Brown's Chicken Trial Wrapup
By Shannon in News on May 20, 2007 8:13PM
We realize here at Chicagoist that we haven't said much about the Brown's Chicken murder trial. It may be considered "out of our jurisdiction" in a way, a tragic, heart-wrenching happenstance that mostly affected a quiet, middle-class suburb, but not the city as a whole. Or perhaps it was all too much to take in; we certainly don't relish rehashing the gruesome details day after day of two young men slaughtering seven people. But we're in a reflective mood lately, so forgive us for pontificating on these events and the impact they will — or won't — have.
Chicagoist was a freshman in high school when the news came down in '93: seven workers had been shot and killed, execution-style, at Brown's Chicken and Pasta in Palatine. While it was horrifying for us on the usual human scale, it also resonated on a personal one. We were too young then to frequent the teenage hangout, but our older sister was just the right age, even dating a former Brown's worker who was later questioned by police. It frightened us to know that someone so near to us was so close to the situation. Naturally the restaurant was closed; a dry cleaner took over the space, but memories ran deep, and the establishment foundered. The building was torn down in 2001 after sitting abandoned for years. Police chased many leads to no avail, and as time went on, it looked like the massacre was going to be one of those things that would go unsolved forever.
Then, out of the blue: a tip lead to two arrests in 2002, Juan Luna and Jim Degorski. Our old suburban circle was stunned. Finally, some results! ... Except it would take another four years to even set a trial date, and that was for only one of the suspects. We're sure this stuff just kind of "happens" — for example, police needed clearance on whether or not they could use a discarded, half-eaten meal found at the scene as evidence. Still, that's a long time, exacerbated by the fact that the trial didn't actually get underway until another year had passed.
Luna came first, his trial starting this past April. A former Brown's employee, he was 18 at the time of the murders. He knew how they closed up shop at night, and (allegedly) with his friend Degorski, he took the opportunity on Jan. 8, 1993, to "do something big." Seven people were left in the store at 9 p.m. Luna and (allegedly) Degorski forced them into a meat locker and shot them one by one. They left with less than $2,000. Big enough? The trial only lasted a month, with different pictures being painted of Luna each day: one day he was a 33-year-old, mild-mannered father with an IQ of only 86, the next he was a cold-blooded sociopath who electrocuted cats and slit his former boss's throat. Such is the nature of high-profile murder cases, we suppose. A taped confession helped spur the jury on to a seven-count conviction of first-degree murder. A week later, the same jury decided that even though Luna was eligible for the death penalty, he would serve life in prison instead. One lone holdout was all that spared Luna's life.
Going over all these details and poring over these articles, it's now easy to see why we never got into this story. It's just too much to bear. It sends us back 14 long years into the past, forcing us to remember the grief and outrage of an entire community. Some critics are wondering if Luna's failure to be executed strikes a blow against the death penalty. We say, wait until Degorski's trial. It's entirely possible a new jury would have a different view on the situation, though with the media prevalence Luna's trial created, lawyers will probably have to go to Zimbabwe for jury selection. Although dredging up the past is all the more painful for the victims' family members, we're relieved to have some resolution on a mystery to which we never dreamed we'd see an end.
The Daily Herald has a very comprehensive site going over Luna's trial, along with original articles from the 1993 murders themselves. If you weren't planning on being cheerful today, dig in.