Man accused in Wilson killings said he was ‘going to walk across Illinois,’ detective testifies

SYCAMORE – At about 3 a.m. on Feb. 18, 2020, a Cincinnati, Ohio, police detective took two trash bags from two garbage cans outside a duplex home on Lloyd Place, a dead-end road.

Detective Greg Gehring wasn’t there to clean up. He was looking for something. An empty beverage item maybe, a piece of mail with a name on it. Something that detectives more than 350 miles away might use to help solve a yearslong double homicide investigation. It was 3½ years since Patricia Wilson, 85, and her son Robert Wilson, 64, were found beaten to death inside their rural Sycamore home on Aug. 15, 2016.

DeKalb County sheriff’s deputy Det. John Holiday, now retired, told a jury in a full courtroom on Monday what that Ohio detective found.

“They found DNA processed from the trash pull that was sent to Rockford Illinois State Police lab,“ Holiday, a lead investigator in the double homicide case, said. ”And it was the unknown DNA found in the house.”

On the night of Aug. 14, 2016, someone at 16058 Old State Road violently attacked the Wilsons. The mother and son had spent that Sunday at church, out to breakfast, with friends at the Sycamore Moose Lodge and on the phone with family. They suffered severe injuries, and their cause of death was blunt-force trauma with an unknown weapon, according to coroner’s reports.

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Retired DeKalb County Sheriff’s Detective John Holiday points to locations on a map Monday, Jan. 27, 2025, as lead prosecutor Scott Schwertley (second from right), lead defense attorney Chip Criswell and Circuit Court Judge Marcy Buick look on during the trial of Jonathan D. Hurst at the DeKalb County Courthouse in Sycamore. Holiday testified about the route a stolen car owned by Patricia Wilson traveled from Sycamore to Chicago. Hurst is charged in the 2016 killings of Patricia and her son, Robert Wilson. (Mark Busch)

The bloody crime scene that family members walked into a day later kicked off a yearslong police investigation that prosecutors have alleged led police to Jonathan D. Hurst.

Hurst, 55, formerly of Chicago, faces four counts of first-degree murder and one count of home invasion in his criminal trial, which convened for the third day Monday. If convicted, he faces a life sentence. He’s been in DeKalb County jail without release since his Feb. 24, 2020, arrest.

As he’s done since proceedings began, Hurst spent much of Monday’s witness testimony appearing to take notes next to his defense attorneys.

He’s previously pleaded not guilty. It’s not yet known if he will testify in his defense when his lawyers begin their arguments, expected later this week. Hurst had denied ever being in Sycamore or knowing the Wilsons.

Holiday testified on Monday how “hundreds” of police officers and “tens and thousands” of man-hours led police to Hurst’s Ohio home at 4457 Lloyd Place in Cincinnati on Feb. 24, 2020.

[ Wilson homicides scene pointed to ‘sloppy suspect,’ police detective says ]

Police searched the Wilson home for five days in August 2016. They collected items for potential fingerprints or DNA evidence, took photographs, and interviewed neighbors, friends and family. A week into the investigation with no significant leads yet, detectives widened their search, Holiday said.

They viewed video surveillance from area businesses and homes, and dove into the Wilsons’ backgrounds, their phone calls and bank records. They looked up funeral guest lists to talk to more acquaintances who might have known them. Police stopped joggers and passersby on the Great Western Trail in Sycamore, which runs directly behind the Wilsons’ home and into neighboring Kane County.

Had they seen anything unusual a week ago, police asked.

“Knock on every door, talk to every person,” Holiday said. “If there’s somebody not home, you make a note of it and go back and talk to them.”

Lloyd Place, Cincinnati, Ohio: Feb. 24, 2020

After knocking on Hurst’s Ohio front door four times without answer on Feb. 24, 2020, Holiday and sheriff’s detective Josh Duehning walked around the side of the building. Hurst greeted them outside, according to body-camera footage played in court Monday.

The conversation appeared cordial. In the video, Hurst wears jeans, a black sweatshirt under a black leather jacket, with black shoes and a black cap. He sits on the front porch ledge next to the police with his hands clasped together atop his left knee.

Holiday said they asked Hurst what he was doing in August 2016.

“He said he was going to walk across Illinois,” Holiday said. “He said he started from Chicago at his house and got to Elmhurst, stayed overnight in Elmhurst in a hotel, and then returned to his house.”

Hurst also told police where he’d lived at the time, he said: 1446 N. Wells St., Chicago. Less than a mile from where police found Patricia’s car on Stockton Drive.

His Chicago landlord, Don Burton Klugman, 91, testified Monday that Hurst rented the Wells Street unit from him until late 2018.

A key piece of evidence investigators have said they used to connect Hurst to the killings was his cellphone location. Hurst gave detectives his cellphone number during the porch interview that February, video showed. It was the same number T-Mobile cellphone records showed had pinged to a cell tower near downtown Sycamore multiple times the night of Aug. 14 and Aug. 15, the same time Hurst denied being in Sycamore, Holiday said.

“During the time frame in question, my opinion would be is that the phone, or the device ending in 7688 could have been in the vicinity of the crime scene,” Special Agent Scott Erthal of the FBI’s Chicago office said Monday in testimony.

Erthal testified as an expert in cellular analysis.

Another key piece of evidence was Patricia Wilson’s white Chevrolet Impala.

When the family stumbled upon the gruesome scene, the Wilsons’ garage door, which Patricia’s daughter Sue Saari testified was normally closed, was open.

The killer didn’t appear to show interest in other valuables in the Wilson home. Robert had $700 in cash in his wallet left on his person when he died, crime scene photographs showed. Patricia wore jewelry. The home was filled with items, including dozens of Robert’s firearms and knives. He was a collector, according to the sheriff’s office.

But Patricia Wilson’s car was missing.

Traffic camera surveillance footage played in court showed Patricia’s Impala headed down Illinois Route 64 about 12:30 a.m. Aug. 15, hours after the Wilsons were last seen alive.

Time stamps showed Patricia’s car in West Chicago by 12:44 a.m. Aug. 15. It arrived in Carol Stream by 12:50 a.m., Villa Park by 1:04 a.m., Melrose Park by 1:17 a.m., and River Forest by 1:20 a.m. A CTA bus camera picked up Patricia’s car parked on Stockton Avenue near the Lincoln Park Zoo at 10:58 a.m. Aug. 15, footage showed.

Chicago police found the Impala in that same spot nine days later, on Aug. 24, 2016.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, prosecutors are expected to present expert witnesses to testify on the intricate genealogy mapping investigators have said they used to match the unknown sample from the Wilsons’ home to Hurst.

The trial is set to reconvene at 9 a.m. Tuesday.