Man Convicted Of 2 Ford Heights Killings Gets 65 Years

January 30, 2001|By Janan Hanna, Tribune Staff Writer.

A man convicted late last year of the 1978 double murder that originally led to the wrongful imprisonment of the so-called Ford Heights 4 was sentenced Monday to 65 years in prison.

Juan Rodriguez, the last of three suspects convicted in the shooting deaths of Carol Schmal and her fiance, Lawrence Lionberg, in Ford Heights, was sentenced by Cook County Circuit Judge Stanley Sacks. Sacks found Rodriguez guilty in September after a bench trial.

Sacks sentenced Rodriguez to 40 years in prison for the Schmal murder and an additional 25 years for the Lionberg murder.

In 1978, 40 years was the maximum sentence for a first-degree murder conviction.

Assistant State's Atty. Darren O'Brien said prosecutors did not seek the death penalty in the case.

Rodriguez had been convicted previously for the murders, but in 1999, the conviction was reversed by the Illinois Appellate Court.

Two other men, Ira Johnson and Arthur "Red" Robinson, pleaded guilty in 1997 to the murders and were sentenced to life in prison.

Schmal and Lionberg were abducted at gunpoint from a gas station in May 1978 by four men who were apparently planning a robbery, authorities have said.

The couple were driven to an abandoned townhouse where Schmal was raped and then shot. Lionberg was brought to a creek behind the building and shot in the head.

After the killings, four men--Dennis Williams, William Rainge, Kenneth Adams and Verneal Jimerson--were arrested and convicted. Known as the Ford Heights 4, two were sentenced to death and the other two given life sentences before DNA evidence in 1996 and confessions implicating the other suspects cleared them.

The four spent 18 years in prison before the new evidence surfaced.

That high-profile exoneration contributed to calls for capital punishment reforms that led to a moratorium declared by Gov. George Ryan on the death penalty.