Five years have passed since the slaying of Jeff Engelhardt’s 18-year-old sister, father and grandmother in the family’s Hoffman Estates home.
Engelhardt, away at college at the time of the attack, has had much time to consider the fate of the murder suspect, D’Andre Howard, a man once welcomed into the family.
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With Howard’s trial scheduled to begin Tuesday, Engelhardt, 25, noted last week that “there is a sense of relief that it’s finally here.”
“There have been frustrating and challenging times during the five years of waiting, but we have continued to have great support from our family and friends,” Engelhardt said. He has since graduated from school, married and works as a northwest suburban journalist.
Howard, 26, who has been in custody since his arrest at the crime scene in April 2009, is charged with first-degree murder in the killings of Laura Engelhardt, 18, her father, Alan Engelhardt, 57, and her grandmother, Marlene Gacek, 73. He also faces attempted murder and unlawful restraint charges.
Prosecutors said an enraged Howard stabbed the family members after an argument with Amanda Engelhardt, 28, his live-in fiance and the mother of their infant daughter. She and her mother, Shelly, who was also stabbed and seriously wounded, are expected to be key witnesses at Howard’s trial.
Amanda Engelhardt and Howard had once planned to marry in the backyard of the family home. Now, her family is helping her raise the couple’s daughter, Stelliah.
“(Shelly’s) concern is about Amanda right now, being there to give Amanda strength in the midst of all this going on,” said the Rev. Jerry Hays, senior pastor at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Schaumburg.
“(Shelly) has said to me, ‘I just don’t see how people without faith in Jesus can get through trials such as this,'” Hays said.
Though Howard has been found competent to stand trial by court-appointed psychiatric experts, Assistant Public Defenders Deana Binstock and Georgeena Carson have opted to present an insanity defense and have said they won’t contest the fact that Howard stabbed the victims.
Judge Ellen Mandeltort has ruled that the defense will be able to call several witnesses to testify about Howard’s mental state at the time of the homicides but denied the request to call witnesses from his more distant past.
Mandeltort agreed to a prosecution request to allow the testimony of two Schaumburg police officers who arrested Howard just hours before the killings. Prosecutors said the officers will testify that Howard was alert and rational at the time.
Howard, who spent much of his upbringing in the state’s foster care system, changed homes at least 10 times before he turned 18. He sometimes became violent with others and displayed sexually inappropriate behavior, an evaluation showed. As a teenager, he was arrested for criminal sexual abuse.
The case has dragged on through numerous psychiatric evaluations of Howard, changes in defense lawyers and hearings to suppress evidence, including his videotaped statement to police. Howard has sometimes refused to enter the courtroom, prolonging the proceedings.
After Howard’s arrest, prosecutors told the surviving family members that they would seek the death penalty, but capital punishment was abolished in Illinois in March 2011. Just a few months before, Jeff Engelhardt wrote an essay for the Daily Herald pondering whether he supported a death sentence for Howard.
“I live with what happened every day and have mulled over what I would like to see become of the man I believe took my family away,” he wrote. “My vision was blurred for a while, but the decision became very clear after I remembered where I came from. … And as my father’s son, that means I choose the path of forgiveness.”
Lisa Black is a staff reporter; George Houde is a freelance reporter.