Roughly three years after law enforcement officers tied his movements to those of the slain girl's cell phone, a Chicago man has finally been sentenced to the maximum jail term for the slaying of the 14-year-old girl.
John Wilson Jr., 41, was convicted of home invasion, armed robbery and the murder of 14-year-old Kelli O'Laughlin of Indian Head Park, Ill., in October of 2011.
Wilson was sentenced to 160 years imprisonment, the maximum Judge John J. Hynes could order. He was sentenced to 100 years imprisonment for first-degree murder, 30 years for armed robbery and 30 years for home invasion.
Kelli returned home to a house in which Wilson was burglarizing. Wilson stabbed the high school freshman to death, using a knife he grabbed from her family's kitchen.
"She wanted me to tell you something before I killed her," stated Wilson in one of the many messages he sent from Kelli's phone to her family.
Investigators tied the movement of Wilson's phone to the one he had stolen from Kelli. Wilson is said to have been taken into police custody after investigators tracked the murderer's phone to a CTA station in Chicago.
Wilson is said to have sat silently while the judge made plain the murderer would live out the remainder of his life behind bars.
"Sir, I do not know who you are," stated Wilson. "I do not know why I am here and the voices told me not to talk to you."
"I've never mentioned him in the last three years. I've never said his name," Brenda O'Laughlin,Kelli's mother, said of Wilson. "And this really was all about Kelli. This wasn't about the defendant or the murderer. It was about Kelli."
"I so wish that I had been the one who walked into our house that to see that evil killer," she said. "I cannot even begin to imagine or endure her last moments of life with that evil man... Kelli was a truly innocent victim. What physical threat could she have been?"
Wilson spoke again, antagonizing the victim's mother after she spoke.
"We was in a relationship, Bren," said Wilson between smiles. "What happened? Are you serious?"
While investigators were able to tie Wilson to the crime scene via DNA evidence left at the house, they reported that the cell phone tracking was invaluable in bringing the killer in off of the street.
