Apparently he said he was mad because she stole some money and wouldn't go home when he told her to. I may have to rethink my position on the death penalty.
Father denied bond in 'slaughter of two little girls'
Laura Hobbs
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/s.../0509hobbs.jpg
Krystal Tobias
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/s...0509tobias.jpg
By Nicole Ziegler Dizon
The Associated Press
WAUKEGAN — Jerry Hobbs told investigators he was angry at his 8-year-old daughter for stealing money when he tracked her down in a wooded park on Mother's Day, punched her and then killed her and her best friend, stabbing the girls more than 30 times, prosecutors said Wednesday at his first court appearance on murder charges.
Hobbs, shackled and in a dark blue jail uniform, stared at the courtroom floor as Assistant Lake County State's Attorney Jeff Pavletic described the case against him.
"This was a slaughter of two little girls," Pavletic said.
The killer was so enraged, he said, that the knife went through Laura Hobbs' neck and into her spine, and she had been stabbed once in each eye.
After hearing the prosecutor's descriptions, the judge ordered Hobbs held without bond. A public defender had not yet been appointed to represent him.
Hobbs had led police to the bodies of Laura and her 9-year-old friend Krystal Tobias early Monday morning, claiming he had come across them just off the Beulah Park bike path while searching with relatives for his missing daughter.
In videotaped interviews over the following two days, however, prosecutors say Hobbs told them that he killed both girls after Laura refused to leave the park and that he then dragged their bodies into the woods.
Hobbs, 34, told investigators he had gone out looking for his daughter between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Sunday. He told Laura to go home but she refused, so he punched her for disobeying, Pavletic said. Krystal then pulled out a potato knife to try to defend her friend, and he attacked her as well, according to the interviews. Hobbs wrested the knife from her, hit her, and then stabbed both girls repeatedly, Pavletic said.
He dragged them into the woods and left them face-up, side-by-side, Pavletic said. The girls had apparently taken their shoes off, and Hobbs had paired them next to the bodies, he said.
"It was a brutal beating, repeated punching of the two little girls and then repeated stabs. It's pretty horrible," Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller said.
Laura was stabbed 20 times in the neck and abdomen and once in each eye, prosecutors said. Krystal was stabbed 11 times in the neck and torso.
Waller said after the hearing that he didn't believe Krystal had brought the knife, but that that was what Hobbs had told investigators in the interviews and written statements.
Pavletic said Hobbs, who had just been released from prison a month earlier for aggravated assault, told investigators he believed Laura had stolen money from her mother. She had been grounded, but her mother let her go out and play on Mother's Day.