Jury Finds Chicago Man Guilty in Murder of Indian Head Park Teen

Caption: Cook (left to right) 1) County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez and the prosecution team address reporters after guilty verdicts were announced for John Wilson Jr., 41, in the murder of an Indian Head Park teen. 2) John Wilson jr., 41, the defendant. 3) Kelli O’Laughlin, 14, of Indian Head Park 4) Brenda O’Laughlin hugs a supporter in the Bridgeview courthouse after guilty verdicts were announced in the trail of her slain daughter’s killer.

It took a jury less than two hours to find a Chicago man guilty for the October 2011 murder of 14-year-old Kelli O’Laughlin.

John Wilson Jr. was convicted of first degree murder, residential burglary, armed robbery and home invasion after he broke into the O’Laughlin home on Oct. 27, 2011. Cook County prosecutors said that Kelli interrupted him in the middle of ransacking her family’s home around 3:40 in the afternoon, after he had armed himself with a knife from the kitchen in case someone came home.

Wilson showed no reaction when the verdicts were read after a long day of closing arguments that began Monday morning. He was the only person who remained seated when the bailiff asked those in the Bridgeview courtroom to rise for the the jurors as they left after the verdicts were announced.

Outside the courtroom, Kelli’s family and friends clutched each other and wept, many of them wearing the color purple “because Kelli loved purple.”

“It’s wonderful,” Carole Pankow said, Kelli’s grandmother and mother of Brenda O’Laughlin. “Now our family can get to back to being halfway normal.”

The hardest part was listening to the testimony having to relive that warm October afternoon when the family was torn apart three years ago, Pankow said.

“It stirred everything up. For three years we put it in the back and to relive it in such detail,” Pankow said. “When this happened we found out my husband had Alzheimer’s. When I come home to tell him [about the day’s testimony] he doesn’t know.”

Closing arguments began in the morning with Andreana Turano taking two hours to lay out the case for the jury. Turano described how Kelli’s index finger was practically sliced off as she tried to fend off Wilson’s knife blows to her neck, spine and heart.

“John and Brenda (O’Laughlin) never got a chance to say goodbye to their daughter,” Turano said. “She couldn’t have known getting off the school bus that it was her last day.”

Turano finished her closing argument by playing a video from the school bus that dropped Kelli off the afternoon of Oct. 27, 2011, and a chorus of girls’ voices happily calling, “bye, Kelli.”

Wilson’s flamboyant, pro bono attorney, John Paul Carroll, started off his argument by quoting Shakespeare, and telling the jury how his client had “outstanding attorneys.”

Carroll tried to cast doubt on the state’s case, arguing that local police and “county employees” -- as he repeatedly referred to the prosecution team -- rushed to judgment and stopped looking at other potential suspects because Wilson was “black and convenient.”

The defense attorney had suggested throughout the trial that Kelli O’Laughlin may have committed suicide by stabbing herself eight times. Carroll drew gasps from the courtroom when he proposed to jurors that her mother may have gone upstairs after she found Kelli bleeding on the kitchen floor to rearrange the bedroom to make it look like a burglary because “suicide was a shame on the family.”

Carroll had to be repeatedly admonished by Judge John Hynes not to tread into a racial argument and stopped the defense attorney short when he started to mention “the Ku Klux Klan calling card.”

Carroll also suggested that police never looked at the O’Laughlin’s cleaning lady, or vetted the backgrounds of landscapers on the property earlier that day, as possible suspects.

Lead prosecutor Guy Lisuzzo gave the rebuttal, focusing on foreign and other collectible coins taken from the O’Laughlin home during the burglary, and the witnesses that identified Wilson in a police lineup.

A brief outburst was heard from Wilson during the discussion of the shoes he wore on Oct. 27, 2011, and how investigators were unable to locate them.

“[Wilson] took a path away from the O’Laughlin home that day,” Lisuzzo told the jury. “He’s still on that path, he’s still running away from it but what he didn’t count on was justice at the end of the path. Now he’s counting on you to get away with it. Don’t let him.”

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez attended the day’s proceedings, saying prosecutors were pleased with the evening’s verdict.

“This is a horrific crime clearly for anyone who is a parent and has teenagers,” Alvarez said. “This crime hits home.”

After the verdicts were handed down, Kelli’s mother, Brenda O’Laughlin, was asked if justice had been served.

“Justice will never be served because Kelli will never come home,” the grieving mom said.