An officer who discovered Ryan Connell’s body recalling Wednesday the harrowing moment when he found the son of a family friend lying on the floor of a Steger apartment.
Deputy police Chief Peter Fajman, a sergeant at the time, was responding to a well-being check when he found 28-year-old Connell at about 8 a.m. Jan. 1, 2020.
“The first thing I saw was there was a male body, or a male laying on the floor. I recognized him to be subject that I had known. I noticed it was Ryan Connell,” Fajman said.
Fajman testified Wednesday in the trial of Richard Proctor, who is charged with first-degree murder for allegedly stabbing Connell during a fight on New Years Day. Fajman said he worked with Connell’s mother when she was a dispatcher for the Steger Police Department.
“I’ve known him personally and professionally since he was a little child,” he told the jury.
Valerie Arangelovich, a forensic pathologist who performed Connell’s autopsy, said his body had several stab wounds and blunt force trauma injuries that caused his death. One of the stab wounds punctured his left lung, she said.
“There was so much blood that the contents of the chest had moved toward the right to make room for all that blood,” Arangelovich told the jury.
Leslee Nissen, an Illinois State Police crime scene investigator called in to assist Steger police, said she found a serrated, bent knife laying near Connell’s body with traces of blood.
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Nissen said the knife came from a butcher block on Proctor’s kitchen counter, and said it was swabbed for DNA.
“You’ll see on the serrated knife, it’s got red blood-like staining,” she said pointing to a photo of the knife on a projector.
Photographs also depict an unidentified blood-like substance smeared on Proctor’s bedroom door near where Connell’s body lay, which prosecutors said show signs of a struggle.
Proctor is representing himself and has been in a wheelchair during the trial at the Will County Courthouse in Joliet. He is being held at the Will County Adult Detention Facility.
Fajman testified Proctor did not have difficulty walking the day of his arrest and had no visible injuries aside on his knuckles.
“There was some redness to the backs of his hands, around his knuckle area, but nothing significant,” Fajman said.
During a search of the home of Proctor’s aunt, Renee Proctor, Glenwood police Deputy Chief Kyle Wilbanks said he found a damp, cream-colored sweater with red stains hidden behind a washer machine, which prosecutors believe Proctor wore the night of Connell’s death.
Jeff Lohmann who lives in an apartment adjacent to Proctor’s and does maintenance for the building at 3602 Chicago Road, said he installed security cameras on the building’s exterior.
From the footage, Lohmann was able to identify Proctor leaving the building Jan. 1.
Lohmann also said a yellow mop bucket, which he said was kept in the basement which other tenants have access to, was found near the crime scene.
Aside from Lohmann, Proctor did not question any other witnesses Wednesday, but said he would have questions for Fajman when the trial resumed Thursday.
The jury was selected Monday, and the opening statement for the prosecution along with witness testimony was presented Tuesday. Proctor did not give an opening statement, court records show.