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."

[C-Mac]

Sick Bastage

[Rain Man]

He killed his own daughter in the park on a chance encounter? Am I missing something?

[siberian khatru]

"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."

[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."

[Bob Dole]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

He killed his own daughter in the park on a chance encounter? Am I missing something?

Bob Dole had the same question while reading the article.

Perhaps the girl's mother had custody and he wasn't sceduled for a visit?

[C-Mac]

Father Arrested in Slaying of Two Girls in Illinois
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: May 10, 2005
The father of one of two young girls found stabbed to death in a park on Monday was arrested and charged today with two counts of murder, easing the fear but not the shock that has gripped the town of Zion, Ill., since the girls were reported missing on Mother's Day.

The charges against the father, Jerry Hobbs, were announced at a televised news conference this afternoon by the Lake County state's attorney, Michael J. Waller. Both children had been beaten and stabbed, he said at the press briefing in Zion, about 45 miles north of Chicago. Officials said there were no obvious indications of sexual assault.

"This horrible crime has terrorized and traumatized the Zion community and, I think it's safe to say, people of good will everywhere," said Mr. Waller, who described it as the "most horrific crime" he had seen in 30 years in law enforcement.

Mr. Hobbs reported finding the bodies of his missing 8-year-old daughter, Laura, and her best friend Krystal Tobias, 9, early Monday while he and Laura's grandfather, Arthur Hollabaugh, who is Mr. Hobbs's father-in-law, searched Beulah Park, in Zion.

Laura and Krystal had been bicycling and playing in the neighborhood on Sunday, Mother's Day. When they did not return home that night, their families called the police.

Mr. Hollabaugh told The Associated Press today that he and Mr. Hobbs began searching at first light on Monday and eventually spotted a child's bicycle in the bushes part way down a wooded ravine in the park.

Minutes later, he said, Mr. Hobbs screamed that he had found the girls' bodies. "I went and I seen them from a distance," Mr. Hollabaugh told The A.P. "It was clear they were laying there."

Mr. Hollabaugh said he did not believe that his son-in-law had killed the girls.

"Jerry just got out of prison for aggravated assault, and I think they're holding that against him," Mr. Hollabaugh told The A.P. "I don't think he did it."
During today's news conference, Mr. Waller said he could not provide details about the evidence against Mr. Hobbs because state law bars such disclosures until a suspect has had a bond hearing. Mr. Hobbs's hearing is set for 10 a.m. Wednesday.

"We believe we have a compelling case against this defendant, and that will come out in due course," Mr. Waller said.

The prosecutor did say that Mr. Hobbs' actions after he was questioned by the authorities had "piqued the officers' interest" in him as a possible suspect. Mr. Waller declined to describe those actions.

Mayor Lane Harrison told reporters at the news conference that word that the killings did not appear to have been the work of a stranger might help calm his town of 22,000. But, Mayor Harrison added, "We will all have questions until the day we die."

Citing records from the Texas Department of Public Safety, The Associated Press reported that Mr. Hobbs has an extensive criminal history dating to 1990 in Texas, including arrests for assault and resisting arrest.

The records also show that Mr. Hobbs has had a rocky relationship with Laura's mother, Sheila Hollabaugh. Mr. Hobbs was arrested in 2001 after arguing with her, grabbing a chainsaw and chasing residents around the Texas trailer park where they lived at the time, according to an assistant district attorney in Wichita County, Rick Mahler. Mr. Hobbs was eventually subdued by a blow to the back with a shovel, Mr. Mahler told The Associated Press.

Mr. Hobbs was convicted of aggravated assault and sentenced to 10 years' probation, but he failed to appear for his required meetings, so his probation was revoked in 2003 and he was imprisoned until his release on April 12, the news service reported.

[C-Mac]

Originally Posted by BobChief

Bob Dole had the same question while reading the article.

Perhaps the girl's mother had custody and he wasn't sceduled for a visit?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter...tory?id=745597

"Hobbs had been living with the Hollabaughs after his release, Arthur Hollabaugh said. He said he worried authorities might be trying to railroad Hobbs in their search for the girls' killer."

[C-Mac]

http://www.nbc5.com/news/4470540/det...17&dppid=65193

"Chicago television station WMAQ reported that authorities said that Hobbs had confessed to the crimes. Laura Hobbs had been grounded for the weekend, but her mother had lifted the punishment on Mother's Day, angering the girl's father, WMAQ reported."

[KCChiefsMan]

Originally Posted by C-Mac

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






"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."

I bet that the person who hit him with the shovel is STILL in prison for that

[Iowanian]

Put an American flag teeshirt on him, duct tape his hands behind him and airdrop him into Tikrit, with a "allah Humps Male Pigs" sign.

[C-Mac]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Put an American flag teeshirt on him, duct tape his hands behind him and airdrop him into Tikrit, with a "allah Humps Male Pigs" sign.

Now your talking, sounds fair to me.

[Simplex3]

I just like how the article acts like we're deciding if we should kill him or not despite the fact that he hasn't even been convicted yet.