March 31--Mario Casciaro, who was found guilty after two trials of killing a grocery store co-worker when both were teenagers, only to be released from prison after his conviction was overturned, has won another legal victory.
The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that it will not hear prosecutors' request to appeal the reversal of Casciaro's conviction in one of McHenry County's most infamous cases: the 2002 disappearance and presumed murder of 17-year-old stock boy Brian Carrick, whose body has never been found.
Casciaro, 32, said he is "thrilled" that the Supreme Court justices "were able to see through the fabricated evidence created by an overzealous states attorney's office. What happened to me shouldn't ever happen to an American citizen. There needs to be repercussions for prosecutors who frame innocent taxpaying citizens."
State's Attorney Louis Bianchi said he was "troubled that the Appellate Court's flawed decision usurping the role of 12 McHenry County jurors who found Mr. Casciaro guilty after hearing all the evidence will stand without being reviewed by the Illinois Supreme Court."
"We are truly saddened that both of Brian's parents have now gone to their grave without having had the chance to bury their son, and that the prospect of ever finding Brian's body has now become that much more dim," Bianchi said.
The latest twist in the Carrick disappearance means it will continue to endure as one of the county's deepest mysteries and most troubled cases.
On the last night he was seen alive -- Dec. 20, 2002 -- Carrick was at the grocery store across the street from his house in Johnsburg when another co-worker, Shane Lamb, confronted him in a walk-in produce cooler about a pot-dealing debt he owned to Casciaro, according to prosecutors and witness testimony. Lamb, a convicted felon, testified that he punched Carrick, who fell to the ground unconscious and bleeding, and that Lamb then left at Casciaro's direction. Carrick's blood was later found in and around the cooler.
The case stymied prosecutors from the start. More than four years went by before they charged Casciaro with perjury, saying he lied to a grand jury about what happened to Carrick, but Casciaro was later cleared.
The next year, in 2008, another grocery store employee, Robert Render, was charged with concealment of Carrick's homicide, but those charges too did not stick. Casciaro's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, has said she believes Render, who died in 2012, was responsible for Carrick's death.
A break seemingly came in 2010 when prosecutors announced first-degree murder charges against Casciaro. His first trial in 2012 ended in a hung jury and mistrial, but he was convicted at his second trial the following year of first-degree murder with intimidation, meaning jurors effectively concluded that Casciaro directed Lamb to deliver a fatal punch to Carrick.
Casciaro was sentenced to 26 years in prison. Lamb, the key witness, received immunity in the case and a lighter sentence in another case in exchange for his testimony.
But Lamb later recanted his testimony and, on a national TV news program about the case, said prosecutors told him what to say on the stand to convict Casciaro. Prosecutors have vehemently denied these claims. Lamb is currently in prison on an unrelated weapons conviction.
Casciaro, of Fox Lake, was released from prison last year after appeals court judges reversed his conviction, saying it was "so unreasonable, improbable and unsatisfactory that a reasonable doubt exists."
The appeals judges said the case was flawed in part because the blood evidence did not match Lamb's account of what occurred in the cooler. They also noted Lamb's lack of credibility and the absence of any phone records showing Casciaro called Lamb to the store that night.
With the conviction now seemingly behind him, Casciaro said he wants to help others who have been wrongfully convicted and seek reforms in the justice and prison systems. To that end, officials at Loyola University Chicago School of Law confirmed that they have accepted Casciaro for admission, and he said he plans to attend starting this fall.
His experience in the Carrick case has "fueled the fire" for him to pursue a law degree, Casciaro said.
"There's a good chance I may have not gone down this path had that not happened to me," he said. "I was already set to be a business owner. Now I'm much more interested in law and wanting to help society in general."
Carrick's family could not immediately be reached for comment. His mother, Terry, died in 2009, before Casciaro was charged with murder in her son's disappearance. Carrick's father, William, died in 2014, before Casciaro's conviction was overturned. Brian Carrick had 13 siblings.
Amanda Marrazzo is a freelance reporter.
