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Thread: James Ealy Sentenced in 2006 IL Slaying of Mary Hutchison

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    James Ealy Sentenced in 2006 IL Slaying of Mary Hutchison

    Lake County prosecutors said this afternoon they intend to seek the death penalty against the man accused of strangling the manager of a Lindenhurst Burger King last year during a robbery.

    James Ealy showed little reaction as prosecutor Jeff Pavletic told the judge of the decision. Afterward Pavletic said court rules prohibited him from talking about how his office reached the decision, which comes more than a year after the slaying of Mary Hutchison of Trevor, Wis.

    "We were waiting for all the information so that all relevant factors could be considered," Pavletic said outside the courtroom.

    Assistant Public Defender Keith Grant declined to speak with reporters after the hearing.

    Ealy, 43, of Lake Villa is charged with driving by the Burger King early on Nov. 27, 2006, and deciding to rob the restaurant where he used to work after seeing Hutchison's car there, prosecutors have said. He allegedly beat Hutchison and used the bow tie from her uniform to strangle her.

    In 1982, Ealy was 17 and a resident of Rockwell Gardens, a Chicago Housing Authority complex on the West Side, when he was arrested for strangling Kristina Parker, 33; her two daughters, Mary Anne, 15, and Cora, 12; and Mary Anne's son, Jontae, 3.

    He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, but his conviction was overturned in 1986 by appellate judges who ruled Chicago police arrested Ealy without probable cause and illegally searched his home. The court also threw out Ealy's confession after finding that detectives held him for 18 hours and denied him food, water and access to a bathroom before he signed the statement.

    Prosecutors decided not to retry Ealy. At the time his conviction was overturned, Ealy was serving a 23-year sentence for rape, but he was paroled in 1993. In 1996, he was convicted of unlawful restraint and gun charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was paroled in 1999.

    Hutchison's family has sued Burger King and the franchisee that operated the north suburban location. The restaurant has since closed.

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    Burger King slaying

    Attorneys for the man accused of the 2006 Burger King slaying asked a judge Tuesday to bar the state from seeking the death penalty.

    A ruling is expected Feb. 18.

    James Ealy, 45, is accused of killing Mary Hutchinson, manager of the Lindenhurst Burger King, on Nov. 27, 2006.

    Public defenders Timothy MacArthur, Keith Grant and Martin Shaffer appeared at a hearing before Circuit Judge Fred Foreman and argued that the death penalty for Ealy would be unconstitutional.

    They also said that allowing the state to seek that penalty would place a heavier burden on the defense.

    Prosecutors Jeff Pavletic and Steve Scheller argued against the motion and said that it will be up to a jury to decide if Ealy is eligible for the death sentence.

    http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/2000453,5_1_WA20_EALY_S1-100120.article

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    Death penalty ruled legal in Burger King murder

    Lake County Judge Fred Foreman ruled Thursday that the death penalty is legal in the case against James Ealy, who stands accused of murdering a Lindenhurst Burger King manager in 2006.

    At a morning hearing, Foreman denied the motions made in January by Ealy's defense attorneys, who filed 11 motions trying to strike down the Illinois death penalty in Ealy's case.

    "The judge denied all the motions and we are going forward with the death penalty," said Steve Scheller, Lake County assistant state's attorney.

    Ealy, of Lake Villa, stands accused of murdering Mary Hutchison in the early morning hours of Nov. 27, 2006. Hutchison, mother of three, was repeatedly stabbed and strangled with her own uniform bow tie as she did inventory alone that morning. Ealy, a former co-worker, was arrested by police.

    Foreman's decision to uphold the legality of the death penalty pleased Hutchison's husband, Ken, who attended the hearing with Hutchison's father, Richard Dean.

    "In the Bible, it says an eye for an eye, a leg for a leg, a life for a life," said Ken, who said he and Dean plan to attend more of the coming hearings. "We're going to be here for Mary."

    Both men wore buttons with Mary's picture on it and the words "In loving memory of Mary."

    "Today was hard," said Ken. "This was the first time I'd ever seen this person (Ealy). I won't say his name. I cried last night thinking about today."

    He said there is no closure.

    "She was not only my daughter. She was my best friend," said Dean, adding that he has been on anti-depressants since Mary's murder. "I keep thinking about the day I brought her home from the hospital (as a baby)."

    Dean said though he attends church nearby, he avoids driving past the former Burger King building on Grand Avenue.

    "I can't even drive past there," said Dean.

    Ken said he still leaves flowers at the site and has been able to do so undisturbed. At one point, he was threatened with arrest if he visited the site.

    "I just pray for it to come to a conclusion, but it won't be concluded until I die," said Dean.
    A status hearing for Ealy has been set for April 8.

    http://www.pioneerlocal.com/pioneerpress/latest/2057098,lv-INTealy-021810-s1%20.article

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    New hearing date set in Ealy case

    Yet another hearing has been set in the case against accused murderer James Ealy.

    At a status hearing July 7, the case was continued to July 21, said Lake County assistant state's attorney Jeff Pavletic.

    Ealy stands accused of murdering Mary Hutchison, a manager at the shuttered Lindenhurst Burger King, in the early morning hours of Nov. 27, 2006. Hutchison, mother of three, was repeatedly stabbed and strangled with her own uniform bow tie as she did inventory alone that morning.

    Ealy, a former co-worker, was arrested by police.

    Pavletic said at the July 7 hearing, Ealy's defense attorneys indicated they are putting together motions. Pavletic is hopeful that some action will take place at the July 21 hearing.

    "I'd like to get things rolling," he said.

    At a hearing in February, Judge Fred Foreman denied a dozen motions made by Ealy's defense attorneys to strike down the Illinois death penalty in the case. Foreman upheld the legality of the death penalty in the case.

    http://www.pioneerlocal.com/lakevilla/news/2491884,lake-villa-ealy-071510-s1.article

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    Murder trial awaits death penalty decision

    The Lindenhurst Burger King murder case is on hold pending Gov. Pat Quinn’s decision on the death penalty.

    James Ealy, 46, is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Burger King manager Mary Hutchison on Nov. 27, 2006.

    Prosecutors Steve Scheller and Jeff Pavletic and defense attorney Keith Grant brought the case before Circuit Judge Fred Foreman Tuesday for a status hearing. All parties agreed to waive Ealy’s presence and to delay the case until next Thursday for another status hearing.

    Lake County prosecutors have stated they would seek the death penaly if Ealy were convicted. However, state lawmakers voted to abolish capital punishment in January. Quinn has until March 18 to sign the legislation.

    Burger King workers found Hutchison’s body near an open safe in 2006. Police said she had been stabbed and choked. About $1,000 was missing from the restaurant’s safe, police reported.

    Ealy is being held at Lake County Jail without bond.

    http://newssun.suntimes.com/news/420...-decision.html

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    Family of victim in Lindenhurst killing upset death penalty off table

    The abolition of the death penalty in Illinois is affecting both sides in the case of a man charged with the 2006 murder of a manager of a fast-food restaurant in Lindenhurst.

    Following an appearance in Lake County court today by James Ealy – who is accused of killing Mary Hutchison at a Lindenhurst Burger King in 2006 – Hutchison’s father and widower said they’d hoped to see Ealy get the death penalty if he’s convicted.

    “He sentenced her to death … She didn’t have a choice,” said Richard Dean, Hutchison’s father. “I don’t think he should have a choice either.”

    Authorities said that Ealy, now 46, used the bowtie from Hutchison’s Burger King uniform to strangle her on Nov. 26, 2006. Officials have said Ealy drove past the restaurant, where he had worked, and decided to rob it after seeing Hutchison’s car outside. Hutchison was 45 when she was killed.

    After Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill abolishing the Illinois death penalty last month, Lake County prosecutors Jeff Pavletic and Steve Scheller formally filed a notice to convert Ealy’s case from a capital case. If found guilty, Ealy will now face anywhere from 20 years to life in prison without the possibility of parole – a sentence he has faced once before, Scheller said.

    Ealy had been sentenced to life in prison without parole in the 1982 stranglings of a woman, her two daughters and grandson on Chicago’s West Side. Ealy was 17 at the time of that crime.

    His conviction was overturned in 1986 by appellate judges who ruled Chicago police arrested Ealy without probable cause and illegally searched his home.

    The decision to overturn the death penalty has also affected the defense’s case. Keith Grant, assistant public defender, had been allowed by Judge Fred Foreman to depose eight law-enforcement officials involved in the investigation, many of whom are or were members of the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force and were investigating defendant.

    Today, Foreman denied a defense motion to continue taking the depositions, noting that the Supreme Court only allows such depositions in death penalty cases. The depositions that have already been taken can be used during the trial, Pavletic explained after the hearing.

    http://triblocal.com/lindenhurst-lak...lty-off-table/

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    April 15 trial date set in Burger King slaying

    On Nov. 27, 2006, Lindenhurst Burger King Manager Mary Hutchison was found strangled to death near an open safe. Former Burger King employee James Ealy was arrested for her murder in December 2006, but has not stood trial yet.

    A trial date for April 15 was scheduled at a hearing Wednesday.

    http://newssun.suntimes.com/news/176...g-slaying.html
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    Ealy’s fate now rests in the hand of the jury

    James Ealy's fate now rests in the hands of a jury.

    Following three days of testimony, prosecutors and defense attorneys performed their closing arguments for about three hours in a cool Lake County courtroom early Friday morning.

    Ealy, 48, of Lake Villa, is facing life in prison if convicted of the murder of Mary Hutchison of Trevor, Wis., in the early morning hours of Nov. 27, 2006.

    Ealy is accused of driving to the now-shuttered Burger King restaurant on Grand Avenue in Lindenhurst at 4:23 a.m. on a cool November morning in 2006 and strangling his former boss, the 45-year-old Hutchison, using the bow tie from her uniform.

    Following the murder, prosecutors claim, Ealy stole cash and coins from the restaurant safe, fled the store, went to a White Hen in Lindenhurst and then to his job at Value City in Gurnee.

    Scheller said in his closing statement that the coins, the cash, and phone calls from Ealy's cellphone to the Burger King at in the minutes before the murder tie Ealy to the crime.

    "This was a murder based on a robbery," Pavletic told the jury. "He forced her into that (Burger King) office, forced her on her knees, then grabbed a screwdriver and poked her in the back to get her to open the safe."

    Pavletic said Hutchison was found dead by a co-worker in the manager's office with her head next to the open safe at 5:10 a.m. the morning of the crime.

    However, defense attorney Keith Grant said throughout the trial that no physical evidence was uncovered by investigators from the Lake County Major Crime Task Force that tied the former employee to the restaurant the day of the murder.

    "James Ealy is innocent," he said. "He is innocent today because the prosecution hasn't proven he is guilty of a crime."

    Ealy has remained in Lake County jail without bail since his arrest.

    Initially, the state requested the death penalty for Ealy should he be found guilty of murder, but that was changed to life in prison after the state abolished the death penalty in 2011.

    That change in state policy, along with a change in judges, and a lot of legal maneuvering have resulted in continuous delays in the case going to trial.

    This is the second murder trial Ealy has been a defendant in.

    He was convicted in 1982 of the strangulation murder of four people inside a Chicago apartment. But a state appeals court overturned the verdict, ruling police lacked probable cause to arrest him.

    http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2...ews/705249806/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Guilty verdict in Burger King murder case

    It took over six years to bring James Ealy to trial, but only four hours for a jury to convict the Lake Villa man of the first-degree murder of his former manager at the Lindenhurst Burger King.

    During the four-day trial, prosecutors presented multiple witnesses to present their case that Ealy, 48, used a bow tie from Mary Hutchison’s uniform to strangle her and then stabbed her with a screwdriver during a robbery of the restaurant. The defense presented limited evidence before resting their case in 10 minutes.

    Ealy had no discernible reaction to the trial’s outcome. But the announcement of the verdict at first prompted some confusion in the courtroom because Ealy was actually found not guilty on one of the multiple counts of first-degree murder with which he was charged.

    Because the not-guilty verdict was the first to be announced, Hutchison’s family and others in the courtroom gasped and cried out, thinking he had been acquitted. But the jury found Ealy guilty on another count of first-degree murder, and he faces life in prison when he’s sentenced.

    Hutchison had been doing inventory early in the morning on Nov. 27, 2006 and was alone at the restaurant where Ealy had worked until about a month prior to the crime. Her body was found by an employee, face down with her head next to an open safe, Assistant State’s Attorney Jeffrey Pavletic said.

    The cash was gone, along with $70 in rolled quarters and $40 in rolled dimes. Most of the cash and that exact amount of change was later found in Ealy’s apartment, according to testimony during the trial.

    Phone records showed two calls were placed to the Burger King from Ealy’s phone on the day of the crime, about a half-hour before Hutchison’s body was found, prosecutors said.

    During the trial, Ealy’s defense attorneys argued that there was no physical evidence such as a fingerprint or DNA linking Ealy to the crime scene. Ealy did not take the stand in his own defense.

    Ealy was once before sent to prison for life for the murders of four people in Chicago in the 1980s. But his conviction was overturned and he was released after appeals judges determined police violated his rights in the process of arresting and interrogating him.

    No sentencing date has been set.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,4776942.story
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Husband of strangled restaurant manager not satisfied with killer's sentence

    The husband of a woman killed more than six years ago at an Illinois Burger King says a guilty verdict for his wife's attacker brings the family little, if any, peace.

    Ken Hutchison's wife, Mary, was strangled in 2006 at the Lindenhurst restaurant she managed. She was 45.

    On Friday, a jury convicted James Ealy, 48, of suburban Chicago of first-degree murder. Prosecutors said he killed her, then stole cash from the restaurant safe.

    "It's not a day of closure," Ken Hutchison said after the verdict. "Closure for us is going to be the death penalty, which has been taken off the table."

    Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011, and Ealy faces 20 years to life when he is sentenced, the Kenosha News reported.

    Mary Hutchison's father, Richard Dean, said: "Closure will only come the day I die."

    Prosecutors in Lake County, Ill., said telephone records and evidence linked Ealy to the murder. However, defense attorney Keith Grant said investigators uncovered no physical evidence putting Ealy in the restaurant that day.

    After the verdict, Ken Hutchison said Illinois lawmakers "should be ashamed" for abolishing the death penalty and enacting laws that he feels protect criminals like Ealy more than victims.

    "I read my Bible. I believe in an eye for an eye ...a life for a life," Hutchison said. "Life in prison (for Ealy) is the best we can get....I hope he rots in prison. We've waited a long time for this."

    Ealy was convicted in 1982 in the deaths of a Chicago woman and her three children. An appellate court overturned the conviction on a technicality.

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/wiscons...208963851.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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