Family members of a suburban teen who was brutally murdered in the 1980s are making a push to keep the man who killed her behind bars as he prepares for a clemency hearing this week.
Kelly Weaver shared the statement she plans to make with NBC 5, reading from several typed pages that she'll bring to the clemency hearing for the man convicted of killing her sister.
“If he is granted clemency –a message will be sent that it is okay to rape, murder and torture a child,” said Weaver. “I don’t want to fail my sister one more time.”
In the summer of 1985, the Drobney family had been staying with relatives near Gillespie, Illinois while attending a cousin’s wedding.
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As 16-year-old Bridget Drobney was returning to the reception, she was pulled over on a dark gravel road by a station wagon with a flashing red light that was occupied by three men pretending to be police officers, according to reports.
Bridget, a student at Downers Grove North High School, was kidnapped and dragged into a cornfield, where she was repeatedly raped, beaten, and stabbed, reports said. Robert G. Turner, was later arrested and convicted of the crime.
He was sent to death row, where he stayed until then Gov. George Ryan abolished the death penalty in 2003. He is now serving life in prison.
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Bridget’s family was surprised to learn last year he was granted a clemency hearing, which is set to take place at 9 am, Tuesday at Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum at UIC.
The Illinois Prison Project is representing Turner at this hearing.
The group told NBC-5 in a statement:
“We recognize that the clemency process can be deeply traumatic for victims and their loved ones, who are forced to relive moments of immense pain and harm. At the same time, we believe no one is irredeemable. Thankfully, the right to seek mercy is one afforded to everyone in Illinois. For Mr. Turner and thousands of other people sentenced to die in prison, clemency is the only opportunity for meaningful review.
"It is not a space to re-litigate the underlying circumstances of a person's case, but rather an opportunity for the governor to consider who a person has become after decades of incarceration," the statement concluded.
