Degorski spared death penalty in restaurant murders

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A Chicago jury decided Tuesday that a former handyman will spend the rest of his life in prison, rather than be sent to death row, for the 1993 slayings of seven people at a suburban restaurant.

The jurors last month convicted James Degorski, 37, in the grisly killings at Brown's Chicken and Pasta restaurant in Palatine and found him eligible for the death penalty. But they spared his life — just as another jury did two years ago when Degorski's accomplice, Juan Luna, was sentenced to life in prison.

"I appreciate the jury's decision," Degorski's mother, Patricia Degorski, said after the verdict was read.

"My heart goes out to what the victims' families have been through this whole trial," she said.

The restaurant's owners and five employees were shot and stabbed and their bodies stacked in a walk-in cooler and freezer during a botched January 1993 robbery that netted less than $2,000. The murders kept the small town on edge for almost a decade before Degorski's former girlfriend came forward.

In Luna's case, investigators had a palm print and DNA that put him at the crime scene. Luna also gave police a lengthy videotaped statement in which he implicated himself and Degorski.

But there was no physical evidence tying Degorski to the scene. Prosecutors had to rely on the testimony of witnesses — including his former girlfriend Anne Lockett — who said both men confessed their roles just after the crime. Lockett testified that it took her so long to go to police because Degorski and Luna had threatened to kill her.

During the sentencing phase of the trial, witnesses, including Patricia Degorski, told jurors that Degorski grew up in a home with a violent, sexually abusive father who would occasionally tie his children to a bedpost to beat them.

Degorski's first-grade teacher, Judy McCaskey, also talked about the boy she referred to as "Jimmy." As a small child, she said Degorski was a freckled-faced "teddy bear" of a boy who struggled to learn to read.

But Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Tom Biesty said Degorski showed no mercy toward the victims: restaurant owners Richard Ehlenfeldt, 50, his wife, Lynn Ehlenfeldt, 49, and employees Michael Castro, 16, Rico Solis, 17, Marcus Nellsen, 31, Thomas Mennes, 32, and Guadalupe Maldonado, 46.

Prosecutors described in court how Degorski brought a gun, knife, gloves, a change of clothes and even waited along with Luna until customers had left before committing the crime on Jan. 9, 1993.

Degorski and Luna herded some of the workers into a cooler and others into a freezer and shot each of them multiple times, with Degorski reloading his gun at least three times, prosecutors said.

They claimed Degorski committed the crimes "because he wanted to do something big."

Luna himself told authorities Degorski had ordered him to watch Lynn Ehlenfeldt during the attack. Luna allegedly admitted he "got caught up in it" and cut her throat. But he claimed Degorski shot and killed everyone else.