Psychiatric Re-Evaluation Pending for Grandma Accused of Killing Baby

Caption: Recent booking photo of Alfreda Giedrojc, 63, charged in infant granddaughter’s 2013 murder. | Cook County Sheriff

The Oak Lawn woman accused of murdering her infant granddaughter appeared in a Bridgeview courtroom almost a year after she was found unfit to stand trial.

Alfreda Giedrojc, who is now 63, is charged with first degree murder of her 6-month-old granddaughter, Vivian Summers. She is accused of bludgeoning and slashing the baby’s throat in October 2013 in a gruesome murder that shocked Oak Lawn residents.

According to past testimony, Giedrojc’s son-in-law, Joel Summers, of Bolingbrook, had dropped off Baby Vivian the morning of Oct. 6, 2013 at her grandparents’ Oak Lawn home in the 6600 block of West 91st Street. He then headed across the street to help a neighbor with a rehab project.

“After the defendant’s husband left, the defendant took the victim off the couch where she had been sleeping and put her on the floor. She picked up a sledge hammer that she had placed in her closet the night before and hit the victim repeatedly in the head and body with the hammer,” Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Deno said during Giedrojc’s bond hearing the day after the baby’s murder in 2013.

»» Watch the video of the Oak Lawn police chief’s press conference from Oct. 7, 2013.

When the baby would not stop moving, prosecutors said, Giedrojc picked her up and slashed the child’s throat with a kitchen carving knife. Giedrojc’s husband, Boleslaw, came home 10 minutes later and discovered the gravely injured baby.

He called his son-in-law across the street and told him to come home immediately. The child’s father made the initial 911 call. While en route, Oak Lawn police learned there was a child that had been injured. Baby Vivian was pronounced dead at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.

The Cook County Medical Examiner indicated that the baby’s death was caused by blunt trauma to the head and an inch-long slash wound to the neck. Giedrojc admitted to killing her granddaughter and described the acts in a video-taped statement made to Oak Lawn police, including hiding the hammer in a bedroom closet the night before, prosecutors have said. She has been without bail at Cook County Jail since that day.

The Oak Lawn grandmother, who speaks only Polish and uses a court interpreter, is being represented by an assistant public defender, Michael Wilson. Wilson has in the past expressed “bona fide doubt” about his client’s ability to assist in her defense.

During a fitness hearing in July 2014, Cook County Judge Clayton Crane agreed with the findings of psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Markos, of Cook County Forensic Clinical Services, who found Giedrojc unfit to stand trial.

At that hearing, it was learned that Giedrojc has an eighth-grade education and immigrated to the United States in 1983. She and her husband, who is retired, have both lived in Oak Lawn for 20 years where they raised four children. Giedrojc’s daughter, Amy Summers, is the baby’s mother, reports said.

Judge Crane ordered a treatment schedule for Giedrojc and said she must be re-evaluated after one year to determine whether she is fit to stand trial after treatment.

On Tuesday, prosecutors, the court interpreter and presiding Judge Colleen Hyland waited for Wilson to show up for Giedrojc’s hearing. Rodney Carr, supervisor of the public defenders office in Bridgeview, stood in.

If the length of Giedrojc’s hair is any indication of how much time has passed, her formerly short coif was replaced by a long ponytail swept back off her face during her court hearing on Tuesday.

In a court appearance that took less than a minute, Carr said that the Oak Lawn woman’s assistant public defender has an evaluation pending and asked for a status hearing next month.

Judge Hyland set Aug. 19 for the next hearing date.

After the hearing, Giedrojc thanked Carr and the interpreter before being led off by sheriff’s deputies.