Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The trial comes to a close nearly one month after it began, and more than three years after three Kramer family members were killed.
A jury has found a Willow Springs man guilty of conspiring to kill a Darien family. Johnny Borizov was found guilty on all counts, including first-degree murder and solicitation of murder charges. The verdict was announced Tuesday evening at the DuPage County Courthouse in Wheaton. Although Judge Daniel Guerin told the crowded courtroom to withhold emotion during the verdict reading, a gasp was heard along with feet stomping. Many Kramer family members and friends hugged each other and cried openly as they left the courtroom, WBBM Newsradio reports. Borizov showed no emotion as the verdict was read and also when he was led out of the courtroom, according to the Chicago Tribune. The jury took about two hours and 20 minutes to convict …
Jurors heard closing arguments Tuesday in the case against Johnny Borizov. He is accused of masterminding the plot to kill the Kramer family, prosecutors said.
UPDATE: The jury has found Borizov guilty on all counts. Jurors are now in deliberations to decide the fate of a man accused of conspiring to kill a Darien family. The trial against Johnny Borizov is in its final stages after the jury heard closing arguments Tuesday at the DuPage County Courthouse in Wheaton. Prosecutors said their witnesses and evidence prove that Borizov manipulated friend Jacob Nodarse into killing Jeffrey, Lori and Michael Kramer. Borizov wanted the family dead after a child custody battle began with the Kramer's daughter Angela, Assistant State's Attorney Bernie Murray said. Murray emphasized that the jury needs to consider who was behind the actual crime, even if the physical harm was done by somebody else. "(Borizov…
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Check out this week's crime stories out of Hinsdale, Clarendon Hills, Darien and Burr Ridge.
Look back at all the crime stories published this week on the Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills, Darien and Burr Ridge Patch sites.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Acquaintances and family of Jacob Nodarse testified Thursday that he repeatedly said he was in danger and looked worried, tired and drained.
Confessed triple-murderer Jacob Nodarse was highly paranoid that his life and his family's safety were in extreme jeopardy in early 2010, and said as much aloud on multiple occasional, former coworkers and Nodarse's sister testified in court on Thursday , the Daily Herald reports. "He said something to the effect people were after him," the paper quoted Tom Masson, a former co-worker of Nodarse's at Laurel BMW of Westmont, testifying. "He said it was over a custody battle... He said he felt like he was being followed. He thought his phone was being tapped." Another coworker, Derk Janssen, from Bill Jacobs BMW in Naperville, testified that Nodarse was "increasingly worried" about his family's safety, saying that "they had dirty cops [and] …
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
According to the former Countryside officer, who has since retired, the accused murder plotter lost his cool over car repairs and threatened his girlfriend's father with a knife.
A former Countryside police officer took the witness stand Wednesday to detail how a furious Johnny Borisov flew into a rage over a used car and confronted his then-girlfriend Angela Kramer and her father Jeffrey, 11 months before Jeffrey, his wife Lori and their son Michael were murdered in Darien in March 2010, the Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune report. Borisov stands accused of orchestrating that murder; the gunman, 26-year-old Jacob Nodarse, has confessed to killing the Kramers and said he was bullied into the deed by Borisov, who has a toddler son with Angela Kramer. According to the Tribune, former Countryside cop Steve Muszynski, who responded to the April 2009 incident, said that Borizov was enraged in a dispute over car repairs …
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
The gunman who has admitted to shooting three Darien residents to death in 2010 continued his testimony against Johnny Borizov on Tuesday.
The man who has confessed to shooting and killing three members of a Darien family in March 2010 continued his testimony on Tuesday against the man he says put him up to the crime, Johnny Borizov, 32, of Willow Springs, saying that after the crime he would have accepted either execution or a mental hospital as an alternative to prison, the Daily Herald reports. "I would have taken the needle immediately if they had offered it to me," the paper quoted Jacob Nodarse, the 26-year-old admitted murderer of Jeffrey, Lori and Mike Kramer saying on the stand Tuesday, adding under cross-examination that he was “disappointed” to be found sane: "I'd rather be in a hospital than a prison. I think anyone would be." Although the death penalty still …
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Jacob Nodarse thought the night of the Kramer family shootings might have been imagined at one point. Johnny Borizov's defense attorneys questioned his actions and memories on Friday.
Although three people lay dead at the hands of Jacob Nodarse in 2010, at one point he didn't believe it actually happened. Nodarse on Friday said he was so anxious and under the influence of drugs on March 2, 2010 that he didn't think his fatal shootings of the Kramers was real, the Daily Herald reports. Nodarse was on the witness stand for most of Friday as the first full week of the Johnny Borizov trial came to a close. Nodarse was already convicted in the killings, but Borizov was also charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation of murder. The state argues that Borizov came up with the plan to kill his ex-girlfriend Angela Kramer and her family. Kramer survived but her mother, father and younger brother did not. …
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Jacob Nodarse said he was instructed by Johnny Borizov to kill Borizov's ex-girlfriend and her family in 2010. He began his first day of testimony on Thursday.
According to Jacob Nodarse, there was someone else behind his decisions before, during and after the killing of three Darien residents in 2010. That man, he said, was Johnny Borizov. Nodarse and Borizov once spent time together as friends, and they were in the same room again on Thursday for Borizov's murder trial at the DuPage County Courthouse in Wheaton. Prosecutors say Borizov manipulated Nodarse into killing Jeffrey, Lori and Michael Kramer on March 2, 2010 in Darien. Nodarse broke into their home and shot them all multiple times. They say he instructed Nodarse to kill his ex-girlfriend Angela Kramer as well, but she hid in a closet and survived. Nodarse, wearing an orange jumpsuit, answered questions about his childhood, his drug use…
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Angela and Anthony Kramer give their account during Johnny Borizov's trial of the night their mother, father and younger brother died.
Angela Kramer remembers waking up in the middle of the night to shattered glass and screaming. It was about 3 a.m. on March 2, 2010. Her brother Anthony also woke up from a loud noise and then what sounded like a heavy object hitting the floor. “I heard my brother say ‘Oh my god’ and heard a gunshot go off,” Anthony Kramer said. “I heard multiple shots go off.” The Kramers recounted the night of three killings in their home on Tuesday and Wednesday during Johnny Borizov’s trial at the DuPage County Courthouse. Their father Jeffrey, mother Lori and Michael Kramer were all shot to death by Jacob Nodarse. Borizov, the ex-boyfriend and father of Angela’s child Nicholas, is charged with first-degree murder and solicitation of the family's …
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Prosecutors say Johnny Borizov was the mastermind behind the Kramer family killings, while the defense wants to put the blame on Borizov's friend Jacob Nodarse.
Prosecutors on Tuesday portrayed a 32-year-old Willow Springs man as the mastermind behind three killings in a Darien home in 2010. The defense painted a different picture, instead focusing on the man's friend as the actual killer of three members of the Kramer family. The attorneys on Tuesday morning gave their opening statements to the jury in Johnny Borizov's murder trial. He faces first-degree murder and solicitation of murder charges. The courtroom was nearly full on Tuesday, which was the first full day of the trial after jury selection. Borizov sat at the courtroom's defense table wearing a blue and white-striped shirt. He listened with little movement or reaction as prosecutors detailed his tumultuous relationship with the Kramer …
Darren McRoy
7:38 pm on Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The defendant had previously lived in Countryside. His last address before his arrest was in Willow Springs. more ›