Cab driver: Naperville slaying victim had violent past
The night of June 8, 1991, is one Alfred Satian says he'll never forget.
That's the night, he says, when he was attacked in his cab by Charles Clark, who 13 years later would die in a Naperville townhouse at the hands of a new roommate.
Satian, 59, now of Las Vegas, testified Wednesday as the first defense witness in Grant Muren's murder trial to support Muren's claims that Clark could be violent.
Muren is accused of strangling the 55-year-old Clark in January 2014, just hours after moving into Clark's Naperville townhouse.
Muren has admitted to killing Clark, but says he did so in self-defense.
Satian said he was driving a cab in 1991 and was called to a Downers Grove hotel around midnight on June 8 to pick up a fare from a wedding. Satian testified he was unable to find the man he was supposed to pick up and Clark ended up getting in his cab instead.
Soon after agreeing to take Clark to his mother's home on Chicago's South Side, Satian learned Clark didn't have the roughly $50 fare. But during a phone call to Clark's mother, she agreed to pay the bill when Clark arrived.
As they were driving, Satian said Clark began demanding to go to a friend's house. When Satian refused, Clark became angry.
"He slid over and sat behind me and asked 'Do you want to die, homeboy?'" Satian said. "Then he said 'I'm going to take you with me ..."
Satian said Clark then put a green belt around his neck and began choking him and attempting to "gouge out" his right eye as he was driving about 60 mph toward the city.
Eventually, Satian said, he was able to safely bring the car to a stop and he ran to the back of the cab.
"Then (Clark) got in the driver's seat and took off," Satian said. "He stole it."
Asked if he would ever forget Clark's face, Satian said "I wish I could, but I can't."
Muren, 24, has admitted to killing Clark on Jan. 20, 2014, hours after he moved into Clark's townhouse on the 1100 block of Vail Court.
But Muren's attorneys say he acted in self-defense after an alcohol-fueled evening during which they say Muren was the victim of two aggravated criminal sexual assaults by Clark, leading to what Muren described to investigators as a 20-minute struggle in which he was able to outlast the older, larger Clark.
Prosecutors say the fight started when Muren hit Clark in the head from behind with a small wooden folding table.
Prosecutors say after killing Clark, Muren used Clark's keys to open a safe and take back the roughly $950 he paid earlier in the day for rent and a security deposit.
They say he then tried to "blow the house up" by turning on the stove's gas burners, the oven and igniting magazines in a toaster, much like a scene in the 2004 movie "The Bourne Supremacy."
But the house didn't blow up. And Clark's girlfriend of seven years, Janice Linear of Indiana, said the first thing she did when she went to the house and discovered Clark's body was turn off the stove.
Linear, who dated Clark for seven years, testified Wednesday that Clark would drink brandy at least four days a week, often to the point of intoxication.
"He would change," she said. "He would get mean."
The defense is expected to continue its case Thursday with the airing of more than seven hours of Muren's recorded statements to police.