Monday, April 15, 2024
In the long and tangled history of Cook County courts, there has never been a case quite like Gerald Reed’s. Reed, 60, slim and stern-faced, is set to stand trial Monday on charges of committing a gruesome double murder. In itself, that is not unusual.
A man accused of killing an 11-year-old boy and critically injuring the boy’s mother less than a day after being released from prison has told a Cook County judge he plans to represent himself. Crosetti Brand, 37, held firm in his decision even after Judge Mary Marubio gave him a stern warning during an April 3 hearing that “everyone pretty much universally agrees that it’s a bad idea to represent yourself.”
The Illinois Senate wrapped up a busy week in Springfield, advancing a total of 244 bills before a Friday deadline. From addressing the mishandling of human remains at a Carlinville funeral home to establishing a new state mushroom — the Calvatia gigantea or commonly known as the giant puffball — the bills now move to the House.
Target stores risk losing a small fortune in a newly filed lawsuit because the company uses facial recognition technology to identify shoplifters in Illinois. Using the increasingly popular technology may seem like a natural way to combat theft, but the lawsuit claims Target’s practice violates Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act.
In September 2021, a 4-year-old girl’s babysitter caught her touching another child inappropriately. “I asked her why she was doing that,” the babysitter texted the girl’s mother, “and she told me because someone does it to her.”
One of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s major legislative priorities is closer to becoming law. The Illinois state Senate unanimously passed a bill Friday creating a new Department of Early Childhood.
On a brisk day at a restaurant outside Chicago, Deb Robertson sat with her teenage grandson to talk about her death. She’ll probably miss his high school graduation. She declined the extended warranty on her car. Sometimes she wonders who will be at her funeral.
He made himself known to two LaSalle County deputy sheriffs monitoring the front door to the LaSalle County Courthouse last Wednesday. The 88-year-old man proclaimed he was one of the last people still alive from the 1961 murders of three women at Starved Rock State Park.