Apr 21, 2009 10:40 pm US/Central
Police Release 911 Call About Fatal Stabbings
HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. (CBS) ―
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D'Andre Howard
Hoffman Estates Police Department
He's accused of stabbing to death three people inside a suburban home. On the 911 call for help, a rare look inside a
vicious crime moments after it took place is revealed. The call for help was made by Amanda Engelhardt, the fiancée of D'Andre Howard. However, during the conversation, Howard offered up his side to the dispatcher on the other end. CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports with what he said and what it all means.
The call went on for six-and-a-half minutes. Much of it was simply too graphic, but we will examine part of an extended conversation between police and an
alleged killer as his victims lay dead or dying all around him.
911: "What's your name?"
Howard: "My name is D'Andre Howard."
He was speaking from inside the home where the Engelhardt family had offered him something D'Andre Howard had never known in a childhood which had included 10 different foster homes, criminal convictions and psychiatric treatment. He was welcomed into the family by his fiancée Amanda, who'd already had his child.
Howard: "Amanda Engelhardt is my fiancée. We're getting married this summer.
911: "OK and…"
Howard: "In the backyard."
911: "Uh-huh."
Howard: "I won't make it."
911: "You will make it, sir. Just tell me. We've got help on the way."
Listening to the tape with CBS 2 was Dr. Margret Nickels, a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating at-risk children and adolescents. She tried to help us understand what we were hearing.
"There are several dead people, he is hurt, he fears he's near death, and it's mayhem," Dr. Nickels said. "And he's talking about this idealized, typical, normal American life, being married in the backyard."
After allegedly holding the family at knifepoint, Howard had been stabbed by Laura Engelhardt, Amanda's sister.
911: "Listen, D'Andre, was it her sister who stabbed you?"
Howard: "Yes."
911: "Where is she right now?"
Howard: "We were fighting for the knife and I stabbed her. She's not talking."
911: "OK, so she stabbed you and you stabbed her?"
Howard: "Yes."
911: "Are you and her the only two that are hurt?"
Howard: "No, her dad."
911: "Where's her dad?"
Howard: "He's dead."
Despite the apparent confession, Dr. Nickels recognized a familiar refrain from the suspected killer with the troubled background.
"He is portraying himself as the victim," Dr. Nickels said. "Now whether this is his way of already building a defense or protecting himself, or whether he really experiences himself as having been the victim."
It was chilling to listen to, and instructive to discuss with an expert; though nothing justifies the horrible crime committed. It was a view we'd neither seen nor heard. Howard had to know that at least three witnesses would tell police he was the killer, yet he was still hanging on to that alternate reality of the happy home he'd never known.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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