Woman recalls parking lot encounter with Dugan

By Admin on October 10, 2009

The Aurora woman was six months pregnant and at the Fox Valley Mall to pick up a package for her 20-month-old daughter, she said, when a man wearing a ski mask approached her in the parking lot and pointed a gun at her in 1979.

He ordered her to get into her car, the woman told a DuPage County jury on Friday, recalling that March day 30 years ago.

“I tried to scream, but I couldn’t get a sound out,” she said.

“I said, ‘Take my car, my purse,’?” she said. “I told him I was pregnant and he looked confused. I got in the car and drove away.”

The man, she testified, was Brian Dugan, who faces the death penalty for the 1983 rape and murder of  Jeanine Nicarico, 10,  of Naperville.

Her voice frequently cracking, the woman, now 57, testified for more than an hour and at times needed to compose herself before answering questions about the parking lot encounter.

She said she had seen the man earlier without the mask and he was following her.

She also talked about a time six years later when she saw the man’s face. In 1985, when she saw a TV news report about Dugan and his link to the murder of a 7-year-old girl, she instantly recognized him as the man who had approached her and called Aurora police.

But she was told that Dugan already was doing two life sentences for the murders of the 7-year-old girl and a 27-year-old woman, so she didn’t take it any further.

“What was the point?” she said Friday.

But in 2005 when she saw another report that Dugan could face the death penalty for the Nicarico murder, she called DuPage prosecutors.

The jury that heard the woman’s testimony will decide if Dugan, 53, receives the death penalty or another life sentence for the 1983 crime.

Prosecutors are expected to have as many as six women testify about being victims or potential victims of sexual assault by Dugan in an attempt to bolster their argument that he deserves the death penalty. Illinois law allows at sentencing hearings evidence about any crime, even if charges weren’t filed.

The woman testified about what happened two hours after she first noticed the man at the mall.

“He said, ‘Are those the keys to your car,’?” she said. “I turned to him and pleaded. … I said, ‘Please, I have a baby at home and a baby due.”

“He said, ‘I’m going to let you go,’?” she testified. “He said he was afraid I was going to cause problems for him. I got in the car and yelled at him to get going.”

She called police, who looked for the suspect but were unsuccessful.

In 1985, she said, “I saw him on the news … and I said, ‘There’s the man that held me up.’?”

Identifying Dugan in court she said, “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind.”

The jury also began to hear testimony about the 1979 rape of first-grade teacher from Elmhurst, who has passed away.

Ray Bradford, former chief of detectives for Elmhurst, said the woman was forced at gunpoint into her car, bound and then sexually assaulted.

The woman also recognized Dugan from news accounts, Bradford testified.

Elmhurst police were able to link Dugan to the crime in 1987 after he made some statements to state police, but the statute of limitations had expired.

–Art Barnum

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