Insanity plea leads to acquittal in attempted mall kidnapping

By James Fuller

When Arthur C. Robinzine walked into a home in Carpentersville last December that wasn't his, he displayed the first signs of a mental disorder that would lead to arrest.

The 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Illinois at Chicago appeared confused and disoriented to the residents of the Carpentersville home, who reported his sudden appearance in their living room to the police. Robinzine, of 1432 N. Luna Ave. in Chicago, left the Carpentersville residence before police arrived, but it wouldn't be long before they'd encounter him in person.

A teacher from an Elgin preschool spotted Robinzine just a couple of hours later at Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee. Again, he appeared disoriented. Robinzine approached the group of 11 children the teacher was escorting on a field trip. He then grabbed the arm of a 4-year-old Elgin boy, scooping him up in his arms before trying to bolt.

A parent with the group tackled Robinzine before he could get away with the child and held him until mall security arrived.

Robinzine would eventually be charged with criminal trespass to a residence, unlawful restraint, two counts of aggravated battery, two counts of kidnapping and resisting arrest for kicking a police officer. With the disorientation signs on full display, Robinzine was sent for evaluation and treatment at the Elgin Mental Health Center.

This morning, Kane County Associate Judge Allen Anderson ruled Robinzine "lacked the capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct" in acquitting Robinzine of all charges by reason of insanity.

Robinzine has been receiving treatment and medication since the time of his arrest. Today, he told the judge he was able to understand everything happening in the courtroom.

Robinzine will remain in the custody of the county's Department of Human Services for further evaluation until his next court appearance on Aug. 25.

Robinzine's public defender, Tom McCulloch, said his hope is the report on Aug. 25 will result in a positive outcome for his client.

"I think as long as he's taking his medication he's probably fine," McCulloch said.

St. Charles, Hoffman Estates look to get on board early for 2016 Olympics

By James Fuller

Hotels and sports facilities in fringe suburban Chicago are finding out not only how they can get a piece of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games business bonanza, but also how they can help ensure Chicago becomes the host.

Representatives from the Chicago 2016 Committee are organizing meetings with convention and visitors bureaus throughout the suburbs to get them to legally commit to help make Chicago's Olympic dreams come true.

Early reaction from communities like St. Charles and Hoffman Estates may touch off a suburban frenzy of interest as communities vie to host various delegations.

Committee officials appeared in St. Charles this week and will soon head to Hoffman Estates with contracts for hotels and resorts. Businesses that sign the contracts commit to reserving 85 percent of their rooms for the 17-day period of the games at a structured, annual rate increase. The structured rates are designed to keep hotels from inflating room prices through the roof with the increased demand. But the profit from those guests is a small nugget in the potential gold mine for area hotels and related businesses.

"The meeting had nothing to do with athletes or the spectators," said Amy Bull, executive director of the St. Charles Convention & Visitors bureau. "It was about accommodating the people that do the things that orchestrate the games. Those people could be here as long as six months out."

Area hotels typically see an average of up to 70 percent of rooms booked at any given time. So 85 percent for an extended period will do more than make hotel owners and a managers smile.

"Oh, hello! Yes, it absolutely will be a big deal for them," Bull said. "For those six months the hospitality industry will be glowing."

An 85 percent commitment can also be a strain on hotels who also have high demand from business travelers and conventions. Hotels also aren't guaranteed a full 85 percent of the rooms will be used, nor do they sign the contract knowing who their guests will be.

Those unknowns haven't kept hotels away. St. Charles' Hotel Baker is one of more than 80 establishments to already sign the contract. In fact, the hotel's general manager, Ginger LoGalbo-Irps, said the Olympic committee specifically approached her hotel back in May.

"They haven't guaranteed anything, but I think we'd be a perfect fit for some of the European delegations," LoGalbo-Irps said. "We signed on for more than just the business. We want to be part of the excitement. We want to be included in the history."

St. Charles isn't alone in that sentiment. Lou Mengsol is already setting up a meeting with the Olympic committee and Hoffman Estates officials, including Sears Centre staff.

Mengsol is the executive director of the Northwest Suburban Chicago Sports Council. He is fresh off bringing a successful World Volleyball League engagement to the Sears Centre that showed the facility's potential to draw international crowds. He's looking to duplicate that in Olympic fashion in 2016.

"This is an opportunity that is really unprecedented," Mengsol said.

He believes the first step will be getting hotels committed. He doesn't foresee too many problems with managers embracing the 85 percent commitment, even if hotel ownership changes.

"When the Olympics rolls into town, it's pretty much going to be the only show around," Mengsol said. "When something that big is going on, you don't really mind dedicating that much of your business."

Mengsol said he believes the Sears Centre has a shot at becoming a practice facility for athletes during the games, or hosting concerts, plays and other shows as an entertainment hub.

"The committee is looking for communities that are embracing the Olympics and having community fairs, festivals and entertainment," Mengsol said. "When the athletes aren't competing, they, and everyone associated with the games, will want to get away and experience the area. That will create some really unique opportunities."

How to prevent being in the next 'When Animals Attack!' show

By James Fuller

Where does a 400-pound alligator sleep? Possibly in the basement of the home next door.

That may not be a problem unless it gets out and comes wandering down the street, or the owner decides he doesn't want to keep it as a pet anymore.

Rob Carmichael encountered just such an alligator one day in Lake County when he was called in to help remove it.

"He was a pretty aggressive alligator, too," Carmichael recalled. "This one would just as soon eat someone for dinner as anything else."

Carmichael works with state and local animal control agencies to relocate animals that suddenly appear in public and may be many miles from their natural habitat. Alligators are an extreme example of creatures suburbanites might encounter, but the warm months of the spring and summer are the busy period for animal control phone lines.

Animal experts throughout the suburbs urge caution whenever an unfamiliar animal is encountered. Such encounters can include the baby bobcat caught in the pallets of a truck a few weeks ago in Kane County, or the python in Lake County that crawled into a bathtub through an open window, or the wallaby once found in DuPage County.

"Do not go near them. Do not approach them. Do not try to touch them," advised Lauren Bluestone about any unfamiliar animal. Bluestone is an animal control officer in Kane County. "Your best bet is to err on the side of caution."

Something as simple as a snapping turtle can actually bite a human hand clean off if the animal is big enough. But even the family pet can be dangerous when it's been abandoned by its family.

Such unusual animal encounters have increased as a byproduct of the housing finance mess. Animal control officers said they are getting called out to homes abandoned in foreclosure or eviction situations more frequently than ever before because pets have either been left behind or animals have invaded the empty spaces.

"It's crazy busy right now," said Kerry Vinkler, executive director of DuPage County Animal Care & Control. "I honestly don't understand why people just abandon these animals. People need to know that it's literally a crime if you've knowingly abandoned a pet.

"The problem is we can't even enter these properties for a certain period of time unless we get a complaint from somebody. Meanwhile, the animals are trapped in there."

Animal control experts are also tracking a notable increase in is rabid bats. Experts in DuPage, Kane and Lake Counties all said they are seeing more rabid bats, and they are appearing earlier in the year. The DuPage animal control staff is keeping an eye on skunk and raccoon populations as rabies has been found in those animals in nearby states.

Len Hackl, coordinator of rabies control for Lake County Animal Care and Control, said rabies, especially in bats, tends to appear in cycles. Nine rabid bats were found in Lake County last year. Four have been found this year so far with August and September tending to be the months where they find the most rabies cases. In years past, the county would encounter maybe two rabid bats the whole year.

"We've sent 75 to the lab already this year to be checked," Hackl said. "We found a rabid bat at a house in Lake Villa for the second time this year. That's the first time that's ever happened."

One type of encounter local animal control agencies haven't substantiated is cougar sightings. After the April shooting of a 150-pound cougar in Chicago, local animal control agencies said they've all received multiple reports of sightings, but not a single one has yielded any evidence that cougars are stalking through the local landscape.

Coyotes, turtles, snakes and birds of prey are more commonly encountered because they lived naturally in the area before the suburbs ever existed. Experts said that's another reason why such animals shouldn't be approached. A snapping turtle plodding down a cul-de-sac probably isn't lost or sick; it's just moving from one nesting or feeding site to another.

Capturing or confining an animal, even for its own safety, is generally a bad idea, experts say. A person bit by an animal may want to keep it for rabies testing, but even then, experts warn against it because any attempted capture typically results only in another bite.

The first and usually only step to take in an animal encounter is calling police or animal control. Depending on the animal, they'll ensure it is either relocated or taken to an agency equipped to care for it.

That's how Carmichael ended up with about two dozen of the 250 reptiles that live at the Wildlife Discovery Center in Lake Forest.

Carmichael said the most rampant problem he sees contributing to dangerous animal encounters is people who have exotic pets they aren't equipped to deal with, so they let them loose in the wild. Other times animals escape from people or businesses that actually are licensed and trained to care for them like the lion and the tiger that roamed the streets of Libertyville one day.

"We've pulled venomous snakes out of people's houses," Carmichael said. "I've gone kayaking after small crocodilians on the Fox River. It's kind of scary. There's never a dull moment in this job."

The multiple victims of a traumatic brain injury

St. Charles woman loses her "sunshine"
Listen to the interview with Sheila McCormick here
By James Fuller

When Mark McCormick was 2 years old, his family caught him on tape singing his favorite song, "You Are My Sunshine." His mother, Sheila, thought it was so good that she mailed the tape to her sister in England.

That song would later become intrinsically tied to McCormick's identity, but not before tragedy would strike.

McCormick was only 24 years old when it happened. He'd had a headache he just couldn't shake for at least a week when he sat down for dinner with his pizza parlor boss at a restaurant in Arlington Heights. McCormick went to the men's room. While there, he blacked out. McCormick fell, smacking his head on the tile floor.

The result was a traumatic brain injury, making McCormick one of the 1.4 million Americans a year who suffer similar blows to the head.

Most victims are treated and released from hospitals. In McCormick's case, he'd never be the same again. The former track star at Niles West High School awoke to a life in an assisted care facility. He couldn't walk. He couldn't talk. He had no memory of what happened.

That was the condition Mark McCormick was in when his relationship with his mother evolved. Sheila and Homer McCormick put their lives in Indiana behind them and moved to St. Charles to be close to Mark. They visited him daily, a routine that only increased for Sheila when her husband died.

She would arrive at Pine View Care Center every day at about 11 a.m. to perform Mark's therapy with him and have lunch. Then she'd tuck her son in for a nap and return around 5 p.m. for dinner and some time outside before she'd kiss him goodbye for the night.


Eventually, Mark McCormick learned to walk and talk again. He'd have some good days when he'd walk full hallways with a chair, but other days he'd just sleep. He was never the Mark of old.

"Some days I'd get there and we'd start with a 'Hi, mom'," Sheila McCormick recalled. "Other days it would be, 'Who are you?' "

Even 20 years later, Mark McCormick's mind was stuck. He still believed he lived in a Skokie apartment and worked at a pizza parlor.

The daily care he needed was expensive. It out-priced the family's insurance, Medicaid and savings. So the family created an annual fundraiser, a run in St. Charles that hearkened back to Mark McCormick's track days. It started with just 80 or so runners and grew into more than 400, providing up to $6,000 to help with medical bills.

But none of it helped with the emotional taxes the loss levied. Sheila McCormick would often sleep in fear of the telephone. Late night calls always meant Mark had suffered a seizure. Those calls usually came at 2 or 3 a.m., up to six times a year. Sheila would leave the warmth of her bed and trek into the night to her son's bedside to hold his hand while he calmed down.

The next day, the therapy would begin again. And Sheila would be there, looking for the son she remembered, but living with the impaired version he'd become.

And then that tape he made as a 2-year-old boy resurfaced.

"One day I brought that tape, put in on and said, 'This is you,' " Sheila McCormick said. "And he sang along. He remembered every word. So everyday we'd put that on. The girls there would come in and say, 'Who's my sunshine?' "

Mark would simply reply, "Me."

Last Saturday, Sheila McCormick received another one of those dreaded phone calls. Only this time, it wasn't just to let her know Mark was having a seizure.

"They just said, 'Sheila, get over here.' "

She was five minutes too late when she arrived. Mark McCormick died at the age of 44 having lived for 20 years with a brain injury he never fully recovered from.

There are currently 5.3 million Americans living with some level of disability as the result of similar brain injuries, according to the Centers for Disease Control. There are even more family members dealing with their own trauma as they care for their loved one.

The chances of recovery are somewhat unpredictable and vary according to the severity of the injury, said Dr. Keith D'Souza, associate medical director of the Brain Injury Program at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton. The impact to the victim depends on what areas of the brain are injured and the ability of other parts of the brain to assume those mental functions. Younger people with no history of drug use have the best chances for recovery. But there are no hard rules that will tell how well or how quickly someone will recover, if at all, D'Souza said.

"With a brain injury we generally tell families they can expect a loved one to recover over a period of up to two years," D'Souza said. "That's 90 percent of the recovery. That 90 percent will be different from person to person. It may just be moving a hand. For another person that may be being able to walk. Some may progress, plateau, then progress again. It does make it very hard on families."

D'Souza said the unpredictable nature of recovery can result in up to 15 years of emotional distress and family problems for people associated with a victim. That's why there are multiple support groups and peer mentoring programs for such families at hospitals around the country.
For Sheila McCormick, her therapy will be moving back to Indiana to be with her daughter and granddaughter. This year's Mark McCormick Milers Fox River Run will be the last. It will serve as a tribute.

"I thought we'd all be together again," Sheila McCormick said of her move to Indiana. She'd planned the move even before Mark died, setting up his transfer to another care facility.

"Now he's going back in a different way," McCormick said. "He's up there now. He's running and happy again."