A Portage man has made another attempt to avoid a trial in the death four decades ago of a toddler in Illinois, taking his claims to the Illinois Supreme Court.
“It’s a good thing,” Gary Warwick, a well-known girls softball coach in Northwest Indiana, said of the latest move in his long, twisting legal journey since the 1972 incident. He declined further comment Friday.
Meanwhile, the child’s mother, Cathie Altman, of Arkansas, said she was “sorry for everything (Warwick’s) children and grandchildren are going through,” but putting Warwick in front of a jury of his peers will be justice for her son, Joseph Henry Abernathy III, who was known as Joey.
Late last month, Warwick, through his attorney James Gormic, of Belleville, Ill., requested the state Supreme Court throw out an Illinois Appellate Court’s ruling last May ordering Warwick stand trial in St. Clair County, Ill., for Joey’s Dec. 30, 1972, death, roughly two weeks after the boy celebrated his first birthday.
At the time, Joey was found unresponsive at a home he shared with Altman and Warwick in Belleville. According to Gormic’s filing with the Supreme Court, Joey had been hospitalized with bruises and other injuries shortly before he died, but those medical records were unavailable, and the people who treated the child were unavailable or dead, the attorney wrote.
In April 1973, Warwick was indicted for murder in Joey’s death.
In September 1974, on the first day of the scheduled trial, the case against Warwick was dismissed while Altman said she waited in the courtroom corridor with family and other supporters.
“(The case) was dismissed with no reason, just a piece of paper,” she said. “No one seems to know why. No one can explain the reason.”
Later court filings indicated the first case against Warwick may have been dismissed due to Warwick’s health at the time.
In early 2013, St. Clair County Sheriff Richard “Rick” Watson, fresh off being elected to his post, reopened the investigation into Joey’s death after learning of a social media and YouTube campaign, called “Justice For Joey,” by Altman and her adult daughter.
In September 2013, after Warwick was indicted in Joey’s death a second time, local police and other law enforcement officers arrested Warwick in a Portage steakhouse. Gormic was able to get that case dropped, citing the 40-plus years since the child’s death and the difficulty in defending his client over such a long span, when memories faded, people involved in the case may have died and issues with records related to the case.
Reopening the case would only violate Warwick’s Fifth Amendment due-process rights, Gormic wrote.
But, prosecutors in Illinois continued their efforts, getting the 5th District of the Illinois Appellate Court to overturn the dismissal and remand the case back to St. Clair Circuit Court.
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Gormic, who has declined any comment on the case, filed an appeal of that decision to the Illinois Supreme Court. In the filing, Gormic argued Warwick’s case, were it to go to trial, would be harmed by “unavailable records and unavailable witnesses.” On several occasions, Gormic mentioned mental health issues Altman experienced after the child’s death and her invoking of Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during a coroner’s inquest into Joey’s death.
“I suffered severely after my son was killed,” Altman said. “Certainly, a mother losing a child in any way would suffer unbelievable pain.”
The chances of Warwick’s appeal being heard by the top court in Illinois appear slim. According to the court’s last annual report in 2014, 1,469 appeals requests were filed, but the body allowed only about 73, or roughly 4.7 percent, to proceed, said Bethany Krajelis, the court’s spokeswoman.
Warwick’s request will be on the court’s docket, but the earliest it will be heard is in September, she said.
A retired nurse with two grown daughters, one of whom she adopted after serving as her foster mother, Altman spoke at length of the pain and confusion of dealing with Joey’s death and the many twists in Warwick’s case.
“My personal thought is why would someone who professes to be innocent of a crime he’s been indicted for go to these extremes time and time again,” Altman said. “Why not go to trial and let the people hear the case if he’s innocent?
“I have wanted a trial from day one. That’s all I’ve asked because I believe the whole truth will be brought out, and justice will be served.”
Michael Gonzalez is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.