Assistant State’s Attorney Joe Cullen wasted no time in boiling down the case against Gary Bennett in the 2014 murder of Keith Crawford.
“This defendant shot his drug dealer in the back of the head and killed him,” Cullen said in his opening statement to jurors Wednesday.
The statement prompted Crawford’s mother to leave the courtroom as it set a blunt view for a trial with “main characters” who are criminals and drug dealers, Cullen explained.
Crawford, 36 at the time, disappeared after leaving a party near West Dundee in the early morning hours of Aug. 10, 2014. Cullen said Crawford got into a car with Bennett and his “sidekick” Joan Sebastian Vado-Bonilla under the impression the trio were going to pick up money for Bennett to pay back a drug debt to Crawford. However, while traveling south on Route 31 near Interstate 90, Bennett pulled the trigger killing Crawford. Bennett took cocaine and cash from Crawford’s body before unsuccessfully trying to dispose of it on an acquaintance’s farm near Valley View. Bennett and Vado-Bonilla eventually put Crawford into an apartment complex Dumpster on Todd Farm Road in Elgin, Cullen said.
“The body in this case has never been found. It remains in a landfill to this day,” Cullen explained.
Bennett’s attorney, Stephen Richards, conceded little during his opening remarks. Going beyond the usual defense commentary imploring jurors to make sure prosecutors prove the murder charge beyond a reasonable doubt, Richards told the 12-member panel and four alternates they should first determine whether the state can prove Crawford is actually dead and, if so, that he died as a result of criminal activity.
“This is a very unusual case,” Richards said, adding there is “strong evidence as to the guilt of another person.”
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Richards repeatedly referenced another drug dealer as that person, noting there are witnesses who can put the man and Crawford together leaving the party. The man was looked at “hard” by police, but gave investigators “shifty” answers and “lies” relating to Crawford’s fate, Richards said. The man has not been charged with any wrongdoing. Richards also took aim at Vado-Bonilla, who is expected to be a key witness when he takes the stand on Thursday. Richards suggested Vado-Bonilla failed to tell authorities what he knew about Crawford even as he worked as a “snitch” for McHenry County authorities, Richards said. And, once Vado-Bonilla did talk to police, he fumbled his story with inconsistent information.
Cullen’s preview of the case painted Vado-Bonilla’s initial reluctance to go to police as being directly related to intimidation and threats made by Bennett, who regularly carried a 9-mm pistol. Text messages, voice mails and phone recordings, as well as cell phone activity, will combine to create something of a timeline between the night of Crawford’s disappearance and August 2015 when prosecutors charged Bennett with murder, according to Cullen, who added that “this case will be proven, primarily, by scientific evidence” to back up Vado-Bonilla’s testimony. In particular, Cullen noted Crawford’s blood was found soaked into a headrest from the car Vado-Bonilla drove the night of the shooting.
Cullen further said Bennett’s actions support the murder allegations against him. Cullen mentioned Bennett’s interview with police included “some lies he was caught up in” and how he used his phone to find out where garbage disposal company Groot hauls the garbage it collects.
“The defendant was undone by his own Internet searches,” Cullen said of Bennett, who has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors on Wednesday called Crawford’s mother and a woman with whom he had two children as the first of an expected 55 witnesses. The trial is expected to last three weeks.
Dan Campana is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.