Bizarre Murder Trial Begins In DuPage County
WHEATON, Ill. (CBS/WBBM) -- The murder trial of a 25-year-old Maywood man continues this morning, and to say it is an unusual one would be an understatement.
As WBBM Newsradio 780's Mike Krauser reports, in opening statements, the defendant, Joshua Matthews, shouted to the jury, "You all must think I'm crazy!"
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Matthews is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of 17-year-old Sade Glover, a College of DuPage student, outside her Warrenville home in October 2004.
At trial, Matthews is representing himself.
First, Matthews asked the trial to be delayed. He was dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit with leg shackles, and said the street clothes his family had brought him did not fit, the Chicago Tribune reported.
DuPage County Judge Robert Kleeman said the trial would not be delayed. Matthews got angry and started flipping over tables as he uttered a stream of expletives, the Tribune reported.
The judge warned Matthews that "daily histrionics" would not be permitted. Matthews was removed from the courtroom, and eventually had to be subdued with a Taser when he did not calm down, the Tribune reported.
Afterward, Matthews was brought back into the courtroom in a wheelchair, and began to stammer and swear through his opening statement, the Daily Herald reported.
The prosecutor said Matthews confessed twice, and said the gun went off accidentally – five times.
But Matthews told the jury, "They ain't got **** on me."
Matthews said he couldn't have killed Glover, he said, because he spent the night of the murder selling drugs and drinking "like I do every day."
"Every police officer is lying," Matthews said in his opening statement, as quoted in the Chicago Tribune. "I condemn the entire American justice system."
Matthews later cross-examined the victim's mother, who told him she didn't like the way he looked from the moment she met him, and warned her daughter he was bad news.
The trial has been delayed for more than six years, as Matthews has kept filing motions. Meanwhile, Matthews has been held at the Cook County Jail, where he has been charged with battery of a jail guard; possession of a razor, hammer and marijuana, and damaging the sprinkler system at the jail, the Tribune reported.
