Nov 3, 2009 4:13 pm US/Central
Brian Dugan On Tape: 'I Knew I Was A Lunatic'
WHEATON, Ill. (Sun-Times Media Wire) ―
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Brian Dugan
DuPage County
Brian Dugan considered himself a lunatic long before the court system and media outlets portrayed him as one, the Beacon News is reporting.
"I knew I was an (expletive) lunatic before," he said in a taped interview with a psychologist from Northwestern University in September. "I didn't know what to do about it. There was no way I could go anywhere to get help. There's no 1-800-Nuts line that people can call -- there should be."
The tape was played for jurors as Dugan's defense attempts to persuade them that the triple murderer -- facing death row for the 1983 kidnapping, rape and murder of 10-year old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville -- had recognized his own dangerous behaviors and sought help to no avail.
"I did these things, and I'm afraid I might do it again," Dugan remembered thinking of the murders of Nicarico in 1983 and Melissa Ackerman, 7, of Somonauk, and Donna Schnorr, 27, of Geneva in the following two years.
Before he got caught, Dugan committed a string of violent sexual assaults and kidnappings of young women across the Fox Valley. Some of the women Dugan let go. But Ackerman, Schnorr and Nicarico wouldn't get to flee.
"I don't think I would see any of them like regular human beings," Dugan said in the taped interview. When asked about his motive for killing Jeanine, when he'd let so many other women go, Dugan was almost speechless.
"I don't know why," he said, putting his head down and beginning to sigh. "I just don't know what I was feeling. I think I wanted to protect myself, but I don't know."
During Dr. Kent Kiehl's interview, Dugan expresses remorse for his crimes, although admits he can lie and manipulate on command. "I understand who I am now," he told the doctor. "I didn't understand what I was before … I didn't know the full range of how bad it was."
He talks about his Jekyll-and-Hyde personality and the "clicking" of something in his brain that turned his non-violent property crimes into rape and murder.
Dugan said he should have been taken from his home as a child, entered into foster care and given psychiatric evaluations. "The murders didn't happen just on bad day. I wasn't having a bad day, I was a bad guy," he said when asked about motive.
But today, he said, he regrets his actions. "I want to tell (the Nicaricos) that I'm sorry for what I did. I know I destroyed their life. I didn't understand that Jeanine was a real person, but the more I learned about her life and her difficulties and what she went through before she met me…" his feelings began to change.
"I think I have remorse. I think I do. I have guilt … and I have empathy, too. But it just stops. I tear up a little, but something starts in here and just blocks it out … I fear going past a certain point to show my emotions."
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Nicarico's violent death. Dugan is already serving two life sentences for the deaths of Schnorr and Ackerman. Jurors will decide if Dugan will receive another life term -- or the death penalty.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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