Burger King manager slain in Lindenhurst

LINDENHURST -- The murder of a Burger King manager sent a chill through the northern suburbs, but it also revealed a flawed system when it was learned the suspect, James Ealy, had been convicted of murder in Cook County over 20 years ago.

Mary Hutchison, 45, of Trevor, Wis., was working during the early morning hours of Nov. 27 -- doing inventory before anyone else arrived for work -- when Ealy entered the restaurant, apparently using a key he did not turn in when he quit to take a higher paying job.

Her murder was voted 2006's top news story by Lake County News-Sun staffers.

The first employee to arrive for the start of business found Hutchison in the office area on the floor in a pool of blood, the store safe open and about $1,000 missing. Hutchison had puncture wounds on her body, but the cause of death according to officals was strangulation: She had been choked with a bowtie that is part of the Burger King uniform.

Hutchison had transferred to the Lindenhurst fast-food restaurant from one in Antioch because months earlier she had been injured in an armed robbery of the restaurant. Her husband, Ken, said she had lost hearing in one of her ears after being beaten by the robbers, who had forced her and some other employees back into the store as they were closing.

Ealy, 42, of Lake Villa was indicted on seven counts of murder Dec. 28. "He's death-eligible if convicted," said Jeff Pavletic, deputy state's attorney. While Ealy allegedly committed one murder, the grand jury indicted him on multiple murder counts to reflect various crimes committed and to give the sentencing judge different options to mete out penalties.

Ealy was convicted in the multiple murder on Aug. 16, 1982. Chicago police discovered the bodies of Christine Parker and her three children, Mary Ann, Cora and Jontae, in a seventh-floor apartment in the Rockwell Gardens housing project. The victims had been strangled, and Jontae, a 3-year-old boy, had been raped. Christine Parker was pregnant.

Ealy was only 17 at the time and he had been dating Mary Ann, 15. He was convicted of the murders, but the Appellate Court found police lacked probable cause when they took Ealy into custody. That caused the exclusion at trial of all the evidence police collected from his room.

Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller is reviewing whether the 1982 conviction may be used in death penalty deliberations because overturning the case did not constitute finding Ealy not guilty of the murders.

After his arrest, the Hutchison family held a news conference, and her daughter, Rebeccah, revealed she had met Ealy when visiting the restaurant with her mother a couple of months before the murder.

"The wonderful thing is they caught the creep. I know my mother is up in heaven having a party for catching her killer," she said.