Murder trial to begin in 2002 death of Johnsburg teen

JOHNSBURG – In the mornings after his son’s disappearance, Bill Carrick would wake up in disbelief.

“You know how you’re just kind of groggy, coming out of a deep sleep?” he said. “It would hit me, ‘Jesus, Brian’s dead.’ Then I’d think, ‘No, it can’t be.’”

Then the pain would settle in.

“We coined the phrase ‘Brian attacks’ because it would be so devastating that it would leave you incapacitated,” Bill Carrick said. “You just couldn’t do anything, and then like magic it would go away. I never did figure that out.”

The pain has since waned.

“I think about Brian all the time,” Bill Carrick said. “But I don’t cry anymore.”

The trial for the man accused of murdering Brian Carrick, 17, is scheduled to begin today and last about two weeks. Mario Casciaro, who worked with Carrick at the grocery store where he was last seen alive, is charged with five counts of murder and one count of concealing a homicide.

“We’ve been preparing very hard for the last few months, and we’re ready,” said Casciaro’s attorney, Brian Telander. “It’s going to be a long, hard-fought trial.”

Carrick, a Johnsburg High School junior, last was seen about 6:45 p.m. Dec. 20, 2002, walking into Val’s Foods, directly across the street from his Johnsburg house. His blood was found in a produce cooler and in boxes from a trash compactor at the store, where he worked as a stock boy.

Val’s has since closed, with the owner saying that Carrick’s disappearance was the beginning of the end for the business.

It wasn’t until February 2010, a little more than seven years after Carrick disappeared, that Casciaro, 28, was arrested. He eventually was released from custody after posting $500,000, or 10 percent of his $5 million bond.

While Casciaro had previously been acquitted of perjury related to the case, it was the first time prosecutors charged someone directly for what long was believed to be a homicide.

Court documents show that prosecutors believe the motive was a drug debt.

Casciaro allegedly directed Carrick to sell marijuana and then turn part of the proceeds back over. But Carrick didn’t, which resulted in Casciaro seeking to collect the debt – and a confrontation, Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Combs has said.

Casciaro’s arrest came about five weeks after an immunity agreement was finalized with Shane Lamb, a 27-year-old man who is serving a six-year prison sentence on a drug charge. His projected parole date is now less than five months away.

It was Lamb who allegedly confronted Carrick. “Things got out of hand,” according to the testimony of Casciaro’s friend Alan Lippert during the perjury trial. And Carrick ended up dead.

If Lamb lies during his testimony, withholds information or changes his story, his immunity agreement will be terminated.

Another former Val’s employee, Robert Render, 26, was charged in July 2008 with concealing Carrick’s homicide, but prosecutors dropped the case. Authorities have said Render helped clean up potential evidence after the disappearance and was among the last to see Carrick alive.

Telander has pointed out in court documents that Render had both his own and Carrick’s blood on his shoes, and that his blood also was found at the crime scene.

Render has since been sent to prison on retail theft convictions and has been on parole since July.

The prosecution’s case is not without obstacles, perhaps the most important of which is that Carrick’s body has never been found.

But portions of grand jury testimony from Casciaro’s indictment for perjury revealed what authorities believe may have happened. Casciaro was accused of lying when he denied telling Lippert that he called his cousins from Chicago to dispose of Carrick’s body.

He also denied telling Lippert that the body initially was buried in a local area and ultimately moved, dismembered and thrown into a river in Iowa.

Another challenge for prosecutors is that the key witnesses – Lamb, Lippert, and Render, if he is called to the stand – all have criminal records.

Lippert’s convictions include possession of marijuana, criminal trespass to a residence, burglary, and resisting a peace officer.

Bill Carrick said he can’t say he wants to see Casciaro behind bars without sounding vindictive, which he isn’t.

“I’m not angry, I’m not vengeful,” he said. “This life we lead is short and it’s not about money, it’s not about power, it’s not about revenge.”

If he thought Casciaro killed Brian on purpose, he might feel differently.

“From what I understand about what actually happened, it was pretty much an accident,” Bill Carrick said. “Shane Lamb is a psychopath, and if Mario [Casciaro] would have talked to Brian instead of letting Shane loose on him, this never would have happened.”

Brian’s 13 brothers and sisters aren’t as forgiving, he said.

“As far as I’m concerned, this is just a terrible tragedy,” Bill Carrick said. “It was an accident. The surrounding circumstances, the dealing with the marijuana and Shane and all this other stuff, that just adds to it, gives it the criminal element.”

He said he has no doubt that Lamb will be back behind bars again eventually for committing another crime.

“Initially, he’ll walk,” Bill Carrick said. “If Mario’s acquitted, he’ll walk, and whoever else was involved, we’ll never know.”

He doesn’t expect to find out, but he would like to know what happened to Brian’s body.

At the same time, it doesn’t change much for him.

“Everybody talks about closure, and honest to God, I don’t know what they mean by that,” Bill Carrick said. “If we had a funeral, all right, so we’d know where Brian was buried, but he’d still be gone.”

Bill Carrick said he took some solace in knowing that his wife and Brian’s mother, Terry, is with Brian. She died in November 2009 from leukemia, after Casciaro was acquitted of perjury but before he was charged with murder.

“I know how she handled the first trial, with the continuances and the legal maneuvering they do, she was upset,” Bill Carrick said. “She was bound and determined that she was going to have a meeting with all the judges and attorneys, and she was going to read the riot act and change the law.”

Bill Carrick said he just wants it to all be done, for himself and for the Johnsburg community that has been supportive.

About a year after Brian disappeared, a memorial service was held at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Johnsburg.

“There was standing room only. There were more people there than Christmas and Easter,” Bill Carrick said. “I think that the whole community would just like to put this to rest.”