the kitchen of their Carol Stream condominium. He also confessed to showering her body with household chemicals.
Lyons, who has a long history of mental illness, said he had not been taking his prescribed medication and was in a manic state at the time of the killing.
Police found Bolek’s body that afternoon and, hours later, arrested Lyons at a Hooters restaurant in Schaumburg.
Throughout the investigation, Creswell noted, Lyons was alternately polite and profane with authorities. At times, he claimed he was a Sicilian gangster, she said. Other times, he boasted of his superior athletic abilities.
“This is clearly not an insanity case but no one can watch those interviews with the detectives and conclude his behavior is normal,” the judge said. “The primary mitigation here is the defendant’s history of mental illness.”
Lyons has already served nearly four years in the county jail and would be in his mid-70s before he is eligible for parole.
His in-court confession detailing his anger toward his mother probably did not help his defense, Matusiak said.
“I thought he hung himself more,” Matusiak said. “He wanted to kill her.”