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player ready...A twice-convicted murderer will be sentenced this month for the December 1994 slaying of Waukegan businessman Fred Reckling.
When he appears Nov. 26 before Judge Christopher Starck, James Edwards, 47, faces the prospect of a sentence of natural life in prison. That was the recommendation last week of the jury that convicted him earlier of the Reckling murder, then heard of his other crimes.
Reckling, 71, was brutally beaten to death Dec. 8, 1994, as he started to leave his Grand Avenue Appliance store with the day’s earnings of $1,800.
Employees found Reckling the next morning between two refrigerators, where he had apparently tried to hide from his attacker. His skull had been crushed in several places.
Meanwhile, Edwards was allegedly well into a three-day crack cocaine binge that prosecutors say he funded with Reckling’s money.
The case was the first that State’s Atty. Michael Waller prosecuted in several years.
Physical evidence was scant and there were no witnesses, but Waller had at his disposal a videotaped confession taken by Waukegan police in which Edwards allegedly admitted committing a host of felonies, including two killings.
Edwards admitted killing Reckling, a 60-year-old woman from Shaker Heights, Ohio, and admitted to a long string of burglaries and armed robberies, authorities said.
He has been indicted for the latter slaying by an Ohio grand jury.
Edwards served 14 years in prison for the 1974 murder of an 83-year-old South Side Chicago woman who had befriended him through church activities. He was paroled in 1991.