Lockport man convicted of beating elderly father to death

Lockport man convicted of beating elderly father to death


By Jon Seidel
Sun-Times Media
jseidel@suntimes.com
Last Modified: Dec 2, 2011 05:41PM

A Will County jury deliberated for 3-1/2 hours Friday before finding a Lockport man guilty of beating his elderly father to death.

Jurors convicted Scott Sullivan, 58, of first-degree murder and aggravated battery of a senior citizen after a four-day trial.

He turned to face his family after the verdict was read, spreading his arms with a look of disbelief. He faces between 20 and 60 years in prison, and he’s expected back in court Feb. 29.

Sullivan’s family members later embraced each other in an emotional group hug outside the courtroom, and they declined to speak to reporters.

Prosecutors said Sullivan attacked 86-year-old Fred Sullivan in July 2010. Paramedics found the elder Sullivan on the floor of his son’s living room, lying on his back with pattern-mark bruises from head to toe. Fred Sullivan never recovered from the injuries and died four months later.

But Scott Sullivan’s public defenders said police used opinions and assumptions to build a “tunnel-vision” case against their client, and they said they’d appeal and seek a new trial. Investigators found no evidence tying Scott Sullivan to a beating, they said, no weapon was ever found, and eight months passed between the alleged crime and Sullivan’s indictment.

But Assistant State’s Attorney Heather Meyers said that gap in time shows investigators did their homework, reviewed the evidence and took their time before prosecuting Sullivan for his father’s murder.

And she said it was Sullivan who was forced to create a fictional tale so he could explain hook-shaped cuts on his father’s head, bruises all over his body and the blood found on the carpets, walls and ceiling of his living and dining rooms.

“Scott has to come up with something to fit that,” Meyers said Friday.

Scott Sullivan told police his father, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, likely fell on July 18, 2010. It had happened many times before. Scott Sullivan said he’d given his father a shower that afternoon, and they both went to bed. Later, he said he heard his father cry “help,” and found him on the floor.

Attorneys said Scott Sullivan called his estranged wife and then called 911. But Meyers and Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Fitzgerald said Sullivan also tried to move furniture and clean up blood at the scene. They said he later drank a beer while explaining things to the police.

Timothy Specht, one of Scott Sullivan’s attorneys, said his client simply tried to clean his father’s wounds. He said the blood on the ceiling could have been splattered there from a rag he used.

“It’s absolutely normal to try to clean a wound,” Specht said.

Specht also said Fred Sullivan fell again, two months after the alleged beating, in a nursing home shower. But prosecutors said Fred Sullivan never returned to the health he had on July 18, 2010. He developed pneumonia and died in November 2010.

“Fred Sullivan survived World War II,” Fitzgerald said, “but he didn’t survive the beating his son gave him.”

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