With evidence against them described as “circumstantial,” three Aurora men went on trial in Kane County court Wednesday in connection with the shooting death of an elderly Aurora Township woman.
Corey Jenkins and Lester Salter, both 24, and 21-year-old Michael Turner were arrested in February and charged with murder in the January 1993 shooting death of 76-year-old Virginia Johannessen.
The trial is expected to last into next week. A fourth man charged in the attack, 33-year-old Lionel Lane of Bellwood, was granted a separate trial.
In his opening statement, prosecutor John Barsanti told a Kane County jury that Salter and Jenkins, along with Lane, entered Johannessen’s home, while Turner waited in the car.
“You will hear circumstantial evidence,” Barsanti said in a brief opening statement.
But defense lawyers argue their clients were nowhere near Johannessen’s home at 1301 Felton Rd. at the time the shooting took place.
“We will be able to prove that these defendants are the wrong people,” said defense attorney David Camic, who is representing Turner. “They didn’t do it.”
Prosecutors believe that intruders entered the single-story home through a basement window during the evening hours of Jan. 2, 1993. Attorneys for all three defendants, however, dispute the time frame.
Johannessen, a widow who lived alone, was found dead on January 5. Her brother, Francis Raines, testified Wednesday that he found his sister slumped in a chair, when he went to check on her after getting a call that she had not shown up for work.
She had been shot once in the head with a small-caliber weapon. The weapon has not been found.
In a frail voice, Raines, 71, said he entered the house and disengaged the alarm system, which he wasn’t comfortable operating.
He saw nothing during an initial search of the house. But when he came back toward the kitchen from the back bedroom, Raines said, “I saw her sitting in the chair. It was obvious she was dead.”
Her car was missing and other items in what attorneys called her “cluttered” home had apparently been tampered with, but the burglar alarm had not been activated. The car later was found.
