The Twisted Mind of a Child Killer
AP
Brian Dugan is not a typical killer.
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Brian Dugan is not a typical criminal. The man is sinister.
"He was not your normal killer,” Kane County State’s Attorney John Barsanti told the Chicago Tribune, referring to another Dugan killing. “[His crimes are] not related to money, to gangs, to anger. It was just something that was going on in his own head."
Even his family admits that the man is a monster.
When Dugan began admitting to murders back in the ‘80s, his brother Steve asked how his own blood could he have committed such heinous acts.
"And then he was real quiet," Steve Dugan recalled in a 1985 interview with the Chicago Tribune. "And then he said, 'I guess I was out of character, wasn't I?' "
Not exactly. Dugan was a career criminal.
His life of crime began in 1974 when he was just 16-years-old. Dugan had moved to suburban Chicago from New Hampshire with a family that allegedly abused him.
Dugan dropped out of Aurora East high school his sophomore year and by the time he should have been a junior, the future killer was booked for battery against a 10-year-old girl in Lisle, Illinois.
After that, Dugan became a familiar face at juvenile detention centers and prisons. Between 1976 and 1982 Dugan served more than five years for crimes including arson, burglary and breaking and entering.
Prison hardly reformed the man who pleaded guilty Tuesday to killing Jeanine Nicarico.
In 1985, Dugan expanded his repertoire of crime when he was arrested on suspicion of attacking a 19-year-old Geneva woman. The attack was the beginning of a spree of attacks that included two rapes, and the death of 7-year-old Melissa Ackerman, who was found in a drainage ditch.
Dugan also admitted to raping and killing Donna Schnorr, a 27-year-old Geneva nurse.
All of these crimes before he admitting killing little Jeanine Nicarico.
Some try to give Dugan a societal pass.
Thomas McCulloch, a former Dugan attorney, stopped short of blaming his upbringing.
"I'm sure if people were attentive and paid attention [to budding criminals], things could be different," he said.
But it’s difficult to believe that childhood abuse could lead to such malicious acts against women and children. Barsanti doesn’t buy the upbringing excuse.
"It looked like a complete crime of opportunity," Barsanti said. "He saw somebody and decided to do it.”
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