Mother: ‘A Knife Through My Heart’

NAPERVILLE, Ill. —  They endured a horrific tragedy, suffered a terrible loss, but when Patricia and Thomas Nicarico talk of pain, they name an unlikely culprit--the criminal justice system.

It’s the attorneys, judges and others in the world of law and order whom they blame for twisting their torment over the murder of their daughter, Jeanine, into nine years of fear and frustration.

“I’m more angry at the officers of the court, more so than the people that did this,” Nicarico said. “One side has stirred the pot and the other side has allowed it to develop and the system has allowed this whole boiling mess to fester to the point where this becomes the focal point, not the crime.”

The Nicaricos believe the two men convicted of Jeanine’s murder are guilty. But they worry that with the courts rehashing the case so many times, memories will fade, evidence will be tossed out, the truth will be buried--and the killers will go free.

“The people that did this could be back out on the streets--to me that is horrendous and frightening,” Patricia Nicarico said.

“You keep hearing the same assertions . . . to the point if you say it often enough, maybe somebody’s going to start believing it, and that’s what worries me,” her husband said. “How many details are getting lost in the repetition?”

A number of people think the imprisoned Alejandro Hernandez and Rolando Cruz are innocent and that Brian Dugan, a convicted killer who confessed to the crime outside of court, is guilty.

When a state prosecutor this spring quit and joined the ranks of law enforcement people who believe Dugan, the Nicaricos were hurt and confused--again.

“It’s like putting a knife through my heart every time this happens,” said the victim’s mother, 49, who has two other daughters. “I don’t understand how much more needs to be done before people are convinced.”

“Probably the biggest tragedy of it all is we spend more energy and anxiety over the court proceedings than we do grieving,” Thomas Nicarico said. “I don’t know if we ever really have gotten around to completing the grieving process.”

The Nicaricos have faithfully attended four trials, listening to months of debate, weeks of witnesses and days of gruesome details. They’ve watched attorneys come and go. They have become experts in their own ordeal, sometimes reminding prosecutors of overlooked testimony.

Their diligence has a price: They have had to relive their youngest daughter’s last moments, the terror, loneliness and anguish the 10-year-old endured as she was abducted from home, raped, beaten and dumped in the woods.

“I just have to keep remembering that Jeanine is no longer suffering,” her mother said, her soft voice quavering. “This is nothing compared to the pain that she went through.”

The Nicaricos say that when Dugan first came forward, they thought he could be the killer. They even agreed to have Jeanine’s body exhumed in 1986 to test the veracity of his confession.

“We believed if that was what it’s going to take to close this, then we will do it,” Patricia Nicarico said. “Believe me, when we signed those papers, we did it with tears in our eyes. Even after doing that, it wasn’t enough.”

“There are days,” she added, her eyes brimming again, “when I think about it, and I’d like to scream at these defense attorneys. . . . ‘Just think about what has gone on here.’ It was the hardest thing we’ve ever done in our life.”

The exhumation proved Dugan to be wrong on some facts and, although Dugan knew some details, “he doesn’t get the right things right,” said Thomas Nicarico, a 52-year-old engineer.

For most of the last nine years, the Nicaricos have kept a low profile while the defense has waged a public, media-conscious campaign.

Patricia Nicarico would like the prosecutors to be equally vocal, to come forward and say, “We believe we’ve got the right ones.”

“At times, I feel like we’re fighting this alone,” she said plaintively. “Who is there for us?”

The Nicaricos have moved to a new home a few miles away from where they lived with Jeanine.

They and their two daughters, 23 and 26, talk frequently about her, visit her grave and keep photos of the smiling fifth-grader on display.

“Jeanine was a very cheerful, bubbly and life-filled child,” said her mother, an elementary school secretary. “In her 10 years, she touched a lot of people. . . . I feel like she’s living on in us. She’s here with us, kind of on my shoulder.”

Time heals. But it hurts too.

Bittersweet emotions surface when the Nicaricos see their daughter’s friends, now in college. Jeanine would have been 20 this month.

“In our minds, Jeanine is still 10 years old,” Patricia Nicarico said. “She never will be any older.”

The Nicaricos yearn for the day when there is a final resolution to their case.

“That will never take away the pain of what happened,” her mother said, but “there would be some satisfaction in knowing that you could close that chapter.”

Thomas Nicarico isn’t confident that he’ll witness that.

“Somewhere there’s justice,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever see it in this lifetime. I don’t know if we’ll ever know the truth, the complete truth.”