Guilty verdict almost 9 years after Wilson murders in Sycamore

SYCAMORE – As the verdict was read Thursday and family of Patricia Wilson and Robert Wilson wept, Jonathan D. Hurst, found guilty of murdering the elderly mother and her son, sat next to his defense lawyers and appeared to show no reaction.

Hurst, 55, was found guilty of first-degree murder and home invasion, almost nine years after Patricia, 85, and her son Robert, 64, who lived with her and took care of her, were found bludgeoned to death inside their rural Sycamore home, 16058 Old State Road. The Wilsons lived there since the 1970s.

Hurst had pleaded not guilty and denied knowing the Wilsons or ever being in Sycamore. But over the course of a yearslong double homicide investigation led by more than two dozen DeKalb County area detectives, a six-day trial and witness testimony from police and forensic experts, prosecutors led by Scott Schwertley showed a different story.

“We’re just happy that the Wilson family, Mike and Sue Saari and Nancy Strever, that they got an answer and justice,“ Schwertley said Thursday after the verdict was read.

Forensic evidence including DNA and fingerprints that experts said belonged to Hurst were found on multiple items in the Wilson home. Evidence of Hurst was on three knife handles, a pillow in a basement laundry room crawl space, two soda cans and a bathroom mirror.

Sue Saari, Patricia’s daughter and Robert’s sister, and her husband Mike Saari, found the Wilsons dead Aug. 15.

Patricia’s body was found lying half in that crawl space. Robert lay along the downstairs steps. Both died from blunt-force head trauma, a coroner ruled.

Phone records showed Hurst had been in the Sycamore area on Aug. 14, 2016, the last time anyone ever saw or heard from the Wilsons alive. And Patricia’s missing white Chevrolet Impala was found near Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago within walking distance of Hurst’s apartment at the time.

The jury deliberated for under three hours and returned to Circuit Court Judge Marcy Buick’s courtroom about 4:15 p.m.

Buick is expected to sentence Hurst at a hearing set for 9:45 a.m. March 20. The sentence for double murder in Illinois is natural life, with no parole.

Buick thanked the jurors for their patience during what she called “a lengthy proceeding.”

“Jury duty, I believe is one of the most important roles we serve as Americans,” Buick said after the verdict.

The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office lead the investigation, following more than 1,200 leads that took them through Illinois, Indiana and Washington state. They found Hurst in Ohio in February 2020, after an extensive forensic process that utilized DNA samples from the crime scene to develop a profile of what the killer might look like.

“I was very relieved when the verdict was read,” DeKalb County Sheriff Andy Sullivan said.

Sullivan was chief deputy under now retired Sheriff Roger Scott when the Saaris found their loved ones beaten to death inside their home the night of Aug. 15, 2016. They’d gone to check on the Wilsons after they couldn’t reach them by phone all day.

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Jonathan D. Hurst takes one last look back at his family members Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, at the DeKalb County Courthouse, after being found guilty of the 2016 murders of elderly mother and son Patricia Wilson and Robert Wilson in Sycamore. (Mark Busch)

Over the years, Sullivan and Scott have said investigators never considered the double homicide a cold case, but worked tirelessly to find answers for the family.

“Although we have a guilty verdict it still doesn’t bring any comfort to the family of this crime, which is troublesome,” Sullivan said. “And we still don’t know the why. So they’re always going to have to have that question, which will always bother me. But I’m very proud of all the investigators that worked on this case.”

Sullivan said thanked investigators, crime scene technicians and forensic scientists, among others, for their “countless hours” over the course of the investigation.

DeKalb County State’s Attorney Riley Oncken said Thursday he was proud of the prosecution assistant state’s attorneys Schwertley, Brooks Locke and Neil Michling presented to the jury.

“I hope that this verdict can bring some closure to the Wilson family and to so many in the community that cared about Patricia and Robert Wilson,” Oncken said in a news release. “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.”

Defense argues investigation, evidence was ‘sloppy’

After prosecutors spent five days calling dozens of witnesses to argue that Hurst killed Patricia Wilson and Robert Wilson on a random Sunday night in August, his defense started and ended their arguments in one hour Thursday morning.

Lead defense attorney Chip Criswell accused prosecutors of presenting to the jury what he called “red herrings,” that he argued unfairly pointed to Hurst as the killer. DeKalb Police Detective Kelly Sullivan in earlier testimony said the killer had left the Wilson home a “sloppy” crime scene.

“I don’t know if it was the killer who was sloppy and disorganized, or the investigation was,” Criswell said during closing statements.

Criswell said the “brutality” of what the Wilsons suffered was not up for dispute. What was, he argued, was the person responsible.

To the jury, public defenders Criswell and Emma Franklin presented an alternate view of Jonathan Hurst: a kind and helpful brother. Someone with a listening ear, who hosted Friendsgiving annually and moved to Ohio to help his elderly aunt, according to testimony from his siblings and a friend of 20 years.

Hurst declined to take the witness stand himself.

Craig Hurst, of Indiana, told the jury his brother – who was convicted of bludgeoning the Wilsons to death – wasn’t a violent person.

“As nonviolent a person as I’ve ever known,” Craig Hurst said. “Everyone I know that has ever interacted with him considers him a friendly and helpful person.”

Laura Hurst, of Texas, said that her younger brother was “extremely gentle and caring” and “the kind of person you go to when you need help.”

Danyel Duncan, who said she met Hurst in 2005 at work and “quickly became great friends,” described him as “amazingly gentle,” in testimony. As Hurst was escorted out by deputies after the guilty verdict, Duncan said, “We love you, John.” He appeared to give her a small smile in return.

But prosecutors said evidence at the Wilsons' home showed a more brutal reality.

“Does a good person break into an older person, 85-year-old woman’s house, sneak into her basement, arm himself with weapons and then brutally murder them? No,” Schwertley said in closing arguments.

From Chicago to Sycamore

On Friday, Aug. 12, 2016, Hurst walked from his Lincoln Park Chicago apartment along North Avenue to an extended-stay hotel in Elmhurst.

He’d planned to hike across Illinois. He didn’t have a job at the time, and two years had passed since his mother died on Aug. 9, 2014, he told police later.

“There’s a trail that runs across Illinois,” Hurst told police detectives on Feb. 24, 2020, according to video footage. “I thought I’d just try to hike it. ... I didn’t prepare very well for it.”

North Avenue turns into Illinois Route 64, which runs just behind the Wilson home.

Hurst paid for one night in room 308, then left the hotel that Saturday morning, Aug. 13. He told police he’d grown tired, and decided to walk home to Chicago.

But cellphone records place him in the Sycamore area – about 30 miles west or a day’s walk from Elmhurst – the next morning, Sunday, Aug. 14, testimony showed.

“He says that he went home, but the evidence says otherwise,” prosecutor Brooks Locke said.

That Sunday, Patricia and Robert went to church and then brunch after at the Sycamore Cafe. Robert dropped his mother back home and then spent the afternoon at the Sycamore Moose Lodge. He drove her Impala. Patricia mowed the lawn.

When Robert got back home, he went outside to do some work in an outbuilding. Patricia called her sister, Nancy Strever, who she talked with daily. She told Nancy she planned to go downstairs to do some laundry before going to bed.

Patricia Wilson and Robert Wilson were not seen or heard from alive again.

That’s because Jonathan Hurst murdered them that Sunday night, a jury ruled Thursday.

Hurst’s phone connected to a Sycamore T-Mobile cell tower at 4:41 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 14 and again at 9:51 p.m. Aug. 14, records presented to the jury show.

Authorities believe the Wilsons were killed sometime between 7:45 p.m. Aug. 14 and 12:33 a.m. Aug. 15, because Patricia’s white Chevrolet Impala was picked up headed east on Illinois Route 64 near a St. Charles Shell gas station. A CTA Chicago bus picked up video of the car at 10:58 a.m. on Stockton Avenue near Lincoln Park Zoo later that morning. Police found the missing car 10 days later, Aug. 24, in the same spot.

The spot was within walking distance of the 1446 N. Wells St. in Chicago, where Hurst lived at the time.

Did the sheriff believe a verdict would ever come in a case took 3 ½ years to make an arrest and five more years to pass through the courts?

“I did,” Sullivan said. “Because of how the crime scene was developed and we had solid evidence, DNA and fingerprints from that crime scene. I knew eventually we would solve it.”

This story was updated at 8:55 p.m. Jan. 30, 2025. Additional updates could occur.