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player ready...After a day-and-a-half of deliberations, a Lake County jury had not reached a verdict Tuesday in the trial of Kevin Curtis, charged with murder in the fatal 2013 stabbing of a former Lake Villa man in a Waukegan motel.
A note from the jury foreman to Judge George Strickland on Tuesday afternoon indicated there might be a rift among jurors.
Strickland called attorneys into the courtroom and said he had a received a note from the jury foreman saying that “two jurors had convicted the defendant” before the trial was concluded, and asked the judge if she could speak with him.
Strickland told both prosecutors and defense attorneys that he was sending a note back saying the jury had received its instructions and the evidence in the case, and that jurors should continue deliberating.
At about 4:40 p.m., Strickland reconvened the attorneys and the jury and sent jurors home for the day, instructing them to return to continue deliberations Wednesday morning.
Strickland said he had also received a note from the jury asking for trial transcripts, but said they were not available and would take more than a day to compile, and he instructed jurors to continue working toward a verdict.
The jury began deliberating Friday afternoon, and was sent home for the weekend after about four hours of deliberations. The jury deliberated roughly eight hours on Tuesday. Jurors did not convene Monday, because the courthouse was closed for the Lincoln’s Birthday state holiday.
Curtis, 29, is charged with first-degree murder in the case, and if convicted, faces a mandatory sentence of 20 to 60 years in prison.
Prosecutors allege he purposefully stabbed 19-year-old Jacob Blum, a co-worker, in a Waukegan motel on the evening of July 16, 2013.
Curtis, who took the stand during his trial last week, said the stabbing was accidental, occurring after Blum “plowed” into him on a motel bed while Curtis was using the knife to clean his fingernails.
He said the two had wrestled and engaged in horseplay previously.
Prosecutors noted that Curtis refused to talk to police and never publicly said the stabbing was accidental prior to the trial. They said Curtis had been told he could no longer stay overnight with Blum, his brother and his father, who all worked for Windy City Meats in Gurnee.
A witness for the prosecution testified near the end of the trial that he was punched several times by Curtis “without warning” on the same day the stabbing occurred as he was in the process of buying meat from Curtis, who was selling it from a mobile truck.
During the weeklong trial, prosecutors said Jacob Blum was lying in a bed in the room watching a movie when Curtis attacked him, stabbing him once in the chest with a switchblade.
Blum made it down to the lobby of the motel and was treated by paramedics but died of blood loss, a collapsed lung and cardiac arrest while en route to or shortly after arrival at Vista Medical Center West in Waukegan, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors and witnesses said that Curtis sometimes stayed with the Blums in their hotel room while the Blums were looking for a permanent residence, but that Curtis had been told on that evening that he could come up to the room and use the phone, but not stay overnight.
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