Distraught 911 call begins emotional morning of testimonies in Day 1 of Wilson murders trial

SYCAMORE – Around 6 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 15, 2016, Sue Saari drove to her family’s home on Old State Road in rural Sycamore to check on her mother and brother after she couldn’t get ahold of them all day.

It wasn’t all that unusual, Sue said Thursday. Her elderly mother had left the landline phone off the hook before. Her brother was hard of hearing and sometimes didn’t hear his phone. Still, Sue decided to drive to the home at 16058 Old State Road just to be sure.

When she walked inside, she saw her brother, Robert Wilson, lying on his back at the bottom of the stairs, blood pooling around him. He was not responsive. Frantic, she ran upstairs to her 85-year-old mother’s bedroom, looking for Patricia Wilson. Patricia’s bed appeared occupied. The covers were pulled up and something was bunched underneath, “looking like somebody was laying there,” Sue Saari said. She pulled the covers back, hoping she’d found her mom. Instead, multiple pairs of Patricia’s jeans were bunched on the bed covered by the blanket. Patricia was nowhere to be found.

Panicked now, Saari ran outside the home and called her husband of 38 years, Mike Saari to come over. Then she called 911.

“My brother, I think he is dead,” a noticeably distraught Saari told a police dispatcher, gasping and crying over the phone. “I can’t find my mom. … Please hurry.”

At one point, Saari told the dispatcher her mother’s car was gone, but Patricia doesn’t drive it. When the dispatcher asked if Saari was in the house, she replied, crying “No I can’t go back in there. There’s blood everywhere.”

The clip ends with Saari’s voice yelling in the background, “Where is my mom? Where is she?”

Nearly a decade later, Saari sat and listened to that 911 call play to a crowded courtroom in front of a jury, while the man accused in the killings sat and watched.

Saari sobbed as she recounted her last image of her brother to kick off witness testimony Thursday.

The long-awaited double murder trial of Jonathan D. Hurst, 55, formerly of Chicago, convened Thursday morning after two days of jury selection and almost nine years after the Wilson were found beaten to death inside their home.

Jurors filed in to DeKalb County Circuit Court Judge Marcy Buick’s courtroom – 11 men and 5 women, including alternates – to hear opening remarks in what’s expected to be lengthy criminal proceedings.

Hurst, wearing a blue-patterned tie, brown suit and black thick-framed glasses, did not appear to react noticeably as lead prosecutor Scott Schwertley, assistant state’s attorney, told jurors prosecutors expect to present enough evidence to show Hurst killed the Wilsons “savagely.”

“Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016, started off as a normal day for Patricia Wilson and her son, Robert Wilson,” Schwertley said in opening statements. “But that is not how it ended.”

Prosecutors plan to call almost 50 witnesses throughout the length of the trial, which could last through the end of the month. Among those included Saari, her husband Mike, Patricia’s sister and nearly two dozen law enforcement personal, according to court records.

Schwertley told jurors key evidence, including DNA samples and fingerprints collected by police detectives over the course of five days after the Wilsons were found dead, will point to Hurst’s guilt. In a police interview after he was arrested at his Cincinnati, Ohio home on Feb. 24, 2020, Hurst told authorities he’d never been to Sycamore and didn’t know the Wilsons, Schwertley said.

Prosecutors said cell tower data proves Hurst’s cellphone was in the area for much of the day Aug. 14, 2016. Patricia Wilson’s missing 2010 white Chevrolet Impala was found nine days later by Chicago police within walking distance from where Hurst used to live at the time, Schwertley said.

Forensic experts are expected to testify about breakthrough DNA genealogy technology that helped investigators build a genealogy tree backwards to find a suspect.

“One of those persons on that tree was this defendant, Jonathan Hurst,” Schwertley said, pointing to Hurst, who did not visibly react.

Hurst faces four counts of first-degree murder charges and one count of home invasion. If convicted, he could face a life sentence.

The defense, however, told jurors Thursday they’ll soon learn that prosecutors’ chain of evidence has holes in it.

“It’s not pretty, it’s not happy, and what happened to Robert and Patricia Wilson was horrible, and should never have happened,” public defender Emma Franklin said in opening statements. “[…]But the state wants you to believe that Jonathan Hurst is responsible for those killings. And ladies and gentleman, he is not responsible for these killings.”

Loved ones and family of the Wilsons sat crowded in the front row gallery and looked on as Franklin argued that prosecutors and police made “a big jump” in the years-long investigation.

“The evidence is going to show that once the police got what they thought was their first big clue in this case, they stopped investigating anything else, or any other suspect,” Franklin said. “They formed a theory and then they got tunnel vision.”

Throughout the morning, Hurst’s defense team asked questions regarding placement of objects in the home, asking Sue how often she visited her family on Old State Road, and about other details such as if lights were turned on or off when they arrived.

The defense is expected to bring about a dozen of their own witnesses when prosecution rests their arguments expected sometime next week.

Mike Saari, Sue’s husband, followed his wife’s testimony.

Frequently, he took long pauses and looked up at the ceiling as he recalled walking into his in-laws’ home at his wife’s request, only to find Patricia Wilson’s dead body laying face down in the basement laundry room.

Patricia was wearing blue shorts and sneakers, and appeared to be lying half in a crawl space next to the dryer on one side and hanging clothes on the other, photographs presented to the jury showed.

When a distraught Sue called her husband to say she feared her brother was dead, Mike drove to meet her at the home, taking Mt. Hunger Road about 8 miles from his house to 16058 Old State Road, he said in testimony. Sue would not re-enter the home, so Mike went inside.

“There was blood spatter on the staircase wall, on the sliding glass door. Bob was on his back,” Mike Saari said, then paused, appearing to collect himself. “And the left side of his face was badly injured, just bruised, black. His left eye was closed, his right eye was partially open.”

Mike also tried to find Patricia upstairs, but didn’t see her. He went back to the ground level and noticed two couch cushions turned over. He tried calling Patricia’s name. No answer.

Instead, he went down the stairs, stepped over his brother-in-law’s body, took a left to the laundry room, turned the light on and found his wife’s mother.

“Pat was face down,” Mike Saari said. “She was, to me, obviously deceased. I couldn’t see her face. There was a pool of blood on her right side of her head.”

Prosecutor Brooks Locke asked if he went into the room.

“I stepped in, like one step, and kind of stepped back, and trying to process what I’d just seen,” Mike Saari said. “I just turned off the light, and tried to remember how to breathe.”

Police arrived minutes later. Their testimony is expected to take up much of the afternoon and next few days as prosecutors seek to paint a picture of what they’ve said was an extensive crime scene processing.

As her husband testified, Sue embraced another Wilson family member, rubbing her back and watching from the gallery.

Proceedings broke for a 15-minute break at about 10:45 a.m. Thursday. While lawyers chatted, Hurst turned his chair around and appeared to speak amicably to the half dozen people gathered on his side of the courtroom. At times, he smiled and laughed.

He’s denied being in the area, pleaded not guilty, and has no known criminal history on file, authorities have said. It’s not yet known if he will testify in his own defense.