Brian Dugan

Brian James Dugan (born September 23, 1956) is an American convicted rapist and serial killer active between 1983 and 1985 in Chicago's western suburbs. He was known for having informally confessed in 1985 to the February 1983 abduction, rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville, Illinois, which was a highly publicized case. He was already in custody for two other rapes and murders, one of a woman in July 1984 and the other a 7-year-old girl in May 1985. He was sentenced to life after pleading guilty to the latter two crimes.

Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, both from Aurora, Illinois, had earlier been indicted in the Nicarico case and were convicted of Nicarico's murder in 1983 and sentenced to death. After appeals and new trials, Hernandez was convicted a third time and sentenced to life in prison. Cruz was acquitted in 1995 after a witness recanted testimony, and new DNA evidence was introduced excluding him from that found at the crime scene. State charges against Hernandez were also dismissed that year and he was freed. In 2000, these two and Stephen Buckley received a settlement for wrongful prosecution from DuPage County.

In 2005, Dugan was indicted for Nicarico's murder based on DNA evidence; he pleaded guilty in 2009 and was sentenced to death. After Illinois governor Patrick Quinn signed a new bill to abolish capital punishment in 2011, Dugan's sentence was commuted to life in prison.

Early life and crimes Brian Dugan was born in 1956 in Nashua, New Hampshire, the second child of James and Genevieve Dugan. He has one sister and three brothers. According to his siblings, their parents were both alcoholics.

At age 8, Brian and a younger brother burned down the family garage. According to his brother, Steven, at age 13 Brian poured gasoline on a cat and lit it on fire. It was his first arrest. He was later convicted for other crimes including arson, battery, and other burglaries. She was found to have been raped and beaten to death.

Rolando Cruz, a 20-year-old gang member from Aurora, became a suspect after offering police false information about the murder in an attempt to claim the $10,000 reward being offered. Soon, police charged Cruz, Alejandro Hernandez (who had accused two others) and Stephen Buckley, with the girl's rape and murder despite limited evidence. The three were tried together by prosecutors. Cruz and Hernandez were convicted in 1985 and sentenced to death; the jury deadlocked on Buckley, and he was not retried.

Donna Schnorr On July 15, 1984, Dugan noticed Donna Schnorr, a 27-year-old nurse from Geneva, Illinois, in her car at a stoplight. He followed her and ran her off the road with his car. After getting her out of her car, he beat and raped her. Dugan murdered Schnorr by drowning her in a quarry.

Jeanine Nicarico Dugan had not been a suspect in Jeanine Nicarico's murder. In 1985, after being apprehended for the Ackerman and Schnorr murders, he gave an unofficial confession to the crime in what he said should be a deal to avoid risk of the death penalty if the case went to trial. Prosecutors rejected this demand, so Dugan refused to make an official confession. He did plead guilty to the later murders and was sentenced to life in prison.

Dugan later claimed that he confessed in order to take responsibility for the crime and to clear Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, who had been indicted for it. Cruz has said that he believes that Dugan's motives were self-serving and had nothing to do with the truth. Following Illinois's passage in 2011 of a law to abolish the death penalty in the state, Dugan's sentence was commuted to life in prison. He is serving his sentence at the Stateville Correctional Center.

Possible encounter with John Wayne Gacy

In 2008, the Daily Herald reported that Dugan had claimed, since the 1980s, that in 1972, he had been molested as a juvenile by serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Dugan reportedly encountered a man at a Lisle grocery store who offered him a job. Dugan got in the man's car, and the man took him to a secluded area. There he forced Dugan to model bikini brief underwear and perform oral sex on him. The man gave Dugan $20 and returned him to the grocery store where he had picked up the youth.

Dugan claimed that after seeing Gacy's face following Gacy's 1978 arrest, he realized that Gacy was the same man from the grocery store. Gacy prosecutor Terry Sullivan publicly doubted the story. He noted that Dugan did not report the events at the time. He also said that Dugan's account did not match Gacy's typical methods nor was Lisle known as one of Gacy's hunting grounds. However, prosecutor Sullivan said that Dugan did fit the profile of Gacy's victims.