INDIAN HEAD PARK, Ill. - A man charged with stabbing a 14-year-old suburban Chicago girl to death after she allegedly walked in on him burglarizing her house kept the teen’s cell phone after the attack and used it to send “taunting and disturbing’’ messages to her family, prosecutors said yesterday.
John Wilson Jr., 38, faces charges of first-degree murder and residential burglary in the death of Kelli O’Laughlin last week, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said. The girl was stabbed in the back, neck, and chest after coming home from school Oct. 27 to find Wilson burglarizing her family’s home in Indian Head Park, a small town about 15 miles southwest of Chicago, Alvarez said.
A judge ordered Wilson held without bond yesterday.
The girl’s mother found her daughter, who died after being rushed to a hospital. Her funeral was held yesterday.
Authorities did not specify the content of the text messages sent to the girl’s mother, but Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said “words cannot describe’’ the pain they suffered.
Law enforcement authorities were able to trace the girl’s and Wilson’s cellphones, and DNA evidence from a knit cap left at the scene matched Wilson’s, Alvarez said. She said Wilson used a rock placed inside the cap to break a window on the home.
Wilson was paroled from an Illinois prison last year after serving seven years of an 11-year sentence for robbery....
The killing shocked the small residential community where serious crime is rare, and anonymous donors quickly offered a $60,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of her killer.
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"Illinois Catholic Charities close over adoption rule; Bishops say religious rights being trampled" by Laurie Goodstein | New York Times, December 29, 2011
NEW YORK - Catholic Charities in Illinois has served for more than 40 years as a major link in the state’s social service network for poor and neglected children. But now most of the Catholic Charities affiliates in Illinois are closing down rather than comply with a new requirement that says they can no longer receive state money if they turn away same-sex couples as potential foster care and adoptive parents.
For the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, the outcome is a prime example of what they see as an escalating campaign by the government to trample on their religious freedom while expanding the rights of gay people. The idea that religious Americans are now the victims of government-backed persecution is now a frequent theme not just for Catholic bishops, but also for Republican presidential candidates and conservative evangelicals.
“In the name of tolerance, we’re not being tolerated,’’ said Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill., a civil and canon lawyer who helped drive the church’s losing battle to retain its state contracts for foster care and adoption services.
Tim Kee, a teacher in Marion, Ill., who was turned away by Catholic Charities three years ago when he and his longtime partner, Rick Wade, tried to adopt a child, said: “We’re both Catholic, we love our church, but Catholic Charities closed the door to us. To add insult to injury, my tax dollars went to provide discrimination against me.’’
The bishops are engaged in the religious liberty battle on several fronts. They have asked the Obama administration to lift a new requirement that Catholic and other religiously affiliated hospitals, universities, and charity groups cover contraception in their employees’ health plans. A decision has been expected for weeks now.
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At the same time, the bishops are protesting the recent denial of a federal contract to provide care for victims of sex-trafficking, saying the decision was anti-Catholic. An official with the Department of Health and Human Services recently told a hearing on Capitol Hill that the bishops’ program was rejected because it did not provide the survivors of sex-trafficking, some of whom are rape victims, with referrals for abortions or contraceptives.
In 2006, Catholic Charities of Boston closed its adoption service after Vatican opposition forced the state’s four Catholic bishops to conclude that the practice had to end.
Critics of the church argue that no group has a constitutional right to a government contract, especially if it refuses to provide required services....
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"Ill. doc gets 4 life terms in Ohio pill mill case" February 14, 2012|Andrew Welsh-Huggins, AP Legal Affairs Writer
A Chicago doctor who prosecutors say dispensed more of the powerful painkiller oxycodone from 2003 to 2005 than any other physician in the country was sentenced Tuesday to four life terms in the overdose deaths of four patients.
64-year-old Dr. Paul Volkman fired his attorneys earlier this month and said he acted at all times as a doctor, not a drug dealer.
“The typical drug dealer does not care how much drugs a client buys, how often he buys, or what he does with his drugs,’’ Volkman said in a 28-page handwritten court filing Monday, maintaining that he did all those things and more for his patients.
Volkman was also handed prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years on 13 other counts related to drug trafficking. He received five years for possessing a weapon while participating in drug trafficking....
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Also see: Chicago police arrest seven in filmed beating of teen
Officer reportedly ticketed woman, then asked for date
