| Brown's Chicken massacre | |
|---|---|
| Location | Palatine, Illinois, United States |
| Date | January 8, 1993 |
| Attack type | Mass murder, massacre |
| Deaths | 7 |
| Perpetrator | Juan Luna James Degorski |
The Brown's Chicken massacre was a mass murder that occurred at a Brown's Chicken restaurant in Palatine, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago, in the United States in 1993. The massacre occurred on January 8, 1993, when two assailants robbed the Brown's Chicken restaurant and then proceeded to murder seven employees. The case remained unsolved for nearly nine years, until one of the assailants was implicated by his girlfriend in 2002. Police used DNA samples from the murder scene to match one of the suspects, Juan Luna. Luna was put on trial in 2007, found guilty for seven counts of murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment. James Degorski, the other assailant, was found guilty in 2009 on all seven counts of murder, and also sentenced to life imprisonment
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On January 8, 1993, seven people were murdered at the Brown's Chicken and Pasta at 168 W. Northwest Highway in Palatine.[1] The victims included the owners, Richard E. Ehlenfeldt, 50, and his wife, Lynn W Ehlenfeldt, 49, of Arlington Heights, Illinois. Also killed were five employees: Guadalupe Maldonado, 46, of Palatine, via Mexico, the cook; Michael C. Castro, 16, and Rico L. Solis, 17, both Palatine High School students working there part-time; and Palatine residents Thomas Mennes, 32, and Marcus Nellsen, 31.[2] The assailants stole less than $2,000 from the restaurant.[3]
When Palatine police found the bodies, it was more than 5½ hours after the 9 p.m. closing.[3] Michael Castro's parents called the police a couple hours after closing time.[4] Later, Guadalupe Maldonado's wife called police, concerned that her husband had not returned home from work and that his car was still in the apparently closed Brown's Chicken parking lot.[4] When officers arrived at the building, they spotted the rear, employees' door open. Inside, they found the seven bodies, some face down, in a cooler and in a walk-in refrigerator.[1]
The building no longer exists. It was razed in April 2001,[1] after housing a dry cleaning establishment and a deli, then standing vacant for several years with its dark windows marked with Xs. A Chase branch office is located at the former Brown's location.[5][6]
In March 2002, more than nine years after the murders, Anne Lockett implicated her former boyfriend, James Degorski, and his associate, Juan Luna, in the crime.[7] In April 2002, the Palatine Police Department obtained a DNA sample from one suspect and matched it to a sample of saliva from a piece of partially eaten chicken found in the garbage during the crime scene investigation.[8] The chicken was kept in a freezer for most of the time since the crime; testimony at trial indicated it was not frozen for several days after discovery, and was allowed to thaw several times for examination and testing, in the hope of an eventual match via increasingly sophisticated testing methods not available in 1993.[8]
The Palatine Police Department took the two suspects, one of them a former employee of the restaurant, into custody on May 16, 2002.[7] Luna confessed to the crime during an interrogation, though his lawyers would later claim that he was coerced to do so through corporal punishment and threats of deportation.[1] The pair, who met at Palatine's William Fremd High School, subsequently went to trial.[7]
On May 10, 2007, Juan Luna was found guilty of all seven counts of murder.[7] He was sentenced to life in prison without parole on May 17.[7] All but one juror had voted for the death penalty for Luna, but in Illinois the vote must be unanimous, so Luna was spared the death penalty.[9]
On September 29, 2009 James Degorski was found guilty of all seven counts of murder. On October 20, 2009 he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. All but two of the jurors had voted for the death penalty.[10]