Murder trial date dropped for Jonathan Hurst charged in 2016 Wilson killings in Sycamore

SYCAMORE – Loved ones of an elderly Sycamore mother and her son found beaten to death inside their rural home in 2016 will have to wait longer to find out what happened, as a June trial date set for the man accused in the killings has been dropped.

Jonathan Hurst’s double murder trial was set to convene June 24, more than four years after his February 2020 arrest and almost eight years since Patricia A. Wilson, 85, and Robert J. Wilson, 64, were found bludgeoned to death inside their home at 16058 Old State Road on Aug. 15, 2016.

If convicted of both killings, Hurst faces a life sentence. The trial was continued at the request of Hurst’s defense lawyer, Charles Criswell of the DeKalb County Public Defender’s Office, who told Circuit Court Judge Marcy Buick Wednesday that he’s not ready to make his arguments before a jury. Criswell has represented Hurst since June 2022, court records show.

Lead prosecutor Suzanne Collins said Criswell’s concerns about evidence “should have been addressed years ago.”

“So here we are less than a month out, the state has subpoenaed or notified 30 different witnesses to come from three different states to come and testify in this trial,” Collins said. “The State was acting in good faith and went forward to try and bring justice for this family that’s been waiting for four years to see this case go to trial. I understand what counsel’s saying, but to blame it on the State that he’s asking for a continuance I don’t believe is fair.”

Three members of the Wilson family sat in the gallery’s front row Wednesday as Collins told the judge how long they’ve been waiting to find out what happened to Patricia, who was an active member of St. John’s Lutheran Church of Sycamore, and Robert, known affectionately as “Smiley”, the president of Sycamore Moose Lodge.

A new trial date was not set.

Instead, Buick ordered two more dates in June – one as a deadline for prosecutors to file a response to Criswell’s request for additional evidence, and another for a status hearing and to determine the next steps.

Criswell argued the amount of evidence gathered by prosecutors and shared with him for Hurst’s trial – more than 11,000 pages of evidence and more than 180 disks that contain among other things police field notes, records, photographs, interview notes and lab test results – is more than he can go through before a trial in three weeks.

[ Genetic DNA tool used to catch Sycamore double murder suspect marks 100th case for lab ]

Prosecutors said in response that most of that was handed over to Hurst’s defense team four years ago.

“And quite honestly, judge given my – I don’t want to say failure – but, judge, this is a large case. I’d intended doing this myself. I don’t think that this is a case that can be done by one person,” Criswell said as Hurst looked on virtually from the DeKalb County Jail. “I can certainly do the trial by myself. The issue I had not considered, judge, was the volume of evidence that’s going to be coming in and knowing those [sic] evidence and having someone there to organize everything and to have that person be ready, I don’t think would be possible. Again that falls on me 100%.”

Delays, the COVID-19 pandemic and a change in Hurst’s defense attorneys have littered the past four years of pretrial hearings. Hurst’s case also has changed hands since his arrest.

Presiding judge Buick inherited the case from now-retired Robbin Stuckert in July 2021, according to court records. Collins inherited the case from former prosecutor Stephanie Klein, now an associate judge, in January 2021. Criswell was appointed in June 2022 following former public defender Tom McCulloch, according to court records.

Hurst is charged with 12 counts of first-degree murder, home invasion, residential burglary, criminal trespass to residence and unlawful possession of a stolen motor vehicle.

Criswell also is seeking to gather more evidence for his defense, court records show. He’s requested the DeKalb County State’s Attorney’s Office hand over genetic information including from GEDMatch, Family Tree DNA and Ancenstry.com “referenced in the police report, all of which assisted the police in forming a genetic match to some of the DNA found at the scene of the murder,” he wrote in court filings.

Prosecutors argued turning over such a DNA collection would violate privacy laws.

“These issues that counsel is raising now should have been addressed years ago,” Collins said. “This is not new and the investigative genetic genealogy is not new. It has always been a part of this case. It has been an investigative lead that the detectives used to narrow down a pool of suspects.”

Criswell also told Buick he planned to file a motion to suppress evidence, an idea he said he got after attending a public defender’s conference three weeks ago. He said he also plans to recruit another public defender from his office to aid his trial defense.

In a second filing Tuesday, Criswell also asked for more evidence, including field notes from police who investigated the case, and T-Mobile phone records of a jail call between Hurst and his sister while he was in custody at the Cincinnati jail following his arrest but before his extradition to Illinois in 2020. Hurst has been held without bond at DeKalb County Jail since his February 2020 arrest.

DNA is expected to be a central part of prosecutors’ arguments at trial, as they seek to convince a jury that Hurst was the one responsible for beating the Wilsons to death.

Hurst has no known ties to the Sycamore area. He has denied ever being in Sycamore, though authorities have repeatedly said they have evidence to prove that he was the night of Aug. 14, 2016. No motive has been publicly disclosed, and police also have not said how the attacker may have entered the Wilson home.

The laborious investigation that led authorities to Hurst more than three years after the Wilsons were killed was done with the help of a DNA genealogy mapping process through Reston, Virginia-based Parabon NanoLabs. It’s the same genetic investigative tool used to catch the Golden State Killer in California, though Parabon did not specifically work on that case.

Both Wilsons died of blunt-force head trauma, the DeKalb County Coroner’s office ruled.

Prosecutors have until 10:45 a.m. June 13 to file a response to Criswell’s motions. Hurst also is expected to appear at 9:45 a.m. June 27 for a status hearing.

Buick issued a reminder to prosecutors and the defense.

“Again I’m going to encourage the parties, and I know you’ve been doing this, but get to the heart of all the documents and discovery materials you have, follow all the fingers of the documents, make sure you have everything that is out there related to this case aside from what the defense is now requesting,” Buick said.