A Cook County jury will begin deliberating the fate of convicted serial killer Andre Crawford Friday when they tackle the death penalty question.
This is the third death penalty trial in Illinois in the past three months. Brian Dugan was sentenced to death, and James Degorski was sentenced to life in prison.
Crawford was found guilty this week of murdering 11 women and attempting to kill a 12th victim in a wave of slayings that terrorized a South Side neighborhood in the 1990s.
It took 10 hours of debate, but the jury convicted the 47-year-old Crawford on all counts late Thursday afternoon.
Crawford was arrested in 2000 and accused in the series of rapes and murders between 1993 and 1999. One victim was assaulted and left for dead on Thanksgiving night of 1997 but survived. Prosecutors alleged the victims were prostitutes and drug addicts who agreed to trade sex for narcotics but were instead attacked and then raped as they lay dying.
