Jurors are expected to hear closing arguments Monday in the trial of a Chicago man accused of murdering 14-year-old Kelli O’Laughlin nearly three years ago after she walked in on him as he was burglarizing her family’s Indian Head Park home.
John Wilson, Jr., 41, is accused of stabbing the Lyons Township High School freshman when she returned from school on Oct. 27, 2011. Wilson fled with several items, including the victim’s cell phone, which he used to send taunting messages to her mother the day after her daughter’s death, prosecutors said.
Wilson was arrested about a week later after authorities began tracking both his phone and the girl’s phone. DNA evidence from a knit cap found in the home was later linked to Wilson.
On Friday, defense attorney John Paul Carroll played a copy of the 911 call Kelli’s mother, Brenda O’Laughlin, made after she returned home from work and found her daughter lying face-down in the kitchen.
“I think my daughter committed suicide,” she told dispatchers, according to a copy of the tape. “She is 14. There is a knife on the floor; there is blood everywhere.”
During his opening statement last week, Carroll suggested that Kelli may have taken her own life after she received poor marks on a report card.
Carroll told Cook County Associate Judge John Joseph Hynes that he has one more witness to call Monday. Wilson will be asked whether he wishes to testify before closing arguments are made.
Ruzich is a freeland reporter; Walberg is a Tribune staff reporter
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