By Jake Griffin | Daily Herald StaffContact writer
A Roselle man who received probation nearly two years ago for killing his wife in a drunken-driving accident was back behind bars Thursday.
Bond for 35-year-old Walter McNally was increased to $100,000 by DuPage County Circuit Judge John Kinsella on Thursday. McNally was charged last month with domestic battery against his current girlfriend and released after posting the required 10 percent of a $5,000 bond.
The increased bond was requested as part of DuPage prosecutors' bid to have McNally's probation revoked and have him sent to prison for violating the conditions of his sentence in his wife's death.
Prosecutor Mike Pawl sought a $1 million bond at Thursday's hearing after McNally's mother testified that she had to request an order of protection against her son on behalf of the man's four children and a Roselle police officer described how a belligerent McNally resisted arrest and threatened his girlfriend.
Deputy Public Defender Ricky M. Holman blamed the outburst on wine McNally drank at home reacting badly with prescription medications he's been taking since the crash that claimed his wife's life. McNally has spent the last month at an in-patient alcohol treatment facility. Holman argued that because the domestic battery charge stemmed from a wine glass being thrown at the girlfriend's feet and caused no injuries, that McNally should be released on his own recognizance.
Kinsella said he was concerned enough about McNally's behavior to increase the bond to a significant amount, but not to the $1 million level it was set at when he was charged with his wife's death. Kinsella also scheduled another hearing for Dec. 2 to set a date for the probation revocation argument.
McNally was arrested for domestic battery and resisting arrest Oct. 5. Roselle Police Officer Rachel Berk said she and her partner were called to McNally's Roselle house by a friend of McNally's live-in girlfriend who reported the couple were fighting. Berk told Kinsella Thursday that during the officers' first visit they heard McNally screaming expletives at his girlfriend and saw wine spilled across the living room floor and a broken wine glass there as well. The woman told police that McNally had thrown the glass during an argument. However, the couple agreed they would cool down and there was no need for anyone to leave the house for the night. But Berk said almost immediately after the officers left, they could hear McNally yelling at the woman. This time, police returned and asked McNally to leave for the night.
Berk said McNally agreed to spend the night at his brother's house, a few blocks away. After police dropped McNally off at his brother's house, the officers were once again dispatched to the house because McNally had apparently walked back to his house to confront his girlfriend, Berk said.
Berk said on their third visit, McNally became increasingly belligerent. Berk said McNally threw a phone and broke it, demanded to be arrested, but fought with officers who tried to place him the back of the squad car, spat at the windows in the car and claimed he was going to give the officer AIDS by rubbing his blood on her from a cut he received trying to pick up the broken wine glass.
McNally's probation officer, Katie Allen, testified that McNally told her he didn't remember most of the night he was arrested because the combination of alcohol and prescription antidepressants caused what he called a "blackout state." She also said McNally is tested regularly for drugs and alcohol and has never failed a test since his probation sentence last year. He was released from the treatment center Wednesday and is now living in a halfway house.
McNally's three-year probation sentence came almost four years after he killed his wife and severely injured a family friend and himself while driving drunk in the early morning hours of March 27, 2004. Blood tests at the time showed McNally had almost three times the legal limit of alcohol in his system at the time of the crash.
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