Stanford Projansky waited more than 20 years to look into the eyes of the man accused of the execution-style fatal shooting of the oldest of his three sons.
Though the 91-year-old Glenview man died just two months shy of the long-awaited day, his two other sons were among two dozen relatives and friends who packed a Cook County courtroom over the weekend to bear witness and to honor a loved one they lost too soon.
Dec. 18 marks 21 years since 40-year-old Kent Projansky was killed in his 30th-floor apartment in the Elm Street Plaza building in the 1100 block of North Dearborn Street in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. Police said there were no signs of forced entry to his apartment, which did not appear ransacked or otherwise disturbed.
On Saturday, David Barklow made his first court appearance in Chicago on first-degree murder charges. Prosecutors said Barklow, 68, a former neighbor of the slain man, has been in custody since April 17 after being arrested at an airport in Lima, Peru, in the murder case and a related warrant alleging unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Following lengthy extradition proceedings in South America, he accompanied FBI agents back to Chicago on Friday.
The victim’s middle brother, Todd Projansky, on Sunday said the family first learned Friday about the criminal charges and Barklow’s return to the states. Within 24 hours, Projansky said he locked eyes for the first time with Barklow during a court hearing he wasn’t sure would ever come.
“It was very difficult (to hold out hope),” said Projansky, a Buffalo Grove attorney, in a Tribune interview. “As a somewhat positive person, I kind of always thought it would come, but being realistic with myself, I really questioned sometimes if we’d ever get here.”
He described his brother as friendly and generous, a bachelor who was an overly indulgent uncle who spoiled his niece and nephews, including taking them to MLB All-Star Games. And he was a “champion of underdogs,” Todd Projansky said, recalling when his brother took a Streetwise vendor to a Bulls game, or other acts of kindness to those who were less fortunate.
“He had a soft spot for everyone,” Projansky said.
Three days after the killing, prosecutors said, police responded to a report of a discarded duffel bag found inside a garbage can behind a bank about 14 miles from Kent Projansky’s apartment. The bag contained bloody clothes, a cardboard ammunition box and a .32-caliber revolver, which crime lab experts later linked to the ballistic evidence recovered from the killing.
Despite the promising lead, the investigation went cold. Todd Projansky said his brother’s unsolved killing devastated the family, who also feared for their own safety, not knowing if the crime was random or if Kent had been targeted.
“My kids would ask if someone was going to come in and murder me,” said Projansky, who asked his local police department to drive by his home for well-being checks in the days following his brother’s death. “We didn’t know who did it or why they did it. We suspected and continue to suspect it was about money, but we didn’t know. With four babies in the house, I wanted to be as careful as I could be.”
Projansky said he and his family regularly called police for updates, trying to hold out hope.
Then, in 2017, police resubmitted evidence from the discarded duffel bag using more advanced technology and found that seven latent impressions on items inside the bag, including one on the ammunition box, matched Barklow, prosecutors said. They said his mother lived in Park Ridge at the time, about 2 miles from where the duffel bag was recovered.
Todd Projansky said his family first heard Barklow’s name in late 2019, when the Chicago man was taken into custody for questioning. Authorities said they obtained Barklow’s DNA samples and fingerprints, but he was released without charges as further forensic testing continued.
Prosecutors said Barklow lived across the street from Kent Projansky at the time of the 2004 killing and, during a 2019 interview, “admitted having purchased weed from the victim” inside his apartment, but he denied “seeing the victim preceding his death” or having knowledge about the duffel bag and its contents.
As the investigation continued, in late 2019, authorities said Barklow left Chicago. According to the Department of Homeland Security, he flew to Sweden and eventually ended up in Ecuador, where he had been living before being taken into custody on April 17 at the airport in Peru.
Prosecutors said further forensic testing linked items inside the duffle bag to the victim and Barklow. Records show Barklow has a 1995 federal bank fraud conviction. He is being held in Cook County Jail, and is due back in court Monday.
Todd Projansky said though the arrest “doesn’t bring my brother back,” he and his other brother Drew are thankful for law enforcement’s efforts. He urged more funding to speed up crime lab backlogs, which, he said, caused delays in the investigations.
Projansky said his mother, Sheila, 86 and battling dementia, is unaware of the criminal case. His father, who died Sept. 10, knew of the 2019 lead surrounding Barklow and was anxiously awaiting the court proceedings.
“My father said one of his purposes in life was to see Barklow in person in a prison jumpsuit,” he said. “I’m disappointed he didn’t get to see that.”
