Jerry Weber died nearly 18 years ago.
But time has not dulled the brutality of the Aurora father’s final moments or the razor-sharp pain his murder inflicted on those who still love him so.
In graphic detail, noted forensic pathologist Dr. Larry Blum testified Thursday that Weber died after being shot at close range in the head, neck, eye and forehead.
Prosecutors described his death as an “execution,” with the assailant pressing the .22-caliber gun against the back of Weber’s neck before firing one of four shots.
Blum said he could not determine the sequence of the gunshots, but he told a DuPage County jury that the 24-year-old man did not die instantly.
After Weber was shot in the head, “there still was a heartbeat,” Blum said.
The slain man’s mother, Karen Bond, seated in the courtroom gallery, sobbed as autopsy photos of her youngest child’s bloodied face were displayed. Weber would have celebrated his 42nd birthday next week.
Edward Tenney is accused of opening fire on Weber late April 16, 1992, before robbing him of a black leather wallet containing $6, during a chance encounter in a muddy field near Sheffer and Vaughn roads, near what is now the sprawling Stonebridge subdivision.
Tenney, 50, maintains his innocence. But his cousin, Donald Lippert, 34, testified this week that he watched Tenney commit the murder after the two spotted Weber trying to free his mired white work van from a muddy Aurora Township field. Lippert, also armed, said he gave Tenney his weapon after the other one jammed.
Tenney is serving life prison sentences for the 1993 shootings of two Kane County women, killed in separate home invasions, including that of dairy heiress Jill Oberweis.
Prosecutors in the ongoing DuPage County trial are seeking the death penalty against Tenney if he is convicted of murdering Weber, a carpet installer whose wife, Sharon,
discovered his bullet-ridden body that next morning when he failed to return home from gathering flagstones for a backyard garden project.
Sharon Weber gave birth to their second child just three weeks earlier. She has not remarried and raised their two sons, David and Erik, while putting herself through school to become a registered nurse. As a witness, the widow has not been allowed to sit in the courtroom during the trial’s guilt/innocence phase.
Lippert received an 80-year prison term for his role in the three slayings. He is eligible for parole in 2035 after serving half the sentence.
Weber’s murder remained unsolved for three years. Police were led to Tenney in October 1993 when they arrested him on an unrelated burglary warrant at his girlfriend’s apartment, about a mile from the murder scene, and recovered one of the two guns they later linked to the crime through ballistics testing.
It wasn’t until May 1995, though, that police recovered the other gun and Weber’s wallet from other members of Lippert’s family, who lived with Tenney back in 1992 and said they still were storing some of his belongings. One of them also said Tenney confessed to him after the slaying, but he was too afraid to tell police.
The trial before Circuit Judge Daniel Guerin resumes Friday in Wheaton.
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