A teenage boy and three other people beat a 64-year-old man to death for insulting one of them at a party in West Rogers Park in December, then dumped the body in a trash bin, according to prosecutors.
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Shawndre Lehmann was 16 when he and the others beat Cary “Mike” Silverstein, 64, on Dec. 10 at Silverstein’s apartment in the 6500 block of North Hoyne Avenue, prosecutors said Wednesday. Cook County Judge Donald Panarese Jr. ordered Lehmann held on $1 million bail on a first-degree murder charge Wednesday.
Later Wednesday, police announced that Alexander Robinson, 28, also has been charged with murder and Shatrata Lehmann, 25, has been charged with felony concealing a homicide. Silverstein’s body has not been found.
Police did not make clear what role Robinson, of the 400 block of North Drake Avenue, and Shatrata Lehmann, of the 3000 block of North Gresham Avenue, played in the attack, nor what their relationship to Shawndre Lehmann is. The two were expected to appear in court Thursday.
Silverstein, who public records show lived at the Hoyne apartment for a decade or more, hosted a birthday party for someone the evening of Dec. 10, prosecutors said in court Wednesday. Before Shawndre Lehmann arrived, Silverstein got into a dispute with a male guest at the party because Silverstein “was saying derogatory things” to the guest’s girlfriend, according to prosecutors.
The guest punched Silverstein, then left the apartment for a time “to cool off,” according to a summary of what prosecutors expect to prove against Shawndre Lehmann. Soon afterward, the guest went back into the apartment as Shawndre Lehman and another person arrived at the party.
Shawndre Lehmann, the guest and the person who arrived with Shawndre Lehmann all started arguing with Silverstein, then started punching and kicking him before the three hit Silverstein repeatedly with a metal frying pan, according to prosecutors.
The three beat Silverstein to death and made a plan, with the guest’s girlfriend, to dispose of the body, prosecutors said.
The girlfriend cleaned up Silverstein’s blood and washed the frying pan, prosecutors said. Shawndre Lehmann, the guest and the third person who beat Silverstein took off Silverstein’s clothes, tried to wash his body in the bathroom before putting it in two large garbage bags taped together, prosecutors said.
The guest threw away Silverstein’s clothes in one trash bin, while Lehmann put the body in another as the male guest and his girlfriend “acted as lookouts,” according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors did not make clear how the killing was discovered, but said a missing person report was filed Dec. 16 after Silverstein’s sister — who would talk with him almost daily — didn’t hear from him. Silverstein also missed meetings he had scheduled for Dec. 11 and Dec. 13.
A representative of Flood Brothers Disposal, which handles the trash for Silverstein’s building, told investigators the garbage would initially have gone to Maywood, then on to landfills in Rochelle or Rockford, each of which receive millions of pounds of garbage a day.
After they began looking into Silverstein’s disappearance, investigators were able to find what were believed to be traces of blood in his kitchen and bathroom, prosecutors said. They also found out who had been living with Silverstein before he disappeared, and a witness told them about the beating and Silverstein’s killing.
After Lehmann, of the 500 block of North Lockwood Avenue, was arrested Monday, he gave a video recorded confession of his role in Silverstein’s killing and the disposal of the body, prosecutors said.
The other person who prosecutors say beat Silverstein has not yet been charged, according to court records.