By Barbara Vitello | Daily Herald Staff
Published: 2/9/2010 12:00 AM
Albert and Janet Rumlow were everything to each other. Best friends. Husband and wife. Parents. Partners.
That's how Albert Rumlow's defense attorney Thomas J. Tyrrell described the Palatine couple's relationship.
"They lived a happy life together," he told a Cook County court Monday.
But on Dec. 17, 2008. prosecutors say that relationship shifted to murderer and victim after they claim Albert Rumlow, 74, killed his wife in a failed murder-suicide attempt at the couple's home.
Monday morning in Rolling Meadows, Cook County assistant state's attorneys set out to prove it, as Rumlow's murder trial began before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Kay Hanlon. And, the defense did not disagree with the terse explanation of the crime prosecutors offered in their opening statements in the bench trial.
"There is little if any dispute in terms of the fact brought forward by the state," said Tyrrell in his opening statement.
The question, he said, is whether Rumlow was sane at the time. Tyrrell insists he was not and promised a forensic psychiatrist would testify to that. He asked the court to find his client not guilty by reason of insanity.
Throughout Monday's proceedings, Rumlow sat with his hands clasped and his head bowed, occasionally dabbing his eyes with a white handkerchief while the couple's children sat nearby.
Prosecutors began their case by playing an audiotape of the 911 call Albert Rumlow made to authorities at 10:16 p.m. the night Janet Rumlow died.
"My wife is murdered and I've attempted suicide ... but it didn't work," said Rumlow to the dispatcher.
Rumlow went on to say that he had stabbed his wife many times and that she had been dead at least two hours. He also said he stabbed himself "four or five times, but it didn't kill me."
The tape included the sounds of Palatine police and paramedics arriving on the scene and Rumlow responding by saying, "C'mon in. C'mon upstairs."
The state took a little more than 60 minutes to make its case, which consisted mostly of stipulated testimony from a Palatine paramedic and a Cook County medical examiner. The paramedic testified that he arrived at the home in the 1000 block of Grissom Drive to discover Janet Rumlow lying in the doorway to the master bedroom showing no vital signs. He also testified that the defendant was covered in blood and had lacerations to his wrists and puncture wounds to his chest and abdomen.
The medical examiner described Janet Rumlow's numerous wounds including a near decapitation, collapsed lungs resulting from stab wounds, a brain hemorrhage which prosecutors suggested came from Rumlow striking her with a hammer, and lacerations and puncture wounds to her head and torso, including defensive wounds on her hands.
The state called as its only live witness Palatine police officer Stephen Ramirez, one of the first officers on the scene. Ramirez said he found the victim lying on the floor in a pool of blood. He also found three kitchen knives and a hammer in the room, he said.
Noting Rumlow's change in color and believing he might not survive, Ramirez testified that he read Rumlow his Miranda rights twice and that Rumlow indicated he understood. Rumlow claimed he killed his wife to "fulfill a death plan," Ramirez said. He said he came up behind her and hit her in the head with a hammer, Ramirez said. Rumlow said she fell but continued to fight even as he struck her with the knife, Ramirez said.
Ramirez said that Rumlow told him he had lost $250,000 in his retirement savings and "he didn't want his wife to be kicked out on the street."
"He said he wanted to kill her so she wouldn't be alone after he killed himself?" asked assistant state's attorney Mike Gerber.
"Yes," said Ramirez.
The prosecution rested after a little more than an hour of testimony. As the proceedings concluded for the day, Rumlow turned, trembling, to whisper to his attorney.
"I loved her," he said.
"I know that," replied Tyrrell as he patted the back of his client. "Everybody knows that."
The defense presents its case Tuesday in Rolling Meadows.
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