By Nicholas Stix
Argument #1,931,079 for racial segregation: Lazzerick Mosley would have stood out like a sore thumb, and police or even neighbors would have had no compunctions about asking him what he was doing, loitering in a white residential neighborhood.
As it was, south Chicago suburb Tinley Park, with fewer than 60,000 residents, was 89.1 percent white, and only 3.1 percent black.
Let’s look at a 2009 article by the Chicago Tribune’s Steve Schmadeke, from when the violent career felon was first charged in the murder of William “Randy” Schmidt, 53. Note that Mosley had previously been convicted of “aggravated vehicular hijacking, armed robbery and aggravated unlawful restraint,” but got only 17 months for charges that could have gotten him a life sentence. Mosley had avoided a jury trial—as he also did in the instant case—and opted instead for a bench trial (trial by a judge alone). It was one of the few times in his life that he showed any intelligence. He should have been sentenced to a minimum of 20 years, such that he would never have had the chance to murder “Randy” Schmidt. Note, too, that Tinley Park Police Cmdr. Pat McCain was ready with the knee-jerk assertion that Mosley’s crime was “random,” when the killer had actually been targeting the victim for three months.
Back in 2009, the Trib ran a picture of the killer; it doesn’t do that anymore, and I couldn’t find any pictures of the victim.
Finally, note that Mosley was already in jail on a new, unrelated carjacking charge in 2009, when he was tracked down and charged with murdering Schmidt.
Inmate charged in mechanic's murder
July 16, 2009
A 30-year-old Cook County Jail inmate was charged today with stabbing to death a Tinley Park truck mechanic returning home from work and stealing his car.
Lazzerick D. Mosley was charged with murder, home invasion, and possession of a stolen motor vehicle in the death of William "Randy" Schmidt, 53. Police found Schmidt on May 4 after his employer - a truck stop in Monee - asked for police to conduct a well-being check when he didn't show up for work.
Mosley already was being held in jail in lieu of $1.1 million bond on unrelated car-jacking charges.
Mosley, who court records show once lived with his mother just blocks from Schmidt's 15927 Westway Walk apartment building, was likely looking to rob someone when he attacked Schmidt, said Tinley Park Police Cmdr. Pat McCain, who called it a "random" crime.
Police recovered Schmidt's car, a blue 2008 Honda Fit, in a Dolton parking lot about two weeks after he was killed, McCain said. Mosley was already in jail by the time forensic evidence from the crime scene led police to him, he said.
Coworkers at the Petro truck stop in Monee have described Schmidt as a quiet man, a gifted mechanic and avid bicyclist who had purchased the Honda shortly before he was killed.
"It was his pride and joy," said general manager Mike LaVieri on Thursday. "(The murder charge) is great news for everybody down here at work. I hope that it sticks."
Mosley, a former gang member with a self-reported drinking problem who told a probation department investigator he was shot in the head at age 13, has an extensive criminal history that dates back to when he was 14, according to court records.
Tinley Park police arrested him in 2001 after pulled a black-handled steak knife from his coat, put it to a woman's neck and robbed her of $15 inside her car, according to court documents. He pinned and choked her before getting into the driver's seat of her car and driving around for about 15 minutes with the knife pointed at her.
Mosley was sentenced to 17 months in prison after a Cook County judge found him guilty at bench trial of aggravated vehicular hijacking, armed robbery and aggravated unlawful restraint in 2002. The detective in that case assisted with the investigation into Schmidt's murder, McCain said.
Mosley also did time for battery of a child and aggravated domestic battery, according to records. He was released on the domestic battery charge last March, according to a department of corrections spokeswoman.
McCain said a grand jury indictment will be sought on July 29.
--Steve Schmadeke
Man's trial for “callous” Tinley Park murder goes to judge;
“Happy-go-lucky” mechanic stalked, killed, prosecutors argued
By Steve Schmadeke
Chicago Tribune
10:21 p.m. CST, November 9, 2011
A quiet Tinley Park diesel mechanic was allegedly stalked for months by a convicted felon, who brutally slashed the mechanic's throat and stole his prized new car when he returned home from working the overnight shift.
Lazzerick Mosley, 32, watched "callously" as William "Randy" Schmidt's life pooled on the floor of his unkempt 15927 Westway Walk apartment in 2009, prosecutors said Wednesday as Mosley's three-day trial came to a close.
"He made sure that William Schmidt took his face to the grave," Assistant State's Attorney Michael O'Brien said in his closing argument. "He'd been watching him for three months — he knew he was an easy target."
Judge John J. Hynes is scheduled to give his verdict Dec. 8.
Schmidt, 53, was stabbed in the neck area four times and then slashed twice across the neck, a former assistant Cook County medical examiner testified Wednesday.
After the murder, Mosley dropped and lost the knife, which he'd stolen from his father's Dolton kitchen, amid the clutter in Schmidt's apartment, prosecutors said. He then allegedly took Schmidt's keys and drove off in his blue 2008 Honda Fit, then ditched it at a Dolton nursing home after being spooked by the sight of a police car.
Mosley then tossed the keys, but later realized his fingerprints may have been left on the knife, prosecutors said. He enlisted several family members to help him look for the keys to get back into the apartment and told them about the murder.
The initial police response to Schmidt's death was botched, Mosley's attorneys argued, with authorities assuming he'd killed himself. "This is not 'CSI: Miami' — this is Tinley Park," O'Brien responded.
An investigator located a bloody knife in the apartment. The mingled DNA on its handle contained parts of Mosley's genetic information, which a state expert found is shared by just 1 in 2.1 million black men.
Mosley's father and other family members took the stand against him, saying he'd told them about the murder, prosecutors said. His father testified that his son told him it was his fault for not buying him a gun, prosecutors said.
Mosley's public defenders attacked the DNA evidence in the case, calling expert witness Karl Reich to dispute the state's claims.
"(Mosley's) DNA profile cannot be identified on the knife handle," Reich testified Wednesday.
Assistant public defender Dan Nolan said in his closing remarks that the state had reached its conclusions by "conveniently ignoring … scientific principles."
Schmidt's family flew in from Colorado and Washington, D.C., for the trial. They described him as a "happy-go-lucky" master mechanic who loved fishing, music and astronomy and was ecstatic after buying his new Honda, a purchase they feel may have led to him being targeted by Mosley.
"He was a very shy man, a very gentle man," said his brother Richard Schmidt. "He could rip an engine apart and put it back together with his eyes closed."
The family said they were told truckers stopped at the Monee Petro station where Schmidt worked because they trusted only him with their rigs.
His family said they found numerous harmonicas, clarinets and telescopes in his apartment after he died and learned that Schmidt liked nothing more than to grab some fishing poles and bike to fish at a nearby lake.
sschmadeke@tribune.com
[Thanks to reader-researcher AL.]
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