A 14 Year-Old Crime Finally Goes to Trial.

Waking peacefully on a cold January morning, I trapsed down the stairs and into the kitchen of our northwest suburban home. Ready to spend some last-minute time with family and friends, I had one final day of winter vacation before returning to school for the spring semester. No sooner had I set foot on the cold linoleum floor than I was met by my father who informed me that something tragic had happened during the night, stating that it was "big news." I quickly flipped over to the local station. Seven people had been found in the cooler of a local fast food restaurant, shot and killed execution style in what looked to be a professionally committed crime scene.

Our newspapers would remain silent on the slayings for the remainder of the day as the bodies weren't found until after midnight, and the stories for the following day were already in print. But there it was. Three miles from the home I grew up in. The locally owned fast food eatery known as Browns Chicken & Pasta (think KFC) was center stage to a brutal crime scene newscasters would say they hadn't seen since the likes of Gacy.

A group of old friends from my high school youth group gathered that evening at my buddy Matt's house. The night, intended to serve as a sort of final gathering of friends before heading off to our respective Universities, would to no one's surprise, end up being an evening of pure speculation and intrigue over the worst mass murder to hit the Chicago area in over 30 years - and only 3 miles from home. We discussed the headlines from the most up-to-date reports. Inevitably, someone would always interject a different take on the story from something they had heard from someone else (who probably heard it from someone else) that the rest of us somehow hadn't. But the one thing everyone agreed on - whatever happened in that restaurant, and for whatever reason, the people who did this were no amateur hacks. There was no question this crime was a hit from a professional. Seven people lined up execution style and murdered in a restaurant freezer, with very little struggle and nothing more than $1,800 taken from the store safe. A few of us conjectured the possibility of the store owners, who were numbers six and seven among those killed, being in financial trouble with some outstanding deb. Perhaps this debt finally caught up with them and unfortunately with the rest of the evening shift. Again, all just speculation.

Over breakfast the next morning, the front page of our local paper would read, Horror in Palatine: Murders Haunt Quiet Suburb. And for the next 9 years police would follow more than 4,800 leads and tips, arrest and release 6 different men, even offer a $100,000 bounty to anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators, yet still they had no more of a lead than when they first began. The crime would be so perplexing to investigators it would eventually gain its own legendary status as a one of the great "unsolved mysteries" in Chicago's history. It turned up on shows like America's Most Wanted, and Unsolved Mysteries. Freakin' Jerry Springer even took a stab at it by bringing a psychic on his show to figure out who did it. In 1995, a former FBI investigator who worked both the Ted Bundy case and the Green River murders in Oregon and Washington, was hired to help with the investigation. All the more reason the crime had to have been skillfully and professionally committed. Whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing, and how to cover up any trace of their presence.

Let's move forward into 2002.

Standing outside of the now defunct Jambalya restaurant waiting for a table, Gentry, Brooke and I were enjoying some good conversation in the brisk evening air. I reached into my pocket to silence the ring on my cell phone when I caught that it was mom calling.

"Jame," as she always starts in, "They've arrested and detained two guys in the Brown's Chicken incident, and they've got DNA evidence linking one of them to the crime."
"Really?" I started in. "So who are they?"
"You ready for this?"
"What? Tell Me!"
"Both of these guys graduated from Fremd High School and were in the class of '92."
"Oh my GOSH!" I said rather unnerved. "What are their names?
"You recognize the names Degorski and Luna?"
"Yeah, Jim Degorski and Juan Luna. I went to Junior High with these guys . . . They're the ones who did it!?

As it turns out, these two guys I went to Junior High School with had been arrested and shortly after their arrest confessed to committing the gruesome murders, one of them doing so in a taped video. Granted, I didn't know these guys very well at all. They weren't really the type I chose to hang with as Jim fit the bill for a group we labeled "burn-outs," and Juan seemed like he had some sort of connection to one of the local gangs. But there we have it. No professional hit. No pre-planned revenge from the minds of organized criminals. Just two guys who graduated in the same High School class that I did, and looking to "do something big," as they would eventually confess.

The reason this is on my mind? The prosecutors are making their closing statements in the trial today and shortly thereafter the jury will begin deliberating. One would think that after a taped confession, DNA evidence linking them to the crime, and their describing certain details about the crime scene only investigators knew, that this conviction would be a slam dunk. However, both of them have pled not guilty and the defense lawyer looks to be pulling some OJ-styled skulduggery by stating that the DNA evidence was "tampered with." I should probably clarify at this point that Luna and Degorski are being tried separately. Luna's trial is the one that concludes today and it is his DNA they are using against him.

On the evening of January 8, 1993, wearing old shoes and tatterd clothing Juan and Jim pulled into a parking lot just behind the plaza where the Brown's Chicken & Pasta was located. On their approach to the building they began stepping through the snow in a relatively different stride from their own, as an attempt to mask the identity of their steps. Reaching the rear door of the building they propped a wedge beneath the door in order to eliminate any means of escape from those inside. Stepping through the front door just after closing time, Luna approached the counter ordered a four-piece chicken dinner and made his seat with Degorski at one of the tables. After finishing the meal the two each slipped on a pair of vinyl gloves, pulled a blunt .38 revolver and approached the counter. The scene quickly descended into chaos. Just as they had anticipated some of the workers made for the back exit. As this door had premeditatively been wedged shut, one of the workers turned and tried to jump the counter and make for the front exit. He was promptly shot and wounded. Seizing this victim, the rest of the workers were taken and forcefully shoved into the two back coolers. Luna then demanded the owner open the safe. After meeting his demand he spit a derogatory word at her then proceeded to grab her by the neck, and slit her throat. Luna then shot five of the remaining co-workers at close range killing four of them instantly. The fifth person who was only wounded by the gunshot was immediately killed by Degorski who took the gun from Luna and fired upon him a second time. Degorski then killed the remaining two who were huddled in the second freezer. In all 21 shots were fired leaving 24 gunshot wounds on the victims.

Retracing the same footprints they made in the snow from their approach, the two found Luna's car where they parked it and sped away from the scene, but not before throwing the remains of their chicken dinner in a nearby trash receptacle. This would later become a key piece of evidence introduced into the further investigation. Luna and Degorski called to arrange a meeting with a female friend at a grocery store in another suburb. As they picked her up she noted the vinyl gloves and the sack of cash in the backseat. "We did something big" they told her. They hopped into her car and proceeded back to her place where they smoked weed and split the cash and told the girl that they had robbed the Brown's Chicken Restaurant. Degorski would later reveal his story to his girlfriend at the time in the basement of his home, shortly after calling her and telling her to watch the news because he had "done something." Both women were threatened with their lives should they choose to tell another person.

And the secret would remain hidden for a little over nine years until the former girlfriend of Degorski decided to come forward, take a risk, and finally clear her conscience.

And all in a small, quiet and peaceful suburban town.

   **UPDATE**
At 7:30pm EST on Thursday evening, Luna was found guilty on all 21 counts of 1st degree murder. The jury will return to the courthouse on Monday morning to debate whether he should receive the death penalty or a life imprisonment. Degorski's trial will happen later in the year.