Heroin Homicide Defendant Had Second Brother Die From Drugs

NEW LENOX, IL - For the second time this year, New Lenox Township heroin-homicide defendant Mark Harmon has had one of his younger brothers die from a drug overdose, Patch has learned. Harmon, now 26, was scheduled to have his felony trial this week at the Will County Courthouse for the Christmas Eve 2014 heroin overdose death of 30-year-old New Lenox resident Jeff Tediski. However, lawyers informed Will County Judge Dave Carlson on Thursday that the jury trial is now being rescheduled for Sept. 17.

Mark Harmon has remained in the Will County jail ever since his arrest more than three years ago, in April 2015. However, twice this year he was given a short furlough to grieve the loss of a brother who died from a drug overdose.

Patch previously reported that Mark Harmon was granted a brief furlough to attend the funeral services in Tinley Park of his 20-year-old brother Joey. Reports at the Will County Coroner's Office showed that Joey Harmon died on Feb. 2 in New Lenox Township from an overdose involving Fentanyl intoxication.

On Thursday, Will County Sheriff's Police informed Patch that they responded to the May 19 overdose death involving 19-year-old Daniel "Danny" Harmon, also of New Lenox.

According to sheriff's officials, police were called to the Harmon home in the 200 block of South Anderson Road in New Lenox Township shortly before 9:15 a.m. When Will County police arrived on May 19, a woman told them she found Danny Harmon unresponsive. She was giving him CPR.

A New Lenox Fire district ambulance was summoned and rushed Danny Harmon to Silver Cross Hospital. He was pronounced dead at 10:19 a.m. from a drug overdose, the sheriff's department said.

According to sheriff's reports, the woman who found Harmon was a family friend, and she told police that Danny Harmon had recently gotten out of rehab. She had tried calling him repeatedly, but he did not respond. On the morning of May 19, she drove over to the house on Anderson Road to check on him, only to find him unresponsive, police said.

The Will County Coroner's Office online database for 2018 drug overdose deaths shows that a 19-year-old male who lived in New Lenox Township died on May 19 from an overdose involving Fentanyl and heroin intoxication, a case investigated by the Will County Sheriff's Department.

As for heroin homicide defendant Mark Harmon, his criminal complaint states that he and co-defendant Adam Pate, were responsible "for delivering heroin, a controlled substance, to ... Jeff Tediski. Jeff Tediski thereafter ingested an amount of heroin into his body and said ingestion of that heroin caused the death of Jeff Tediski."

As for Mark Harmon's criminal co-defendant, Pate, now 33, pleaded guilty to the crime a few years ago, and ended up with a prison sentence of six years and six months. Pate remains at the southern Illinois prison in Pinckneyville. He is slated to be paroled in October 2020.

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Mugshot of heroin homicide defendant Mark Harmon via Will County Sheriff, images of Joey Harmon and Danny Harmon via Brady-Gill Funeral Home.