Brown's Chicken Massacre
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Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In January 1993, seven people were shot and killed inside a Brown's Chicken fast food restaurant in Chicago, becoming one of the deadliest mass shootings in the area at the time. For years, the case was cold with very few leads.

It wasn't until evidence collected from a trash can at the crime scene was tested that investigators finally got a break. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 264, The Browns Chicken Massacre. ♪♪

If you're from the state of Illinois, then chances are you've heard of Brown's Chicken. You might have even eaten at one of its fast food restaurants before.

Or you might only know about it because of the seven people who were killed inside a Brown's Chicken restaurant in Palatine, Illinois in January 1993. Either way, what happened that night will forever be remembered as the Brown's Chicken Massacre. For over 70 years, Brown's Chicken made a name for itself throughout Illinois. Founded in 1949 by John and Belva Brown, they first began selling fried chicken out of a small trailer in Bridgeview.

Their vision for the company was simple, sell chicken that truly tastes better than anywhere else. And the original recipe was relatively simple as well, buttermilk batter in cottonseed oil. Over the years, different products made their way to the menu, but one thing never changed, that original buttermilk batter chicken recipe.

By the 1970s, Brown's Chicken had expanded to 300 locations across 13 different states. And for the next few decades, business across all of its fast food restaurants was good, and the brand became an American success story. It had grown from a single, family-owned restaurant in Bridgeview to a powerful restaurant chain.

On its menu, you could find items like fried chicken, coleslaw, biscuits, and mashed potatoes. However, the business took a turn in the 2000s. In 2009, the Browns filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after an alleged legal fight between the different owners. And by the following year, 2010, Pop Grip LLC purchased Browns for a reported amount of $585,000.

Fast forward to today, Brown's Chicken is still out there, but it's not the sizable fast food chain it once was. Today, there's only about 23 restaurants, all in the state of Illinois. But no matter the history, the different owners, the rotating menu items, Brown's Chicken will always be remembered for what happened right before closing time on January 8, 1993.

That cold winter night, while snow covered the ground, two men walked into the Brown's Chicken in Palatine, Chicago, just before its 9 o'clock closing time. Once inside the restaurant, the two men ordered a chicken meal from the menu before taking their seats at a booth. For anyone who might be watching, including the employees, they just looked like two average guys sitting down together to eat a late-night chicken dinner. Nothing seemed amiss.

After finishing most of the meal, the men got up from the booth and threw away their trash in the nearby trash can. Napkins, chicken bones, cups. Then they put latex gloves over their hands, pulled out a gun and knives, and announced to the employees this was a robbery. The first employee to approach the robbers was Rico Solis, a 17-year-old kid sweeping the floors.

Rico offered them some money, but one of them ordered him to get to the back of the restaurant while the other fired a shot into the ceiling and ordered all the other employees to get on the floor. Besides Rico Solis, those working that night were 50-year-old Richard Eilenfelt, his wife, 49-year-old Lynn Eilenfelt, and

46-year-old Guadalupe Maldonado, 16-year-old Michael Castro, 32-year-old Thomas Menes, and 31-year-old Marcus Nelson. Thomas tried to run by jumping over the counter, but one of the robbers shot him and dragged his body to one of the restaurant's two freezers, the one on the west side of the place. Also shot and dragged into the same freezer was the franchise owner Richard Eilenfeldt.

After that, everyone else was ordered to get into the other freezer, the one on the east side. So in one freezer, there's Richard and Thomas, who were both already shot and killed, and in the other were Lynn, Guadalupe, Rico, Michael, and Marcus. After Richard and Thomas were killed, one of the robbers grabbed Lynn, the other franchise owner, and held her at knife point.

He ordered her to take him where they had the safe with the money in it and demanded that she give him everything they had, which was about $1,800 to $1,900 in cash. After that, once the men had the cash and stuffed it into a canvas bag, they slit Lynn's throat with the knife and dragged her body into the other freezer where the rest of the employees were, the ones that were still alive.

Now later on, it would be discovered that the employees still alive begged the two robbers to spare their lives. They begged these men not to shoot them. They had family. They had friends. They had things they wanted to live for. But the robbers didn't listen. One by one, the men shot and killed all of the four remaining employees.

Most of them were shot multiple times while huddled together inside the cold freezer. When all was said and done, seven people were shot and killed, and the robbers got away with less than $2,000 in cash, becoming one of the worst mass murders in Chicago history.

Later that night, the parents of 16-year-old Michael Castro got worried when he didn't return home from work, so they eventually decided to call the police. It wasn't like him not to come home when he was supposed to. Michael, like his friend and co-worker Rico Solis, was a student at Palantine High School and worked part-time at Brown's Chicken.

By the time Michael's parents called the police, they had already gone to the restaurant looking for him. And when they got there, they saw that his car was still parked in the parking lot, but they didn't see anyone inside. So about six hours after the 9 o'clock closing time, a couple of police officers pulled up to the restaurant to check on Michael and his co-workers. None of the other people working that night returned home either.

And when the police got inside through an open employee door, that's when they saw a bloody mop just inside the doorway and called for backup. That particular Brown's Chicken restaurant was owned by husband and wife Richard and Lynn Eilenfelt from Arlington Heights. They both became victims inside the very business they owned to make a living.

He'd been shot five times, while she'd been shot once and had her throat slit from ear to ear. Over 200 people would go on to attend their memorials, and everyone there described the couple as two family-oriented people who made time in their lives for religion, social activism, and business.

Here's a direct quote from Gordon Sorensen. He was a close personal friend of Richard and Lynn, as well as a pastor who spoke at their funerals. Quote, I will not let the injustice done to you keep me from remembering the justice you helped to create. I will not let the agonizing sadness of the news of your deaths keep me from remembering the wonder-filled joy of your living. End quote.

No one deserves to be gunned down in their own business that they worked so hard to create, especially not these two people. Richard Eilenfeldt grew up in Columbus, where his family owned a business and was once mayor. His wife, Lynn, grew up about 75 miles north, and when they got married, they moved to Madison. Even though the town where Richard grew up in was small, most people either knew him or knew his father.

So when they heard about the murders, everyone was shocked. No one could believe that something like this could happen to such nice people. Lynn and Richard left behind three daughters. Two of them were even scheduled to be at the restaurant that night, but for some reason, some miracle, they weren't. Years later, their third daughter, Jennifer, would become elected to the Wisconsin Senate.

46-year-old Guadalupe Maldonado had been shot a total of three times. Originally from Mexico, he had brought his family to the northwest suburbs of Chicago because he wanted a better future. In their eyes, the U.S. would give him and his children a better life, the American dream.

Not long after arriving in the States, he started working at Brown's Chicken as a fry cook, and he took his job very seriously. He worked hard every single day and was well-liked by all of his co-workers, especially Richard and Lynn, the owners. Just like Michael's parents, Guadalupe's wife became concerned when her husband still hadn't returned home that night by 1.30 in the morning.

He was never known to stay out late, but at least calling her first. So when he wasn't home by his usual 10 o'clock, she had a gut feeling that something was wrong. So the next morning, Guadalupe's wife, Juana, asked a friend of theirs if he would drive down to the restaurant to go check on him. But when the friend got there, he was reportedly told by a few officers not to worry and that Guadalupe was, quote, probably out drinking or hanging out.

But the friend wasn't convinced by what the cop had apparently said, whether it was a joke or not. He knew Guadalupe. He wasn't a drinker. And he wasn't the kind of guy to go somewhere after work without telling his wife about it. So right away, both he and Juana knew that something was wrong. They didn't know what it was, but they were worried that something bad might have happened to him.

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31-year-old Marcus Nelson was also killed that night. He was shot only once, but that's all it took. He was a former Navy cook who worked at Brown's and was often teased by his co-workers about the tattoo of a woman on one of his arms. On top of being shot, Marcus had also been hit over the head, which led the police to suspect that he tried to fight the robbers.

After he left the Navy, he was said to be somewhat of a drifter who once called the local YMCA his home. But when he got the job at Brown's, he seemed to have found a home for himself. He told some of his close friends that he really enjoyed working there, and he hoped to be promoted to assistant manager someday. In fact, at the time that he was killed, he had just started training to become a manager.

But instead of being promoted, the robbers ordered him into the freezer, had him kneel down, and shot him once execution style. 17-year-old Rico Solis was the one who was sweeping the floors. He was friends with Michael, and they both attended the same high school. That night, he was shot a total of five times.

Before his death, Rico was described as a quiet, hardworking teen who was close to his family, especially his younger sister. The family was originally from the Philippines and had just moved to the U.S. that May. He worked at Brown's part-time to help his family earn a little extra money, and he got the job there because of his friend Michael. Over 150 people were said to have attended his funeral.

16-year-old Michael Castro, or Mike as he was usually called, was the youngest killed. He was shot six times. At the time, he was a junior in high school and, like Rico, worked at the restaurant part-time as a cashier after school and on the weekends. He was described as a good kid whose life was taken far too early and who never had a chance to reach his full potential.

His parents were the first ones to call the police that night. Then there was 32-year-old Thomas Menez, or Tom. The robbers had shot him three times. Before that, he worked in the kitchen at the restaurant, wasn't married, and had a twin brother named Jerry.

The brutality of the murders stunned everyone, the community, the country, the families of the victims, even the first responding officers who witnessed everything firsthand. Seven dead bodies spread across the restaurants to walk in freezers, each shot multiple times, all for what? A little less than $2,000 in cash?

Was this a robbery? Was this a mass shooting? Was one of the victims a target here? What exactly is happening? The scene itself was messy. Right when the cops arrived, there was a bloody mop just inside the doorway from the employee entrance.

There was so much blood that at first, the police weren't even sure how many victims there were. Their bodies were all entangled and so close together that it took them pulling the bodies off of one another for them to finally figure out that there were seven. Some were face down, others face up. Most of them shot multiple times while kneeling together on the floor.

At the same time the bodies were being identified, the search for evidence began. Although the police explored all possibilities, from this being a targeted attack to some type of act of terrorism, the most likely motive seemed to be robbery. That's because all of the cash was missing from the unlocked and open safe in the back of the restaurant.

They also didn't find any major enemies of the victims. So it didn't seem to be over something extremely personal. All the roads led back to robbery. But now the biggest concern became two things. One, find these gunmen before they get away or do this somewhere else. And number two, lock down the scene and get any potential evidence that might be able to be used to try to identify who we're looking for.

By January 11th, it had been about a day and a half since the bodies were discovered, and the police were still very busy working the crime scene. One of those people was Dr. Jane Holmeyer, a forensic scientist with a northern Illinois police crime lab. She was in charge of processing fingerprints and helping collect and preserve any other evidence.

While going through the cash register receipts from that night, she found a receipt for a meal that was purchased at 9.08 p.m. It was a four-piece chicken meal with fries, coleslaw, and a small drink. Not only did this meal stand out because it was the last meal of the night, but also because parts of that meal were found inside one of the trash cans.

Inside the trash bin on the west side of the dining room, there was a cardboard box with pieces of chicken bones, scattered french fries, biscuits, coleslaw, and paper products, including four used napkins. This all lined up with what would have been left for that meal that was rung up at the register at 9.08 p.m.

And it was the only meal inside the trash bin because all of the trash cans had been emptied earlier in the night as part of the closing procedures. So once it was determined they likely came from that purchase, the remaining items from the trash, including the pieces of chicken and napkins, were bagged and sent to the lab for testing.

The idea was that this was the meal that the two gunmen sat down together and ate right before the shooting. Investigators also collected extensive trace evidence, including fibers, hair, blood, and more than 200 fingerprints. A few days later, on the 14th, the napkins were tested for fingerprints.

They were put under various different lights to see if there were any latent print impressions on them. They were also each dipped into an anhydrine solution to help the prints become more visible. But after all four napkins were tested and dipped into the solution, only one latent print was found. So it was then photographed and put back into evidence.

Then sometime later, around January 22nd or 23rd, the lab tried to use zinc chlorine to react with the lipids in the print residue to develop additional impressions on the napkin. But no other prints were developed. They just had that one. Now, besides fingerprints, the lab also looked for DNA, specifically on the chicken bones.

Whoever ate the chicken, who they believed was at least one of the robbers, likely left their DNA on it through saliva. They bit into the chicken, left saliva, therefore leaving DNA, a forensic footprint that could be used to lead the police right to their suspect.

But we're talking about 1993 here. DNA evidence was just starting to be used to solve crimes. It was only in the beginning stages. It was nowhere near where it is today. So even if they could collect DNA from the chicken bones, they probably couldn't do much with it. But here's what happened. The chicken bones were sent to Life Codes, a private lab.

The police knew that it was well beyond their testing capabilities at the state crime lab, so they reached out to this private lab instead. But here's the problem that they ran into. The amount of DNA on the chicken bones was only about one to two nanograms. Way too small for them to do any type of meaningful testing here.

Now, to put these numbers into perspective, the amount of DNA that this lab was used to testing on these types of items was about 10 nanograms. This sample was 1 to 2. So it was much, much smaller than anything they had tested before. They also weren't using short tandem repeat testing or STR testing, which usually works well with small DNA samples.

So after life codes examined that particular piece of chicken, they threw it away. Later on, they would say they threw it away because there wouldn't be anything you could do with it anymore. The bones had been exposed to what they described as a, quote, chemical bath. So there was no reason to keep it because it couldn't be retested.

So after that, the rest of the chicken bones were returned back to the police department and put back into the evidence freezer. With virtually no other leads, no witnesses, nothing, the case eventually went cold and would remain cold for the next nine long years. Support for this episode comes from Smart Labels. It's the new year, and whether it's your New Year's resolution to get more organized or it's just time for your annual cleanup,

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In March 2002, Ann Lockett came forward with what would turn out to be very important information. She said she knew who the two gunmen were, her ex-boyfriend James Degorski and his friend Juan Luna.

According to Ann Lockett, after the murders happened, her then-boyfriend, James, called her and told her to, quote, watch the news tonight, I did something. That something was the Browns' chicken massacre. Ann told the police that James eventually told her everything. He was the one responsible, and he had help from his good friend and former high school classmate, Juan Luna.

When it came to why she didn't come forward nine years earlier, she said at the time she was dealing with both major substance abuse and mental health issues. She had tried to commit suicide on at least two different occasions, and she just wasn't in a good place. She also said that she was afraid of what James might do to her if she ever told anyone. So she kept everything she knew a secret for nine long years.

Anne was 17 and still in high school when she met and started dating James Degorski in 1992. They used to drink and smoke marijuana together with their mutual friend Eileen Bakala, another key witness we're going to talk about.

According to Ann, on January 7, 1993, the day before the murders, she was admitted to the hospital on a suicide attempt. And while she was in the hospital, she got a call from James telling her to watch the news. The lead story was the Browns' chicken murders.

Then after she was released from the hospital on January 24th, she said she went to James's house and he asked her if she wanted to know what happened at Brown's Chicken. She said yes, she wanted to know. So that's when he proceeded to tell her everything. He said he and Juan Luna went to the Brown's Chicken together with, quote, pockets full of bullets.

James and Juan had been childhood friends and attended William Fremd High School together in Palatine, so they were close and they hung out a lot. He said they went in right around closing time and the two of them ordered chicken, which initially made James mad because he was worried about leaving greasy fingerprints back at the crime scene. So they came up with a plan. They decided to go into the bathroom and put on latex gloves.

That's also when they blocked the back entrance door with a wedge so that no one could run out once they started the robbery. Ann said that's when the men admitted shooting the victims with James's .38 caliber revolver.

She even disclosed details that no one knew about, like how one of the boys who was left in the freezer had vomited french fries before he died, and how they both mopped the floor and wiped the area down to try to remove any fingerprints.

Also, how afterward, they cleaned up and disposed of their clothing in a dumpster and threw the gun in the Fox River. According to Anne, James threatened to kill her if she said anything and told her that because she was in the hospital at the time, he was going to use their mutual friend Eileen as an alibi if he was ever questioned. So let's talk about her.

Eileen Bacala would eventually tell the police that James Degorski called and asked her to meet him and Juan Luna in the parking lot of a Juul grocery store on the night of the murders. She was close friends with James and also knew Juan Luna. They both would go to his house and smoke marijuana together, so they were all friends at the time.

Eileen said that when she met them in the parking lot, she saw James and Juan inside of Juan's car, along with latex gloves and a canvas money bag. She said they all got inside of her car, and as she drove them back to her house, they told her that they had robbed the Browns' chicken.

Once they got to her house, she said Juan and James split the money in the bag and gave her $50, which she said was a repayment for a loan that she had given James. After that, the three smoked some pot and just hung around the house for a bit before she drove Juan back to his car in the parking lot.

She said that on their way there, they saw a bunch of police cars parked in front of the restaurant. So that's when she knew what they had told her was true. Then the next day, Eileen met James at a car wash where they extensively cleaned Juan's car together to get rid of any evidence.

Here's something else about Eileen. She never once came forward to the police about this until they approached her on May 15, 2002. This was after they heard from her friend Ann. However, she did admit to telling her husband about it before they got married in 1998.

When it comes to why they picked that particular restaurant to rob, both Ann and Eileen said it was because Juan Luna used to work there. He knew where they kept the cash and he knew how easy it would be to get it.

Anne would also say later on that James told her how Juan told him he wanted to find out what it was like to kill someone. And James, being the good friend that he was, agreed to help him find out. Now, it's important to mention here that neither Eileen nor James or Juan were strangers to the police.

On November 25, 1995, all three of them were called down to the police station and questioned about the murders. One of the reasons why they became suspects was because Juan was a former employee. He was 18 when he worked there, and he was let go.

But when the cops spoke with Eileen, she told them that she was with both of these guys on the night of the murders. So they couldn't have done it, and they didn't even find out about the robbery until the next morning. So essentially, Eileen lied back in 1995 and provided a false alibi for both James and Juan.

And now, nine years later, Eileen, in exchange for her testimony, the district attorney promised her that they wouldn't prosecute her for anything related to the murders or for her lying nine years earlier. They were more interested in going after the actual alleged murderers, Juan Luna and James Degorski.

So now, Ann Lockett and Eileen Bakala become important witnesses for both the police and the prosecution. But witnesses, they're not everything. What about the forensic evidence? What did the state have as far as physical evidence goes that proves what Eileen and Ann are saying is actually true?

Well, by 2002, DNA testing had come a long way since 1993. So to get the forensic evidence they needed, the police started with those chicken bones that were found in the restaurant's trash can. In June 1998, five years after the shooting, scientists at the Illinois State Police Science Center in Chicago began tests to look for saliva.

And when the test came back, they found that there was saliva on two out of the five remaining bones. So those two pieces of chicken were sent for more testing. That testing was STR DNA analysis, which obtained a nine loci DNA profile from the bones.

The test also revealed that each sample contained DNA from multiple contributors, a major profile and a minor DNA profile. The major profile was consistent with someone eating the chicken, and the minor profile was consistent with someone touching it.

So now, in 2002, the DNA pulled from the chicken bones was compared to a sample of Juan Luna's DNA. He had given it to the police after Eileen and Anne came forward. And the results of that comparison were a perfect match. It was Juan's DNA on the chicken bones found in the restaurant's trash cans. It had a 1 in 2.8 trillion chance of matching anyone else.

Now when it comes to the other profile, the minor DNA profile, no match was found. It didn't match James. On top of the DNA, they were also able to match the latent fingerprint found on the napkins to Juan Luna, but no fingerprints were found that match James Degorski. So all the forensic evidence pointed toward Juan, and his friend James was just guilty by association.

Both men were taken into custody on May 16, 2002, and not long after that, Juan Luna reportedly confessed to everything. His confession lined up perfectly with what Ann and Eileen had already told them. He admitted that he and James went into the Brown's Chicken restaurant just as it was closing at 9 o'clock, ordered a four-piece chicken meal, and then forced everyone to the back where they shot and killed them.

Had they not ordered that chicken meal and put their DNA all over the chicken bones, they might have never been caught. But that's not the end of the story. Sometime after Juan was arrested, his attorney claimed that he was forced into confessing and that because his family was from Mexico, the police threatened to have all of them deported if he didn't confess.

So according to his attorney, what he said wasn't true. Neither he nor James did it. Now his friend James Degorski also reportedly confessed. He had the exact same story and said that they split the robbery money, which was about $800 each. But his attorney also tried to argue that he was forced into confessing and that he was actually innocent.

Since both men were now recanting their confessions, they both decided to take their cases to trial, despite the taped confessions and despite the DNA evidence on the chicken bones. Juan's trial was first. He was now 33. Not only did his lawyers try to say that he made a false confession, but they also challenged the forensic evidence.

In their arguments, they said that the bones were left out of the freezer for several days before they were tested. So, whatever DNA evidence was discovered, it couldn't be trusted. It couldn't be trusted because they had partially thawed before they were analyzed. Another argument was that when the bones were taken out, they were placed on a dirty examination table, and people touched them without wearing gloves.

They also had a DNA expert testify that at least 1 million other people could share a similar DNA profile, a claim that the prosecution would argue that Juan was 234 million times more likely to be the contributor than a random person. So you'll have to decide for yourself which DNA expert that you believe.

As far as a confession, Juan Luna's defense argued someone else confessed to the murders long before he did. Here's how that story goes. On August 9th, 1999, John Simonak told detectives that he and Todd Wakefield committed the murders.

According to his taped police statement, which was played in front of the jury at Juan Luna's trial, he and Wakefield went to the Brown's Chicken restaurant on January 8th, 1993. Wakefield drove a Brown station wagon, which he parked on the east side of the restaurant, and he and Simonak entered through the east door.

He said Wakefield was the one who ordered the chicken meal. Then five to ten minutes later, he pulled out a gun and told the employees to get into the freezer. As he moved back toward Wakefield, he said he heard gunshots and started to, quote, freak out. That's when he says Wakefield shot the people inside the freezer and then ordered him to shoot the people in the other one.

He claims he told his friend that he didn't want to do it, but Wakefield proceeded to make him do it anyway. After the murders, this guy told the police that he felt really bad for what happened, and that's why he was now confessing.

Well, John would later recant his confession, saying the police told him he wouldn't be allowed to leave and he wouldn't be allowed to make a phone call until he told them what they wanted to hear. And during this so-called confession, he told them things that he had simply read about in the newspapers. He would also make up other details.

When he would say something that was incorrect or didn't match the evidence, the police would apparently say something like, that's not what happened, and they would give him a chance to change his story or to come up with a story that actually fit. So it was pretty quickly determined that this guy had nothing to do with the murders, and neither did his friend Todd Wakefield. This was a total and complete false confession.

John even testified at Juan Luna's trial saying that he wasn't involved in the murders and that, yes, he did falsely confess. So the state's case was this. They had two witnesses who say Juan Luna confessed to them about the shooting. The DNA found on the chicken bones matches Juan. They found a fingerprint on the napkins from the trash can that also matches him.

And he allegedly confessed after being arrested. Now, the defense's case. The DNA from the chicken might be contaminated because it was taken out of the freezer for an extended period of time. It was left on a dirty examination table. People touched the bones without wearing gloves, so therefore the DNA can't be trusted.

He never truthfully confessed to anything. He lied. And someone else confessed to it long before he did. But in the end, it was the state's case that won. On May 10, 2007, Juan Luna was found guilty of all seven counts of murder. And seven days later, he received his sentence. Life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors assigned to the case sought the death penalty, which was available back in 2007. But the jury's vote of 11 to 1 in favor of the death penalty fell short. Then years later in 2019, an action was filed by the U.S. government to revoke his naturalized citizenship, which he had received in the time between the murders and his arrest. Next up, James Degorski's trial.

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Go to sunbasket.com forward slash forensic tales today to save $120 across your first four deliveries. That's sunbasket.com forward slash forensic tales to save $120 across your first four deliveries, plus free shipping on your first order. His trial was very similar to Juan Luna's, but with some key differences.

The similarities were the witnesses and alleged confessions. But the difference was that the state had virtually no forensic evidence linking him to the murders. All the evidence found at the crime scene belonged to Juan Luna. The DNA on the chicken bone, the latent fingerprint on the napkin, all of that belonged to his co-defendant.

So his defense was similar to Juan Luna's in that his lawyers argued that this John character had already confessed to the murders back in 1998 and whatever forensic evidence they had found at the crime scene didn't match. Not even a fingerprint was found on the mop handle that was apparently used by the gunman to clean up afterward. That fingerprint didn't match him.

The police also never found the murder weapon. They conducted dozens of searches of the Fox River, but all of those searches turned up empty.

The defense also had a lot of character witnesses who testified that James had never been violent before. Yes, he smoked marijuana and did some drugs here and there, but he wasn't known to be a violent person. So without any forensic evidence linking him to the murders, what would the jury decide?

Well, on September 29th, 2009, James Degorski was found guilty of all seven counts of murder, just like his co-defendant. This decision was almost entirely based on the testimony of his former girlfriend, Ann Lockett, and their friend, Eileen Bacala, who both said that he confessed. His friend, Luna, also implicated him during his own confession back in 2002.

So that's at least three people who said he was guilty, despite the lack of forensic evidence. About a month later, on October 20th, he was sentenced to life without parole. All but two of the jurors voted for the death penalty. Four years later, in 2013, he appealed. But the appeal was rejected and his conviction stood.

So both Juan Luna and James Degorski, former high school buddies and now convicted mass murderers, are currently serving their sentence at the same prison, Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois. Juan is now 50 and James is 52.

But the end of the trial and appeal didn't mean that James' problems were over. In March 2014, a jury awarded him over $400,000 in compensation and punitive damages after being beaten by a sheriff's deputy in the Cook County Jail in a May 2002 incident.

He was given the money after this sheriff deputy was found guilty of fracturing his face, which he eventually required surgery for. The deputy was also fired. What happened at closing time inside that Brown's Chicken restaurant on January 8, 1993, will forever haunt the community it happened in, and the lives of the victims' families will never be the same.

Following the shooting, sales at all Brown's Chicken restaurants dropped 35% within a month, and the company eventually had to close 100 locations throughout the greater Chicago area. As of today, the original building where the massacre took place no longer exists. In its place is a Chase Bank.

In the end, seven lives were lost over $1,800 in cash. And without the forensic evidence obtained from the discarded napkins and chicken bones, the two men responsible might have gotten away with it. To share your thoughts on this week's episode, follow the show on Instagram and Facebook.

To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales. After each episode, I release a bonus episode sharing my personal thoughts. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday. If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review. You can also support the show through Patreon.

Thank you so much to this week's newest patrons, Bree and Jackie S. Thank you for joining me this week. Please join me next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production. The show is written and produced by me, Courtney Fretwell. For a small monthly contribution, you can help create new compelling cases for the show, help fund research, and assist with production and editing costs.

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If you'd like to become a producer of this show, head over to our Patreon page or send me an email at Courtney at ForensicTales.com. For a complete list of sources used in this episode, please visit ForensicTales.com. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.

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