Father charged in Illinois two girls deaths

[C-Mac]

Father charged in girls' deaths
Tuesday, May 10, 2005 Posted: 6:34 PM EDT (2234 GMT)

Jerry Hobbs faces two charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of his daughter and best friend.

ZION, Illinois (CNN) -- Police have taken Jerry Hobbs into custody and charged him with murdering his 8-year-old daughter, Laura, and her best friend, 9-year-old Krystal Tobias.

The two friends are believed to have been stabbed to death Sunday on Mother's Day.

He was reported to have found the girls' bodies early Monday in a park just blocks away from their elementary school, said police in Zion, about 45 miles north of Chicago.

Hobbs, 34, could face the death penalty. But Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller said whether to pursue the death penalty was not a decision he wanted to make "in the heat of the moment."

"The arrest today is the first step in the process of bringing this person to justice," Waller said.

Waller said the girls were not lured to the park, rather they encountered Hobbs there.

Hobbs' bond hearing is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

He was released from prison in Texas last month after serving nearly two years for violating his probation. He had been serving time after pleading guilty to assault in 2002, said Rick Mahler, an assistant district attorney in Wichita Falls, Texas.

"He started chasing people around with a chainsaw that was running," Mahler said. "Somebody hit him with a shovel, knocked him down. Those people held him until the police arrived."

Hobbs was arrested again in 2003 after failing to show up for visits with his probation officer and skipping anger management classes.

School Superintendent Connie Collins said the killings have left the community "in terrible shock." (Full story)

"It's very difficult to begin to understand something like this," Collins said. "It's something that was not expected. In a community like this, we have never had this type of experience, so it's been very difficult for everyone."

[ExtremeChief]

Originally Posted by siberian khatru

Is that from a Sears advertisement?

[dollar1]

I heard a report that he was pissed because she went bike riding when she was supposed to be grounded.

Hopefully the truth will come out later.

~Crawling back under my rock~

[C-Mac]

Originally Posted by dollar1

I heard a report that he was pissed because she went bike riding when she was supposed to be grounded.

Hopefully the truth will come out later.

~Crawling back under my rock~

Man says he killed girls after daughter disobeyed, prosecutors say
BY SUSAN KUCZKA, LISA BLACK AND CARLOS SADOVI
Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO - (KRT) - Jerry Branton Hobbs III told police he became enraged when his 8-year-old daughter defied his order to come home, then killed the girl and her best friend with a small knife before dragging their bodies into the woods, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Hobbs, just released from a Texas prison last month, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the Mother's Day slayings of his daughter, Laura Hobbs, 8, and her friend Krystal Tobias, 9.

"This was a slaughter of two little girls," Lake County Assistant State's Attorney Jeffrey L. Pavletic said during a bond hearing for Hobbs.

In gripping and disturbing testimony, Pavletic read from Hobbs' purported confession during the bond hearing in the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan where Judge Victoria L. Martin granted a prosecution request to deny bond.

Hobbs, 34, told police he was already smoldering Sunday because Sheila Hollabaugh, Laura's mother and Hobbs' girlfriend, had allowed the girl to go play even though she was supposed to be grounded for stealing $40 from her a week earlier, Pavletic said. Hobbs was living with Hollabaugh and her parents.

At 4:30 p.m. CDT, he went into Beulah Park to confront Laura, Pavletic said.

He found the girls and ordered his daughter home, and when she refused he began punching her, briefly knocking her unconscious, Hobbs allegedly told police.

Krystal tried to help her friend and pulled out a "potato knife" - apparently Texas slang for a small knife with a 4- to 6-inch blade - which Hobbs took away from her and used to stab the girls, Hobbs reportedly said.

"He said he grabbed (Laura), she grabbed back, and they started hitting each other, and that's when he hit her and punched Krystal," said Cmdr. William Valko of the Lake County Major Crime Task Force. "Then he stabbed Krystal, and as his daughter is waking up he stabbed her."

He repeatedly stabbed both girls, Pavletic said.

"Laura had 20 stab wounds. She was stabbed in the neck, she was stabbed in the abdomen, she was stabbed once in each eye," Pavletic said, adding that Krystal was stabbed 11 times.

Hobbs told police he dragged the youngsters' bodies 20 feet to a wooded area of the park, Pavletic said. Their bodies later were found, faces beaten and bloodied, lying side by side with their shoes neatly placed next to them.

Hobbs then went home and tried to clean himself off with rubbing alcohol, prosecutors said.

Hobbs showed little remorse, Valko said.

"He did not shed a tear the whole time he was being interviewed by us about his daughter's death," Valko said. "The only time he cried was during a videotaped confession when he read what he was doing to the girls."

Moreover, prosecutors cast doubt on parts of Hobbs' story, saying they were skeptical that a young girl would have been carrying a weapon or that either child posed a physical threat to Hobbs.

"I don't necessarily believe that part of the statement" about the knife, said Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller. "She may have grabbed a leg or something. She's a little girl. This guy is about 6-foot-1."

Krystal and Laura were each about 4 feet tall and 60 pounds, according to the Lake County coroner's office.

Hobbs initially told police the "potato knife" could be found at the crime scene, but later said he washed it at home, investigators said. Several knives were removed from Hobbs' residence to try to find DNA or blood evidence on any of them.

Hobbs first raised suspicion when he reported finding the dead girls at 6 a.m. Monday. Although he told authorities he never got within 20 feet of the bodies, prosecutors said, Hobbs gave a detailed description of the wounds, setting off alarm bells for investigators.

On close-knit Gilboa Avenue Wednesday, Krystal Tobias' family and friends said it would have been in character for her to come to the aid of a friend, but not to carry a knife.

"She was not like that," said her brother Alberto Segura, 15. "My brothers had toy guns and she was afraid of them. The only time she picks up a knife is if she's helping my mom cook."

But Krystal was brave, Segura said, and took no guff even from her three brothers. "Every time we picked on her, she'd fight back," he said.

The Rev. Gary Graf of Holy Family church in Waukegan, said the Tobias family is still trying to come to grips with the tragedy.

"They have absolutely no thoughts about anything beyond their daughter - how this happened, why this happened," said Graf, who was counseling the family. "It's just right now to try to console themselves."

Hobbs, who appeared for the bond hearing Wednesday dressed in a blue jail jumpsuit, kept his head down and squeezed his eyes closed as prosecutors detailed the slayings.

When Judge Martin asked if he could afford to hire his own attorney, he answered "No, Ma'am."

His voice was slightly shaky when he told Martin he was staying with his wife's family. He shook his head "no" as prosecutors began detailing the charges against him, saying he confessed to the crimes on videotape.

Hobbs arrived in Zion, Ill., last month after serving two years in a Texas prison for violating probation on an assault conviction. The incident began with him confronting Hollabaugh, with whom he has three children, and ended with him chasing bystanders in a Wichita Falls mobile home park with a chain saw.

Aseph Almas, now a private attorney in Houston, was a prosecutor for the Wichita County district attorney's office at the time. He remembers the case because even though Hobbs had used a roaring chainsaw to go after people, Hobbs claimed he was trying to defend himself.

"I said, `With a chainsaw?'" he said. "Yeah. ... He said his wife got some guys to beat him up."

Throughout their conversation Hobbs kept trying to show him scrapes that he had on his arm and legs to prove that he was the one who was in danger, Almas said.

But the prosecutor did not buy the argument. Sheila Hollabaugh said they got somebody to hit Hobbs in the back of the head with a shovel because that was the only way to stop him, Almas said.

After the August 2001 chainsaw incident, Hollabaugh wrote of her life with Hobbs in a request for a restraining order filed in Wichita County. The two had lived together for 10 years, she wrote, before she left him in August 2000 because he was an alcoholic who physically abused her.

"Since I left him he has done nothing but cause problems for me," she wrote in a clear hand. "I have to see him all the time and every time he comes around he starts some kind of fight with me. If I listed the dates it would be every other day."

Yet Hollabaugh told investigators in Zion that when she found out Hobbs would be getting out of prison last month, she asked her parents, Arthur and Emily, if he could move in, Valko said.

Apparently, she allowed Hobbs into her family's home despite his violent background for one simple reason, Valko said: "She says she was in love with Jerry."

Police had not received any reports about domestic problems involving Hobbs since he came to Zion, Valko added.

A Department of Children and Family Services official arrived Wednesday afternoon to check in on the well-being of Sheila Hollabaugh's three other children, including a daughter from another relationship.

Helen Taylor, a longtime neighbor of the Hollabaughs, said Sheila Hollabaugh and her four children joined her parents last August.

Taylor, 68, said it appeared Arthur Hollabaugh, Sheila's father, was not pleased when Hobbs came to live with him.

"He said, `I guess the boyfriend is coming next week,'" she recalled. "He looked like he was not happy about it."

[J Diddy]

There are truly some sick ****s out there. Here me now. If I go away for a long time and nobody hears from me it's because someone tried or did some sick shit like this to my kids.

I will be in jail and yes it will be worth it, even if I get the death penalty.