Spring Grove-area man pleads guilty to fatally shooting Harvard 18-year-old, sentenced to 26 years in prison

A man pleaded guilty Wednesday, almost five years after being charged with fatally shooting a Harvard teenager in his home near Spring Grove, and was sentenced to 26 years and six months in prison.

John M. Maki Jr., 52, pleaded guilty to the murder of Dylan Sanchez, 18, who was found fatally shot in Maki’s home on May 15, 2019, according to police and McHenry County court records.

On May 15, 2019, police responded to an emergency 911 call to a home in the Spring Grove-Richmond area for a mentally ill individual and a body on the floor. When McHenry County sheriff’s deputies arrived about 7:15 p.m., they found Sanchez’s body, according to police and the indictment. The teen died from an apparent gunshot wound to the face, according to the McHenry County Coroner’s Office.

Police found Sanchez’s body under a blanket, according to a plea agreement written by Assistant State’s Attorney Ashley Romito.

“A subsequent autopsy would reveal that Dylan Sanchez died as a result of homicidal means. The police investigation would reveal that the defendant, John M. Maki, performed the acts that killed Dylan Sanchez, and that those acts were not justifiable,” she said.

Maki and Sanchez were acquaintances, and Sanchez “had been recently invited to live” in Maki’s home, Romito said, adding that “forensic evidence implicating” Maki including DNA analysis was found at the scene.

Maki, described by police as having “hallucinations and self-inflicted wounds to parts of his body,” was taken from his home to Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital. He was evaluated, treated, stabilized and released within about three hours.

“Following arrest, medical and forensic tests revealed the presence of cannabinoids in [the] defendant’s system. Several cannabis smoking pipes were recovered on the homicide scene as well as cannabis ... in plant form and in residue,” Romito wrote.

Maki was not arraigned until 2022, almost three years after his arrest, because two months after his arrest lawyers raised a doubt to his fitness. He was found unfit and treated in an in-patient state-run mental health facility in Elgin.

Maki then was restored to fitness and returned to the county jail, where he has been held on a $5 million bond, in September 2019. His attorney had another evaluation done on Maki in 2020, which also showed he was fit to stand trial, according to documents and court testimony.

Maki was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder with antisocial personality traits and marijuana use disorder, according to an earlier order.

An attempt to reach his attorney for comment Wednesday was not successful.