By Art Barnum
Tribune staff reporter
A look at death row cases in DuPage County:
Two on death row for DuPage County crimes:
--Eric Hanson, 33, of Naperville, convicted and sentenced to death in 2008 for killing his father and mother in their Naperville home and his sister and brother-in-law in their Aurora home, all in the same evening.
--Brian Dugan, 54, of Aurora, convicted and sentenced to death in November for the rape and murder of Jeanine Nicarico. He already had been serving two life sentences for two other rape-murders.
DuPage man once on death row to be retried:
--Laurence Lovejoy, 43, of Aurora, originally sentenced to death for murdering his stepdaughter to silence her about his having sexually assaulted her. Illinois Supreme Court ordered new trial, citing trial errors, and defendant brought back to DuPage on Jan. 25.
People facing the possibility of death sentences in DuPage crimes:
--Paul Runge, 40, of Glendale Heights, charged with the 1995 double murder of two Hanover Park house cleaners. He already has been sentenced to death for two 1997 Chicago murders of a mother and her 10-year-old daughter, and he has another case pending in the 1995 murder of his ex-wife's friend.
--Kaushik Patel, 36, of Hanover Park, charged with setting his two young sons on fire in 2007. Both boys later died. His offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence has been rejected by DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett.
--Gary Schuning, 27, of Addison, charged with killing his mother and a prostitute in 2006. His trial has been delayed while prosecutors appeal a pretrial ruling that went against them.
Murderers who avoided death row:
--Michael Alfonso, 40, of Wheaton, sentenced to three life sentences in 2007 for killing two former girlfriends, one at the Wheaton McDonald's where she worked in 2001, and one, who was carrying his unborn child, whose body was found in 1997 in a Kendall County forest preserve.
--Neil Lofquist, 44, of Clarendon Hills, pleaded guilty in April 2009 to murdering his 8-year-old daughter and received a 100-year sentence.
--Marilyn Lemak, 52, Naperville mother who killed her three young children in 1999, received a life sentence in 2002. Birkett decided to drop the death penalty request after the jury had convicted her of the three murders.
One woman's sentence commuted:
--Guinevere Garcia, 51, of Bensenville, had her execution commuted to a life sentence by then-Gov. Jim Edgar on the day she was scheduled to die. She was convicted of murdering her husband after having been convicted of killing her young daughter in Chicago.
Gov. George Ryan commuted all death row sentences to life in prison in 2003, including:
--Jacqueline Williams, sentenced to death in the murder of three Evans family members.
--Fedell Caffey, sentenced to death in the murder of three Evans family members.
--Mark Ballard, killed his girlfriend for refusing to give him drug money.
--Darryl Simms, raped and killed an Addison woman while her young children were in a nearby room.
--Geno Macri, killed an acquaintance for not submitting to his sexual demands.
--Raul Ceja, gang-related double murder in Elmhurst.
--Walter Thomas, killed an Aurora woman while trying to rob her home.
--Edward Spreitzer, ritualistic murder of an Elmhurst woman.
--Ronald Alvine, killed a West Chicago police officer during a burglary.
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
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