Nov. 21, 2000

Twenty years ago, `Dream Murder' 
arrest started a nightmare

By ERIC LINDEN

Twenty years ago this week, one of the most unforgettable sagas in Oak
Park began with the arrest of a man named Steve Linscott, in what
immediately and forever became known as the "Dream Murder" case.

On Nov. 25, 1980, the Oak Park police and its Chief of Detectives Joseph
Mendrick--who's now the police chief--arrested Linscott. The Oak Park
Bible student had lived in the village for about a year and now faced
charges of the rape and murder of Karen Ann Philips, a 23-year-old
nursing student who lived near Linscott and his family in Oak Park.

The death was startling enough. Not only was the crime especially
savage, but there were, as a secondary issue, racial implications.

Overwhelmingly white, many residents in Oak Park at the time had fears
that white residents would leave the community in droves when increased
numbers of black people began living in the village. The fear was most
pronounced near Austin Boulevard, Oak Park's eastern border and adjacent
to the predominantly black Chicago community of Austin to the east.
Phillips, a white woman, was living at the time in an apartment on
Austin Boulevard. And more than a few people who heard and read the news
of her murder--people both in and outside of Oak Park--expressed or felt
concern that a young white woman living alone in an apartment on Austin
Boulevard had been savagely murdered.

Instead, the bizarre case of Steve Linscott, at the time a student at a
Bible college then in Oak Park and who also was white, likely lessened
much of that fear. Linscott had studied at Emmaus Bible College was at
156 N. Oak Park Ave., but the college has since moved out of the
building, which has since been converted to high-end condominiums.

Mendrick, who has announced his retirement as chief effective next June,
and other Oak Park police officers always have maintained that their
circumstantial case against Linscott was strong and accurate. But the
case eventually fell apart, although only after Linscott and his family
went through 12 years of waiting for freedom.

On Oct. 4, 1980, Philips was found dead in her apartment, face down and
naked, except for a nightgown around her neck. Her body had visible
wounds, her head was covered in blood and she had been sexually
assaulted.

In searching for the murderer, Oak Park police canvassed the
neighborhood and spoke to Linscott, a neighbor of Philips' and also a
resident of Austin Boulevard. Only later did Linscott remember a dream
he had had on the night of the murder--a dream which police and other
law enforcement authorities believed contained revealing parallels to
the murder. Investigators immediately treated the dream as a confession
of sorts and made Linscott their main suspect to the crimes.

After reporting the dream to police, Linscott cooperated with their
investigation--giving several taped interviews and samples of his
saliva, blood and hair to investigators, who soon enough stopped
searching for any other suspects and charged Linscott--at the time a
young husband and father--with Philips' murder.

There was no eyewitness to the crimes against Philips, and the physical
evidence was also less than open-and-shut. Lab tests showed that semen
at the crime scene "could have come" from Linscott. And the analyses of
Linscott's head and public hairs showed they were, in the words of
prosecutors, "consistent with" hairs found at the scene and presumably
belonging to the murderer/rapist.

The rest of the case centered on The Dream. As authorities and
prosecutors put it, the similarities to Linscott's premonition and the
actual crime worked out this way.

1. The victim was beaten repeatedly both in the dream and in actuality.
2. The victim was beaten in a downward motion both in the dream and in
the actual crime.
3. The weapon, in the dream, was long and thin; the actual weapon was a
tire iron.
4. The victim in the dream died passively; the actual victim was found
with her hands formed in an "ommudra" sign used by Hindus to signify a
passive acceptance of death.

Trial did not occur until June of 1982, when a jury in Cook County
Circuit Court deliberated for 10 hours before convicting Linscott of
murder. But the jury acquitted Linscott of the rape charge--even as he
was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Bolstered by friends, including several residents of Oak Park and River
Forest, Linscott and his family began working on appeal immediately. On
Aug. 7, 1985, the Illinois Appellate Court of Illinois overturned the
conviction, ruling that not enough direct evidence had been presented
and that the dream--presented as a confession--contained no
acknowledgment of guilt.

Now the prosecution appealed, although Linscott was released on bond on
Oct. 31, 1985 pending a ruling on that appeal. That ruling came down
from the Illinois Supreme Court on Oct. 17, 1986 and reversed the
Appellate Court ruling--in part.

The high court in 1986 ruled there was enough evidence to convict
Linscott, but also that other issues from the original trial were not
addressed in the first appeal. The Supreme Court remanded the Linscott
case back to the Appellate Court for further review.

Major questions arose about the state's analysis of the physical
evidence, and the Appellate Court ruled on July 29, 1987 that Linscott
was, in effect, denied a fair trial. That meant the conviction was
overturned again, and the prosecution appealed again.

This time, the state Supreme Court, on Jan. 31, 1991--more than 10 years
after Linscott's first arrest--threw out the Appellate Court's last
verdict, reversed the Circuit Court's first conviction and ordered a new
trial, which was set for July 2, 1992

But in examining their physical evidence--which at that point now
included results from more sophisticated DNA testing--prosecutors
decided they now had too many doubts about the Linscott case. So on July
15, 1992, the charges against Linscott were dropped.

He had served three years of his sentence, spent seven years out on bond
and has since relocated to and has a new career in Springfield, Ill.

And the Oak Park police, technically anyway, consider the Karen Ann
Phillips murder case still open.