Clockwise from left: Jonathan Hurst (DeKalb County Jail/WSPY News), Robert Wilson, Patricia Wilson (DeKalb County Crime Stoppers). Background: the Wilson home (YouTube/WTVO/WQRF).
The man who was convicted of bludgeoning an elderly woman and her son to death in their Illinois home is expected to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Jonathan Hurst, 56, was convicted in January of the double murder of Patricia Wilson, 85, and her son, Robert Wilson, 64. According to prosecutors, Hurst attacked the mother and son in August 2016, at a time when he told police he was hiking on an Illinois trail that crossed the state. Cellphone evidence placed Hurst, who previously lived in Chicago, in the area of Sycamore where the Wilsons lived, some 65 miles west of Chicago.
Although Hurst demanded a new trial — his lawyers criticized the evidence in the case, as well as the investigation — Circuit Court Judge Marcy Buick denied that request. She then handed down a life sentence for Hurst’s convictions on four counts of first-degree murder, two for each of the victims, plus 30 years for home invasion.
Hurst will not be eligible for parole, the local Daily Chronicle news website reported.
Although the murders happened in 2016, DNA evidence ultimately led investigators to Hurst years later. Authorities believe the victims were attacked with a “hammer-like weapon” on the night of Aug. 14, 2016. Patricia Wilson was found lying face down in the basement laundry room, halfway inside a crawl space next to a washer and dryer, The Daily Chronicle report said. Robert Wilson was also beaten and stabbed multiple times; he was reportedly found face up on the stairs.
Prosecutors said that traces of Hurst’s DNA and fingerprints were found on items inside the Wilsons’ home, including on a downstairs bathroom mirror and multiple soda cans. His DNA was also on a pillow and two knives in the crawl space, which prosecutors described as “a secretive lair.”
The Wilsons’ bodies were discovered on Aug. 15, 2016, by Patricia Wilson’s daughter, Sue Saari, who had gone to the house to check on her mother and brother. According to a DeKalb County Crime Stoppers timeline, they were last seen alive at their church on the morning of Aug. 14, 2016. Robert Wilson is believed to have dropped his mother at their house after they had breakfast with friends at a restaurant after church that day. He then went to the Sycamore Moose Lodge at around noon and returned home around 4:30 p.m. At around 7:45 p.m., the crime stoppers timeline said, Patricia Wilson spoke to a relative over the phone.
Surveillance footage shows the Wilsons’ car traveling east around 12:44 a.m., some five hours later. The car was found later abandoned in Chicago near the Lincoln Park Zoo, around a mile from where Hurst lived at the time, the Daily Chronicle reported.
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After his arrest in 2020, Hurst reportedly told police that at the time of the Wilsons’ deaths, he had actually been planning a long hike.
“There’s a trail that runs across Illinois,” Hurst told detectives on Feb. 24, 2020, according to the Daily Chronicle. “I thought I’d just try to hike it. … I didn’t prepare very well for it.”
At Thursday’s sentencing, Hurst, who did not testify at his own trial, similarly declined to speak on his own behalf and reportedly gave only one-word answers to questions from the judge.
“This defendant, in spite of overwhelming circumstantial and physical evidence against him in this case, has not taken responsibility for his actions,” Buick said, according to the Daily Chronicle. “And as Patricia’s sister agrees, that simple question, ‘Why,’ has not been answered by this defendant. It may never be answered.”
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Family members of the victims spoke at Hurst’s sentencing, describing how “emptiness and heartache has crippled [their] lives forever,” according to the Daily Chronicle. Hurst’s siblings, meanwhile, described him as being incapable of murder, and his defense lawyers noted that Hurst did not have a criminal history.
DeKalb County State’s Attorney Riley Oncken said in a statement that he was “extremely proud” of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who “worked for 4 years to identify Mr. Hurst and finally bring him to justice eight years after this brutal crime.”
“I hope that this verdict can bring closure to the Wilson family and to so many in the community that cared about Patricia and Robert Wilson,” Oncken also said in the statement. “Nothing can bring them back, but my hope is that knowing that their killer will spend the rest of his life in prison will bring our community some comfort.”
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