Aug. 07--When William Curl stood in a DeKalb County courtroom and pleaded guilty to the 2010 murder of a Northern Illinois University student, it seemingly closed his case, but it did not provide much closure for some people.
At the outset of the April 2013 hearing, Curl's sister spoke up from the gallery to say he was being "railroaded" and urged him not to plead guilty. The parents of victim Antinette "Toni" Keller, 18, did not attend; family members said they were not happy with the plea deal.
And Curl's plea, in which he maintained his innocence while simultaneously admitting there was enough evidence to find him guilty, rankled some observers who wanted a full acceptance of responsibility.
Now Curl, too, has had second thoughts. He has filed a petition seeking to throw out the deal and convene a hearing to explore the evidence against him. On Tuesday, DeKalb County Chief Judge Robbin Stuckert ruled that Curl, who filed his handwritten petition in May, had met the minimum standard to move to the next stage of a post-conviction proceeding.
"The court, having examined the petition ... finds that the petitioner/defendant has presented the gist of a constitutional claim," Stuckert wrote.
Curl, 38, who is serving a 37-year sentence at Menard Correctional Center, wrote in his May filing that the DeKalb County public defender's office failed to provide him with adequate representation and pressured him to confess. Prosecutors, Curl alleged, coerced him by threatening to implicate his teenage son in the murder of Keller, a freshman art student from Plainfield.
"That is completely and utterly false," State's Attorney Richard Schmack said Thursday. "His son was never a suspect."
Public Defender Thomas McCulloch said this week that Curl's recollection of his defense amounted to "revisionist history."
Stuckert appointed Yorkville attorney Daniel Transier to represent Curl at his next appearance Aug. 31. Transier, who serves as counsel in cases like Curl's in which the DeKalb public defender has a conflict of interest, said Thursday he had not yet reviewed Curl's petition.
Keller was last seen on Oct. 14, 2010, when she told friends she was going to a DeKalb park to do some sketching. Her badly burned body was discovered in the park two days later. Curl, who was seen there the day Keller disappeared, was arrested 16 days later.
In the days after the crime, authorities spoke to Curl, who lived nearby and frequented the park, and then police tracked him to Louisiana when he failed to appear for a second interview.
He initially denied ever seeing Keller and then said he happened upon her dead body, which he burned. Curl also claimed that he and Keller were having sex in the park when she had a seizure and hit her head on a rock, prosecutors said.
In his May petition, Curl said surveillance video from local businesses near the park will show that he was at various locations during the time when Keller disappeared, making it impossible for him to have killed her and incinerated her body. He also said his attorneys failed to investigate other potential suspects.
He said his attorney, McCulloch, feared that extensive media coverage of the case would demonstrate that the lawyer was unprepared for trial. That fear, Curl alleged, prompted McCulloch to pressure him to plead out.
Keller's cousin, Mary Tarling, said Friday that her family firmly believes Curl is responsible for the murder and that the post-conviction bid is little more than his "Hail Mary" attempt at getting another day in court.
Curl may be trying to alter some details, Tarling said, but they don't change the overall picture of what happened that day in 2010.
"You can say you made the soup with potatoes when you really made it with carrots," she said. "But in the end, you still made soup."
Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
