Prosecutors Recount Wilson's History of Escalating Violence At Sentencing

Caption: John Wilson Jr.

Before her mother could bring the memory of Kelli O’Laughlin to life in her eloquent victim’s impact statement, prosecutors first had to walk the court through the dark, depraved corridors of her 14-year-old daughter’s killer’s criminal past.

John Wilson Jr.’s life of escalating crime came to a halt on Friday when he was sentenced to 160 years by a Cook County judge for the brutal murder of the Indian Head Park teen.

Almost three years to the day when Kelli O’Laughlin walked in on the Chicago parolee as he burglarized her family’s home on Oct. 27, 2011 and then stabbed her to death, Wilson got the maximum sentence allowed under the law.

Associate Judge John Hynes’ courtroom in Bridgeview was packed with supporters for the O’Laughlin family, most wearing purple “because Kelli loved purple.”

From the moment Wilson, 41, entered the courtroom in leg irons wearing a green jail uniform with a yellow stripe, he spent most of the afternoon slouched in his chair during his sentencing hearing next to his trial attorneys, laughing, muttering and at one point, heckling Brenda O’Laughlin, Kelli’s mother.

Wilson’s first order of business was to fire his pro-bono, private trial attorneys, John Paul Carroll and his associate, attorney Michelle Gonzalez. Wilson claimed that his attorneys hadn’t informed him of his rights to take the stand in his trial last month, which ended in a conviction.

Carroll told the judge that Wilson’s complaint against him and Gonzalez, was not entirely accurate.

“Ms. Gonzalez and I had a short continuance at his trial,” Carroll said. “We discussed with him his desire to take the stand. We told him we thought he was insane based on our combined 40 years of trial experience, but that it was up to him.”

Wilson also complained that he had never seen a psychiatrist in his request for a new trial. Judge Hynes pointed out that the two county forensic psychiatrists who had conducted an exhaustive examination of Wilson before his murder trial got underway, found him to be “malingering” and faking symptoms of mental illness.

The judge also said that Wilson seemed aware of the court proceedings as Hynes questioned him “exhaustively” about the defendant’s desires to represent himself in court. He denied both of defendant’s post-trial handwritten motions.

Before his sentencing hearing got underway, Wilson claimed not to know why he was there or who Judge Hynes was, stating that “the voices told me not to talk to you.”

“Let the record reflect that the defendant is sitting his chair with his eyes closed,” the judge said.

Prosecutors reviewed Wilson’s violent criminal history, including multiple convictions for aggravated battery of a police officer, vehicular hijacking, robbery, possession of a stolen vehicle and assorted drug offenses.

Most of the prosecution witnesses called to the stand on Friday included officers from the Pontiac Correctional Facility, where Wilson was being held for violating his parole after he was arrested for O’Laughlin’s murder.

Correctional officers alleged that Wilson was anything but a model prisoner from 2011 to the time of his trial, testifying how Wilson had broken a fan in his cell and hid some of the sharpened pieces in a ceiling cavity for later use.

Another Pontiac prison guard told of Wilson’s threat to kill him if he didn’t bring extra snacks and contraband from the outside. Wilson laughed out loud when still another guard testified that Wilson made a sexual threat against a female prison social worker.

While being transported from the Pontiac prison to Bridgeview for a status hearing in 2012, Wilson allegedly unfastened his seatbelt and kicked his shackled legs against the side of the van in an attempt to escape.

The correctional officers told of going back to the prison for a special “pod” van outfitted with an aluminum and plexiglass capsule. When Wilson arrived at the Bridgeview courthouse in the pod van, he spit on the correctional officer removing his restraints.

Wilson objected to lead prosecutor Guy Lisuzzo’s closing argument, recounting a Pontiac correctional officer’s earlier testimony of Wilson hiding an empty pen cartridge in his mouth to blow his own feces on a desk near his cell used by correctional officers for administrative work.

“I object,” Wilson said. “I didn’t spit feces.”

“Overruled,” Hynes said.

Cook County assistant state’s attorneys also took the stand, reviewing Wilson’s pattern of escalating crime and his brutality toward women. In 1993, Wilson entered a car and held a gun against a 17-year-old woman’s head as she waited in the car for her boyfriend while he ran into a convenience store. She was able to push the gun away and jump out of the car. The same woman contacted prosecutors after Wilson’s arrest for Kelli O’Laughlin’s murder.

A witness took the stand describing hearing her neighbor’s screams in 2002, and seeing Wilson on top of her neighbor with his hands around her throat before snatching her purse. Police found him a short time later hiding under a stairwell.

Prosecutors said that Wilson pleaded guilty to both crimes and was sentenced to prison. He was months’ out on parole for the 2002 robbery when he killed Kelli.

“Every time John Wilson has been in society, he’s committed crimes that have only escalated,” Lisuzzo said. “He’s a threat to everyone around him, even incarcerated he’s a threat to correctional officers.”

Before Judge Hynes imposed sentencing, he asked Wilson if had anything to say.

“No, I ain’t got nothing to say now,” Wilson said, and then he laughed.

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