Rock Falls man pleads guilty to second-degree murder, sentenced to 20 years for fatal Valentine’s Day stabbing

MORRISON – A Rock Falls man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Thursday after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and admitting he fatally stabbed a man he considered a friend.

Kyle M. Cooper, 36, of Rock Falls pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder in connection with the Feb. 14 stabbing death of Daniel J. Gordon, 27, also of Rock Falls. Gordon was stabbed multiple times in the abdomen during an altercation with Cooper about 2 a.m. that day in the 600 block of West 20th Street in Rock Falls. Gordon died later that day at CGH Medical Center in Sterling.

Cooper, originally charged with one count of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery in connection with the death, was heading toward trial in the case – a trial that was set to get underway May 15 – when his attorney announced during a hearing the day before that a plea agreement had been reached.

Cooper made that plea, accepted by Whiteside County Circuit Court Judge James Heuerman, during an emotional hearing Thursday in which he apologized to Gordon’s family.

“This was all so stupid,” Cooper said. “I knew D.J. [Gordon]. I liked D.J. He was a friend of mine.”

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“When you get to hell, beware, I might be in charge,” Dan Gordon said when addressing Kyle Cooper on Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Whiteside County Circuit Court in Morrison. Cooper pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Thursday for the Feb. 14 stabbing death of Gordon's son, Daniel J. Gordon of Rock Falls. (Alex T. Paschal)

Cooper told the courtroom that as he and Gordon were becoming friends, Cooper was dating a woman whom Gordon later began dating, as well, and it became a point of contention between them.

“He [Gordon] wanted me to stay away from his girlfriend, and I wanted him to stay away from mine,” Cooper said.

The evening of Feb. 13, Gordon, who was with the woman, and Cooper had a verbal altercation at a bar. At some point after leaving the bar, Gordon and the woman decided to go to a home in Rock Falls to pick up a friend and head out to play cards and dice, Rock Falls Police Detective Autumn Day testified at a preliminary hearing on March 4.

On the way to that house, Gordon and the woman drove past Cooper’s house, and the two men had another verbal altercation. After Gordon and the woman arrived at the Rock Falls home, Cooper pulled up to the home in his vehicle.

Cooper said Thursday that the woman did not go to the house “at 1 a.m. to talk and play cards.”

“I knew why” she went there “and I hated it. My purpose was to confront” her, he said, adding that every second of every day he regrets going to the home where the two men fought in the driveway and Gordon was stabbed.

“I want that decision back,” Cooper said.

Prosecutors have said in court that as Cooper got out of his vehicle, the woman was fearful that Cooper was going to use a knife to vandalize her vehicle, and Cooper began pushing the woman.

Assistant State’s Attorney Ryan Simon has said Gordon got involved to protect the woman, and that Cooper jumped on top of Gordon and stabbed Gordon in the abdomen several times before others were able to pull Cooper off Gordon. Cooper then left the scene, he said.

Gordon’s cause of death was determined to be a stab wound to the abdomen; the knife was found in Cooper’s car, Simon said Thursday.

To Gordon’s family, present in the courtroom, Cooper said, “I am so sorry for your loss [and for] my part in your loss. ... D.J. did not deserve to die.”

“I’m not entitled to your forgiveness and I don’t ask for that,” he said.

Cooper’s statement followed four victim impact statements made by Gordon’s family.

“The night you murdered my son something in me broke,” Dan Gordon, the victim’s father, said. “You deserve to be locked in a cage; you actually deserve worse.”

Gordon’s mom, Lisa Gordon, recalled seeing her son in the hospital the morning of Feb. 14. His eyes were open, but she couldn’t tell if he even knew that she was there, she said.

“Not being able to see any recognition in his eyes will haunt me forever,” Lisa said. He was pronounced dead “in front of me” and it “felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest.”

“I can’t sleep. I can’t grieve the way I need to. This pain is too raw and too deep,” Angel Noel Strutzenberg, Gordon’s brother’s fiancè, said. “You [Cooper] will never be forgiven for what you did.”

“I expect you to carry an insurmountable amount of guilt with you for the rest of your days” and know “you will never be forgiven,” Gordon’s brother, Brandon Gordon, said.

“I do not know if or when anyone in my family will understand how something like this happens,” Lisa said. “He was my first. He made me a mom.”

Gordon is the second child whom his parents have lost. Their daughter died of lymphoma at 10 years old, Lisa said.

“We want the court to understand who D.J. [Gordon] is,” Strutzenberg said. “He wasn’t just a name in a report.”

Gordon was supposed to be the best man at her upcoming wedding to his brother.

Now, “because of you [Cooper]” that “spot next to me” will be empty, Brandon said.

Strutzenberg said Gordon was “the best uncle” to their daughter and that he “talked often about wanting a family someday. He wanted to be a dad.”

Lisa will never get to see her son “be the great husband and dad that I know he would be,” Lisa said.

Cooper waived his right to a sentencing hearing and a pre-sentence report, which provides a detailed overview of the defendant’s background and the offense.

Heuerman sentenced Cooper to that which was laid out in the plea agreement - the maximum possible sentence of 20 years, one year of supervised release and credit for 97 days served. He also ordered Cooper to pay by June 6, 2035, the charge’s minimum fine of $75 and $250 for DNA collected from the crime scene.

Heuerman told Cooper he was not going to make a statement beyond the sentencing.

“I don’t want any statements I would make to take away from theirs,” Heuerman said. “Theirs are the ones you should walk away with.”