People v. Plackowska

• Court: Appellate Court of Illinois
• Writing for the Court: JUSTICE SCHOSTOK delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
• Citation: People v. Plackowska, 2020 IL App (2d) 171015, 179 N.E.3d 315, 449 Ill.Dec. 396 (Ill. App. 2020)
• Decision Date: 03 August 2020
• Docket Number: No. 2-17-1015,2-17-1015
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Elzbieta M. PLACKOWSKA, Defendant-Appellant.

2020 IL App (2d) 171015

179 N.E.3d 315

449 Ill.Dec. 396

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Elzbieta M. PLACKOWSKA, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 2-17-1015

Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District.

Opinion filed August 3, 2020

James E. Chadd, Thomas A. Lilien, and Lucas Walker, of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Elgin, for appellant.

Robert B. Berlin, State's Attorney, of Wheaton (Lisa Anne Hoffman and Mary A. Fleming, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

JUSTICE SCHOSTOK delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Following a bench trial, the defendant, Elzbieta M. Plackowska, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder ( 720 ILCS 5/9-1(a)(1) (West 2012)) and two counts of aggravated cruelty ( 510 ILCS 70/3.02 (West 2012) ). In so ruling, the trial court rejected the defendant's insanity defense and found that she had the substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of her conduct at the time of the offenses. See 720 ILCS 5/6-2(a) (West 2012). On appeal, the defendant argues that the trial court's determination that she had the substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of her conduct at the time of the offenses, was against the manifest weight of the evidence. We affirm.

¶ 2 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 3 On November 15, 2012, the defendant was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. The charges alleged that defendant stabbed to death with a knife J.P., her eight-year old son, and O.D., a five-year old girl whom she babysat. The defendant was also charged with two counts of aggravated cruelty for stabbing to death with a knife two dogs, Niki and Tootsie. All of the offenses occurred on the evening of October 30, 2012.

¶ 4 The defendant did not dispute that she committed the charged offenses, but she asserted the affirmative defense of insanity. The defendant waived a jury trial, and the matter proceeded to a bench trial on September 12, 2017.

¶ 5 Marta Dworakowski testified that she was O.D.'s mother. She and O.D. lived in a condominium in Naperville. Dworakowski was a registered nurse. She hired the defendant to pick O.D. up from school and babysit her until 9 p.m., when Dworakowski normally returned home from work. Dworakowski testified that she had never given the defendant permission to take O.D. to church, or to have J.P. and Tootsie, the defendant's dog, inside her condo. On October 30, 2012, Dworakowski arrived home after work and noticed that the defendant's car was not parked outside. She drove to the defendant's house and tried calling the defendant multiple times, but there was no answer. Dworakowski then called the police, who told her to go to the police station, where she was informed that O.D. had been killed inside their condo.

¶ 6 The defendant's son Matt Plackowska testified that he, his parents, J.P., and Tootsie lived in an apartment in Naperville. Artur Plackowska—Matt's father and the defendant's husband—was away from home during the week because he worked as a truck driver. The defendant cleaned houses and babysat. Matt testified that the defendant's behavior started to change after she learned that her father died, in early-to-mid-October. The defendant's father lived and died in Poland. The defendant normally consumed vodka once or twice a week. However, after her father's death, she started to drink more. She became more stressed out and started sleeping less. She would sleep only a couple hours and then go to work. Aside from these recent changes, she was acting normal until about two or three days before the offenses at issue.

¶ 7 Matt testified that he vaguely remembered a conversation the defendant had with Artur. The defendant said that she saw the devil in J.P. when he was sleeping. After that, she started making J.P. watch religious movies. On the evening of October 29, 2012, while Matt was studying for a test, the defendant kept coming into his room yelling at him. He called a family friend, Macki Moody, who picked him up and brought him to her house. The next day, October 30, he went back home to get a few personal items from the house. The defendant started talking about the devil again while he was packing.

¶ 8 Matt also testified that, about 11 p.m. on October 30, 2012, the defendant came into Moody's house, covered in blood. The defendant said that she had been attacked at O.D.'s house by someone who was dressed all in black. At one point, she stated that the man looked like the devil. The intruder was stabbing the children and then tried to stab the defendant. She said that she was covered in her own blood, but Matt did not see any wounds. She stated that the man had been stalking her and had stated that he wanted to kill her and her whole family. The defendant told Matt that the intruder had taken her cell phone.

¶ 9 Matt called 911 and the dispatcher asked for O.D.'s address. Matt and the defendant walked out to the defendant's car so that Matt could look up O.D.'s address on the car's GPS. When Matt entered the vehicle, he saw a knife covered in blood on the floor by the driver's seat. He looked up O.D.'s address, gave it to the dispatcher, and went back in the house.

¶ 10 Naperville police officer Vincent Clark testified that on October 30, 2012, at approximately 11:24 p.m., he and other officers forced their way into Dworakowski's locked condo. There was a large pool of blood that led to the master bedroom. Inside the master bedroom, O.D. was found dead on the bed and J.P. was found dead on the floor. There were also two dead dogs on the floor. There was a bloody knife partially in the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink, covered by some dishes.

¶ 11 Dr. Jeffrey Harkey testified that he performed the autopsies on O.D. and J.P. O.D. was stabbed 94 times and J.P. was stabbed 173 times. They both died from blood loss due to their wounds. Dr. Harkey testified that, either the knife found in the garbage disposal or the knife found in the defendant's car, or both, could have been used to stab the children.

¶ 12 Officer Robert Carlson testified that he was dispatched to Moody's house on October 30, 2012. The defendant was on the floor in the fetal position. When he asked the defendant what happened, she said that she had been at Dworakowski's house and went outside to smoke. When she was outside, a man entered the house. The man had been stalking her. She said that she could not give a description, because it had been dark outside. She said that the blood on her was from the children and that she saw the man stab them. The defendant was transported to Edward Hospital.

¶ 13 The record indicates that the defendant was interviewed by Naperville police officers at the hospital from 12:24 until 1:37 a.m. on October 31, 2012. Detective Richard Arsenault conducted the interview. Detective Wojit Kowal was also present for translation purposes, as he was fluent in Polish, the defendant's native language. The interview was video recorded, and a recording of the interview was played in court. The defendant initially denied killing the children and gave several versions of the evening's events, including that a man attacked and killed the children. However, the defendant eventually admitted that she killed the children.

¶ 14 Arsenault, Carlson, and Kowal interviewed the defendant at the hospital later that morning, from 3:30 until 4:12 a.m. The interview was video recorded. The recording was not played in court but was admitted into evidence and reviewed by the trial court. The defendant said that she took O.D. and J.P. to church on the evening at issue and the priest blessed her, which made her very happy. After church, they went to O.D.'s house. The kids were playing in the bedroom when she saw something black that said, "kill the kids." She told the kids she was going to kill them and told them to pray. She told J.P. that he had the devil in him. She stabbed J.P. everywhere to make sure that he was killed "perfect[ly]" so that he would go to heaven. She told O.D. that she loved her and then stabbed her just like J.P. She then killed the dogs. After that, she went back to church and knocked on the door; no one answered so she called and left a message saying that she "killed someone today." She threw her cell phone out the car window while she drove away.

¶ 15 After the second interview, Kowal stayed with the defendant in the hospital room and she spoke to him in Polish. Kowal testified that the defendant said that she threw her cell phone out of her car when she was leaving the church, because she thought the police would be tracking her. She did not get a hotel room, because she knew the police would be looking for her car. She drove to Moody's house because she planned to kill Matt and Moody. She said that she would have killed Artur too, if he had been there, because she wanted everyone to die with a "perfect death."

¶ 16 The record indicates that the defendant gave a videotaped statement to Arsenault and Kowal at the police station on October 31, 2012, from 5:43 until 9:12 a.m. The videotape was entered into evidence but not played in court. In that interview, the defendant said that she took the children to O.D.'s house after church because she did not want to make a mess in her own house. The defendant responded affirmatively when asked if she had contemplated committing the murders after church on her way to O.D.'s house. She then said that she lied and that she did not know that she was going to kill the kids when she left church. The defendant told Arsenault that, while at O.D.'s house, she heard a voice say, "kill the kids." She also said that, when she turned off the lights for bedtime, she started to feel like "something was happening to [her]." She then went to the kitchen to grab a knife. She told the kids to get on the floor and pray. J.P. told her that something was wrong with him. The defendant told him that he was the devil. She stabbed J.P. first and then O.D. The defendant then killed the dogs. Sh...