Chicago Area Local News

RIVER FOREST, Ill. (CBS 2) ― Bond was denied Friday for a 53-year-old man accused of following his estranged wife home on a commuter train and beating her to death with a hammer on a River Forest street.

Maywood Court Judge John Tourtelot ordered James Pender held without bond when he appeared in court charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Pender was accused of beating his estranged wife, Therese Pender, 41, to death with a hammer as she walked home from the train station in River Forest at about 6:17 p.m. Wednesday, prosecutors said.

The attack occurred about half a block from the suburb's police and fire station.

Assistant State's Atty. Sandra Blake said the defendant went to the Loop Wednesday afternoon wearing dark clothing and carrying a briefcase containing a large knife, a chisel, ski mask, sunglasses, paper bag, a pair of pants and the hammer.

James Pender followed the victim to River Forest on a Metra train, ditched the briefcase in a nearby park, and attacked her near Lake Street and Park Avenue, Blake said. He struck her four to five times in the back of the head with the hammer and fled.

The couple had a divorce pending and the victim had taken out an order of protection against James Pender forbidding any contact with his wife, Blake said.

James Pender, of Harwood Heights, was charged Friday morning with first-degree murder in the slaying of his wife.

She was alive when police arrived at the scene and transported to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where she was pronounced dead at 7:13 p.m., according to a Cook County Medical Examiner's office spokesman.

Witnesses said James Pender ran north on Park Avenue after the beating. He was arrested without incident near railroad tracks on the 600 block of Park Avenue, and was carrying a 15-inch hammer, according to Weiss.

Police also seized his car, which was parked at Harlem and Circle avenues in Forest Park, the chief said.

Court records suggest the couple had been having problems for some time.

Therese Pender filed for divorce from her husband on Dec. 17, 2004, and also filed for and received an order of protection against him, according to court records.

The couple was married in 2002 in Las Vegas. They had no children together, court filings said.

An affidavit stated that the husband was served with a copy of the order of protection on Dec. 17, 2004, and filings said it was later extended to Jan. 24, 2005. It was to then extended to April 26 when another court date was scheduled in the case.

In a filing that went with the order of protection, Therese Pender wrote, "My marriage has been a history of physical, mental, emotional abuse from the beginning. I am afraid of my husband and submit to him always and go nowhere without him. He has not looked for a job in over two years. He plays cards online and violently yells, screams when he is losing; he will throw items at me in bed because he is so mad."

Pender said in the filing that her husband demanded obedience, and the filing detailed an occasion when he held a pair of scissors threateningly at her after losing a card game and several instances of her husband shoving and punching her.

Pender also said in the filing that she saw a psychiatrist and was given medication, which her husband took from her. The filing said Pender tried to leave her husband in April 2002.

Regarding the filing of the order of protection, Pender stated, "I am especially scared because he is not expecting this and has threatened me in the past... with bodily harm `or worse' to myself and anyone connected with me if I ever take an action like this."

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