Chicago Man Gets 160 Years in Death of Suburban Teen

A 41-year-old Chicago man on Friday was sentenced to 160 years in prison in the fatal stabbing of a 14-year-old girl almost three years ago when he broke into her west suburban home in Indian Head, Il., the Chicago Tribune reports.

John Wilson Jr., was charged with murder, armed robbery and home invasion in the death of Kelli O’Laughlin, of Indian Head Park, the report says.

Judge John J. Hynes called the murder “a crime that shocked the conscience of the community” on Friday while handing out the maximum sentence, the Tribune reports.

The incident occurred Oct. 27, 2011, when the girl, a high school freshman, encountered Wilson during a burglary after returning home from school. He reportedly grabbed a knife from the family’s kitchen and repeatedly stabbed her, the report says.

When the girl’s mother returned home, she called police, saying she believed her daughter had committed suicide. But she began to receive a series of “cruel text messages” from her daughter’s phone.

Wilson was arrested about a week later, after investigators tracked the phone to a CTA station on Chicago’s South Side, the Tribune writes. At the time of Wilson’s arrest, he had spent all but three of the last 20 years in prison, the newspaper writes.

Read more at the Chicago Tribune.