A fatal shooting at a Downers Grove motel last month capped a day of drinking by David Bourke, 41, the murder suspect, and Roger Johnson, 33, the victim, police testified Thursday during an inquest into the death.
Downers Grove Detective Robert Porter told a DuPage County coroner’s jury the two men, who lived in separate apartments of the Somerset Budget Motel, 306 Ogden Ave., had spent most of the day, “until 11 p.m. at a bar in a Westmont bowling alley.”
Shortly after midnight on April 17, police were called to the motel and found Johnson’s body outside the unit in which Bourke lived.
Medical testimony showed that Johnson died from a single gunshot wound fired at close range. Johnson had been shot in the face.
A short time later, James Bourke, David Bourke’s father, called police and reported that his son was in his home and that he had taken a 9 mm handgun away from his son.
Porter told the coroner’s jury that after David Bourke was arrested, he told police he was in his apartment when he was startled by someone entering the unit and he fired to defend himself.
But Porter also said the father told police his son claimed to have had a violent struggle with someone and had shot him in the face.
Bourke has been charged with murder and was being held without bond in the DuPage County Jail. The coroner’s jury ruled the death a homicide.
