Glen Ellyn Teen Murder Trial: Jury Can Hear About Other Alleged Sex Crimes

GLEN ELLYN, IL — It’s been more than 30 years since Kristy Wesselman, 15, of Glen Ellyn was brutally raped and murdered on her way home from buying a candy bar at Jewel-Osco. Michael Jones, 63, of Champaign, was charged with the 1985 murder last September. As Jones heads to trial, DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin has asked the judge to permit the jury to hear evidence from a number of additional sexual assaults Jones was allegedly involved in over a period of nearly two decades, according to the News-Gazette.

After Michael Jones pleaded guilty to unrelated charges of aggravated battery in July 2015, he was required to submit DNA evidence to a national database. “On Sept. 10, 2015, investigators from the sheriff’s office were informed there was a hit between that DNA profile from the victim and an offender in the database and that offender was Michael Jones,” Berlin said. Charges were brought up against Jones in the Wesselman rape and murder on Sept. 18, 2015.

It’s since been revealed that Michael Jones pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 27-year-old woman in Schiller Park in 1977. He allegedly followed her, hit her bike with his vehicle, bound her wrists and covered her face with a wool cap before sexually assaulting her in his parents’ basement. Jones served seven years in prison for the 1977 rape and allegedly attacked and killed Kristy Wesselman while on parole for that conviction.

Prosecutors assert that there are a number of alleged cases that indicate a pattern that's similar to the murder of Wesselman, according to The News-Gazette:

• In 1976, Jones allegedly kidnapped an 18-year-old Chicagoland woman at gunpoint and then choked, bound and raped her.
• In 1994, Jones allegedly took a prostitute to his Champaign-Urbana home and gave her a drink that made her unconscious, police said. Berlin said she was able to escape “with some of her clothes in hand.”
• On and off between 1984 and 1995, Jones allegedly intoxicated a younger family member before sexually assaulting her.
• Between 1989 and 1990, police said Jones spiked soft drinks and gave them to a seventh-grade girl whom he allegedly assaulted on more than one occasion as she slept.

This evidence will be allowed in the trial for Kristy Wesselman’s rape and murder if Judge George Bakalis finds “enough unique attributes common in all the crimes.” The News-Gazette reported.

Currently, no trial date has been set for the Wesselman murder case as the Judge grapples with these and other pre-trial issues.

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