Darien victim warned co-workers of ‘combative’ Borizov
Weeks before she and two family members were murdered, Lori Kramer told co-workers she was afraid of her daughter’s ex-boyfriend and worried he might “pay her a visit at the office.”
“She told me she was involved in a child-custody battle and was concerned for her safety and the safety of others in the building,” Evelyn Hanley testified Friday about a Jan. 14, 2010, conversation.
Hanley, who managed the Burr Ridge facility that housed Kramer’s employer, McGraw-Hill, said Kramer gave her a photo of Johnny Borizov — the man now on trial for soliciting the March 2010 killings of Kramer, her husband, Jeffrey, and their 20-year-old son, Michael.
Kramer described Borizov as “combative” and said he threatened to “make her family miserable” as he and her daughter fought over custody of their young son.
“She was afraid he might come pay her a visit at the office,” Hanley testified.
Dana Pauley, a longtime friend and co-worker at McGraw-Hill, told jurors she encouraged Kramer to make her concerns known after a similar conversation in January 2010.
“Lori told me that Johnny said, ‘I’m going to hurt you,’” Pauley said.
The prosecution witnesses acknowledged on cross-examination they never saw or heard from Borizov, who denies enlisting admitted gunman Jacob Nodarse to kill the Kramers.
Records show cellphones belonging to the co-defendants were in frequent contact in the weeks before the murders, DuPage County Sheriff’s Detective David Chiesa testified Friday.
Chiesa said there were more than 350 calls made between the phones from Jan. 17 to Feb. 28, 2010. At that point, all communication, including text messages, ceased until the day of the murders, when six calls were made.
Records also showed calls and texts on Borizov’s phone routed through a cellular tower just east of the Kramer home in Darien on five nights in February 2010, around the time Nodarse said he and Borizov staked out the residence in anticipation of the murders.
Chiesa said it wasn’t possible to pinpoint the precise location of Borizov’s phone or say who was using it at the time. On cross-examination, he said it was “entirely possible” the phone could have been at a Darien billiard hall where the co-defendants often met for drinks.