He also murdered 7-year-old Melissa Ackerman after abducting her while she was riding her bike with a friend. He confessed to these murders in a plea to avoid the death penalty. Dugan is currently held in a protective custody unit at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Ill.
Jeanine Nicarico was born July 7, 1972, in Naperville, Illinois, to Tom and Pat Nicarico. She had two sisters. On February 25, 1983, before the family returned home that day, Nicarico was abducted from the house after an intruder entered and burgled it. She is believed to have been raped and murdered the same day.
NapervilleFor the past 18 years, Jeanine's family members and their community of friends and neighbors have organized an annual race, originally called the Jeanine Nicarico 5K Run for Reading, to raise money for literacy programs in and around Naperville, Jeanine's hometown. For the past six years, they've run in the dark.
Alejandro Hernandez, Rolando Cruz and Stephen Buckley were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the 1983 kidnaping, rape, and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in DuPage County, Illinois.
Today, Marilyn Lemak is in a DuPage County Jail cell -- at times nearly catatonic, her attorney says -- charged with murdering her three children in the Naperville home.
Since his release from prison in November 1994, Cruz has become a vocal advocate for reform of the criminal justice system, lecturing nationally and internationally on such topics as the death penalty.
Brian Dugan was born in Nashua, New Hampshire, the second child of James and Genevieve “Jenny” Dugan. He has one sister and three brothers. According to Brian’s siblings, both James and Jenny Dugan were alcoholics. In 1967, the Dugan family moved to Lisle, Illinois.
Brian Dugan began to emerge before the attending physician had arrived and so, in attempt to delay his birth, the family claims that a nurse and an intern pushed Brian’s head back inside his mother and strapped her legs together .
Brian Brislen is a partner in Lamson Dugan & Murray’s Litigation Department, where he focuses his practice on corporate, business and commercial litigation. He also has practiced extensively in the area of tort liability claims and regulatory/administrative law.
Mr. Brislen received his B.A. degree from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and his J.D. cum laude from Creighton University School of Law, with concentrations in Dispute Resolution, Criminal Law and Procedure.
Mr. Brislen is admitted to practice in Nebraska State and Federal Courts, the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.
Mr. Brislen is a member of the Omaha Bar Association, the Nebraska State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Defense Research Institute and the Robert M. Spire American Inns of Court. He is adjunct faculty member at Creighton University School of Law.
Mr. Brislen was also a Recipient of the David A. Svoboda Trial Advocacy Award; CALI Excellence for the Future Award: Contracts II; CALI Excellence for the Future Award: Trial Practice; Dean’s Merit Scholarship, Henatsch Scholarship, and the Milton & Pauline Abrahams Endowed Scholarship.