Brian Dugan gets death sentence for ’83 Nicarico girl murder

The fact that Brian Dugan offered to admit to this murder strikes me as odd ¹

Dugan took responsibility for Jeanineâ€™s murder by pleading guilty voluntarily. He had offered years ago to admit he killed the youngster, even though two other men already had been convicted of her murder.

Those two men, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, spent years in prison for Jeanineâ€™s murder before ultimately being freed. A third man, Stephen Buckley, also was charged, but was never convicted in Jeanineâ€™s death.

Dugan was convicted of murdering 27-year-old Donna Schnorr and 7-year-old Melissa Ackerman and is serving life sentences for those crimes already.

Jeanine Nicarico was kidnapped from her home on Feb. 25, 1983, then raped and beaten to death. Indicted in 2005, Dugan pleaded guilty last July to her murder, which occurred on a day the brown-haired fifth grader stayed home sick from school.

Something is not quite right about this. Wasn’t there any DNA evidence? Is this a social justice template where you let minorities off and find a white guy to pin it on, regardless as to whether or not he did it? I’ll have to read up on this one.

Ah, here is some interesting background from Eric Zohrn.

Cruz, Hernandez and Buckley reached a $3.5 million civil settlement with DuPage County on Sept. 26, 2000.

As Cruz was going before the state prisoner review board for a full pardon, on Nov. 15, 2002 , DuPage County state’s attorney Joseph Birkett announced that the latest and most sophisticated round of DNA testing showed that Brian Dugan’s DNA matched DNA evidence at the crime scene to a scientific certainty.

Today, Nov. 29, 2005, Birkett announced a 15-count murder indictment against Brian Dugan, but would not rule out any other previous suspects from the case.

Still seems fishy. If there was DNA evidence showing Dugan’s DNA as a match…why wouldn’t Birkett rule out previous suspects? Doesn’t make sense.