By David Protess
July 21, 2009
On October 3, 1984, 15-year-old Kirstina Hickey vanished around 9:15 p.m. after performing at a choir concert at Rich East High School in Park Forest. Her partially clad body was discovered two days later in a wooded area behind a Park Forest shopping mall. She had been stabbed multiple times, the contents of her purse had been discarded and her clothing and undergarments had been removed, though no semen was recovered from her body.
17-year-old Christopher Abernathy, a Rich East dropout who had moved to Midlothian with his mother, became a suspect in the case when he attended Kristina's funeral. Christopher, who had briefly dated Kristina the previous summer, had noticeable scratches and abrasions on his face. When questioned by police, he said he'd been in an altercation with neighborhood youths, a claim that the authorities confirmed. But, with no solid leads in the year that followed, Christopher remained a possible suspect.
In November of 1985, Park Forest police questioned an acquaintance of Christopher's, Allan Dennis, about Kristina's unsolved murder. Dennis was no stranger to the local authorities, having been arrested for burglary that August. During the questioning in November, Dennis claimed that Christopher had confessed the slaying to him.
At that point, police arrested Christopher, and, after Mirandizing and interrogating him, Christopher admitted committing the crime. In his signed confession, Christopher stated that his friend, Tony Keenan, had taken him from Midlothian to Park Forest on the evening of October 3, 1984. After Tony dropped him off, Christopher encountered Kristina Hickey, who was emotionally distraught over a fight she'd just had with her boyfriend. Christopher stated that he tried to grab Kristina as he walked her home, a struggle ensued, and he accidentally stabbed her in the throat with a knife he was carrying. He then went to McDonald’s and to a park before finally calling Tony, who picked him up and drove him home.
The confession and Allan Dennis' corroborative testimony became the centerpiece of the prosecution's case before a Markham jury in 1987. Frank Rago, Christopher's attorney, presented an alibi defense: Virginia Wrobel and her daughter Lisa testified that Christopher and Tony Keenan were at their Midlothian home for dinner around 6:00 p.m. on the evening of the crime. After dinner, Lisa and Christopher left for a social gathering at the nearby home of a mutual friend, Denise Kuba. Virginia testified she next saw Lisa and Christopher when they returned to her home around 10:30 p.m. (Note: Kristina was last seen alive around 9:15 p.m.) But prosecutors impeached the alibi by calling a rebuttal witness – Denise Kuba -- who testified that Christopher was not at her home that particular night. Moreover, Tony Keenan, who was on the defense's witness list to corroborate the alibi, mysteriously failed to appear to testify at the trial.
Following brief deliberations, the jury found Christopher guilty of murder, armed robbery and aggravated criminal sexual assault, and the judge sentenced him to natural life. His direct appeal was denied, and the only other relief he has sought was a petition seeking forensic testing on the physical evidence. (That petition was filed by the appellate defender’s office and has been pending for at least three years, in part because the state has claimed it has been unable to locate the crime scene evidence.) Newly discovered evidence of his innocence has never been presented to the courts.
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The Medill Innocence Project first learned about the Abernathy case in the summer of 2005 when my program assistant received a letter from Christopher's mother, Ann Kolus, insisting her son was innocent and seeking our help.
After reading the trial transcripts, reviewing the discovery documents and corresponding with Christopher, I concluded the case certainly deserved a fresh investigation. In particular, the confession seemed dubious at best, having been obtained during the course of a 35-hour interrogation. Adding to my skepticism was Christopher's documented learning disabilities, which made him susceptible to the demands of authority figures. When I read the testimony of the lead detective admitting he'd told Christopher that he could go home if he simply signed the confession, my skepticism turned to outrage.
Then there was Christopher's prior criminal history -- or lack thereof. His only previous brush with the law had been an arrest for shoplifting at age 13 that was not adjudicated.
Reviewing the physical evidence, I learned that fingerprints had been lifted from a notepad that had been found near Kristina's purse, blood had been found on her coat and hairs had been recovered from the scene. All of the forensic tests excluded Christopher.
Finally, the state's star witness, Allan Dennis, had admitted beating up Christopher shortly before Kristina's murder. I became further suspicious of Dennis' claim that Christopher had confessed to him when I learned that Dennis was facing burglary charges at the time he was being interviewed by Park Forest investigators.
For all these reasons, I docketed the Abernathy case for investigation in the Fall of 2005. Since then, six teams of Medill students have done extensive reporting on the case. They have uncovered considerable evidence of Christopher's innocence, but in this space I only will highlight the sworn statements that resulted from their investigation:
1. Allan Dennis has acknowledged lying at trial when he testified that Christopher confessed to him. In his declaration, Dennis swore that Park Forest police officers had repeatedly attempted to get him to pin Kristina's murder on Christopher, offering to help him with the burglary cases while also threatening him with additional charges if he refused to cooperate.
2. Allan Dennis' cousin, William Sztuba, has corroborated Dennis' recantation by swearing that Dennis told him he had falsely testified in 1987.
3. Denise Kuba, currently a resident of Florida, has sworn that she did not tell the truth at trial when she testified as a rebuttal witness to Christopher's alibi. She has alleged that the prosecutor brow-beat her into falsely testifying that Christopher and Lisa were not at her Midlothian home on the night of October 3. In fact, Kuba stated in her declaration, it was "highly likely" they were present for the social gathering. Thus, Christopher now has an uncontested alibi for the night of the crime. (See #4 below.)
4. Virginia Wrobel has provided a detailed time-line for relevant hours of October 3, a chronology she was not allowed to fully provide on the stand. She is able to account for Christopher's whereabouts from 5:00 p.m. until 10:30 p.m. with the exception of the social gathering at the Kuba's. Her daughter Lisa's sworn testimony accounts for the time she was with Christopher at the Kuba's, with Virginia seeing them leave and return to her home.
5. David Batchelor, Kristina Hickey's steady boyfriend at the time of her murder (and who was cleared as a suspect because of his airtight alibi), has sworn that he and Kristina had not been fighting prior to the crime and that Christopher's name had never arisen in their conversations. Batchelor thereby has challenged the validity of Christopher's statements in his confession about the purportedly tearful encounter with Kristina that preceded her murder. Moreover, another friend of Kristina's (who has not yet signed an affidavit) has stated he observed Kristina immediately right after the choir concert and just before her disappearance, talking happily on the phone with David Batchelor.
6. Tony Keenan, Christopher's Midlothian friend who (according to Christopher's confession) took him to Park Forest on the night of the crime, has sworn that he never accompanied Christopher to Park Forest until the day of Kristina's funeral. He additionally has sworn that he did not own a car at the time, and could not have received a phone call from Christopher asking to be picked up after the crime because he did not have a phone while he lived in Midlothian. According to Keenan, who currently lives in New Mexico, Park Forest police attempted to coerce him into admitting his participation in the crime. When that failed, the Midlothian police picked him up on the eve of Christopher's trial and held him without filing charges -- until after the trial had ended.
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UPDATE
Christopher’s new pro bono lawyer, recruited by the Medill Innocence Project, has located physical evidence from the crime scene that long ago was believed to have been lost. Attorney Lauren Kaeseberg, of Stone & Associates, plans to file a motion seeking DNA testing of the evidence, as well as a post-conviction petition that cites the new evidence from witnesses and sources cultivated by Medill students.
Arrested at age 17 for a crime he did not commit, Christopher Abernathy celebrated his 42nd birthday at the Stateville Correctional Center this year. But, for the first time since his conviction, he has hope.