By JAN DENNIS, Associated Press Writer
Wed Feb 22, 6:09 PM ET
DIXON, Ill. - A teenage girl was convicted Wednesday in the killing of a 16-year-old classmate who was choked, beaten and sawed into pieces after an argument over boys.
Sarah Kolb, 17, faces up to 60 years in prison.
The victim, Adrianne Reynolds, had just moved to East Moline from Texas about two months before she was killed. Prosecutors said she was just trying to fit in at a new school but picked the wrong friend.
On Jan. 21, 2005, Kolb, Reynolds and schoolmate Cory Gregory were in Kolb's car at a fast-food restaurant when the fight began. Reynolds was killed and her body was burned, dismembered and hidden in two counties.
Gregory also is charged with murder and concealing a homicide and is scheduled to stand trial May 1.
Kolb showed no reaction as the verdict was read. Her family and Reynolds' family wept quietly as the jury was polled.
Later, step-uncle Michael McCollum said Reynolds' family was "overjoyed. It's been a very long road."
Kolb's family declined to comment as they left the courthouse.
The trial was Kolb's second in three months. The first ended in a mistrial in November when a Rock Island County jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction. Her retrial was moved to Dixon, about 60 miles from the Quad Cities.
In the retrial, Rock Island County State's Attorney Jeff Terronez said Kolb wrote in a class journal that she was going to kill Reynolds just hours before Reynolds was beaten and strangled in the car.
Terronez said Kolb was angry because Reynolds had shown interest in Kolb's boyfriend and Gregory, her ex-boyfriend.
Defense attorney David Hoffman told jurors it was Gregory who killed Reynolds. But prosecutors said Kolb was still accountable because she choked and beat Reynolds before Gregory "finished her off."
Prosecutors say the two took the girl's body to Kolb's grandparents' farm and burned it, then returned two days later, sawed the body into pieces and dumped the remains on the farm and in Black Hawk State Park in Rock Island.
In her first trial, Kolb testified that Gregory strangled Reynolds, then hit Kolb and threatened to kill her, her family and her cats if she reported the crime. Gregory, who has pleaded not guilty, denied that account in a television interview.
Kolb did not testify in her second trial, and the defense rested without presenting a case.
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(KDKA) McKeesport KDKA’s Ralph Iannotti reports that a man went into a local store and asked the clerk to warm up - in the microwave - what appears to be a severed male body part.
Customers going in and out of the Giant Eagle Get-Go mini market on 5th Avenue in McKeesport didn't know what to think when they saw police activity on the scene.
A man walked in and asked a female clerk if she could use the store microwave to warm up something he had wrapped in a paper towel.
Concerned about an unusual odor from the oven, the clerk opened the microwave to check on the item and out tumbled what appeared to be a severed human penis, wrapped up in the paper towel.
Police were called immediately and the man ran out of the store empty handed.
“Hopefully, they're looking for the person this belongs to,” said Sandy Furman, of McKeesport.
“I think that's the one they ought to look for - the one who may be hurt,” said Denny Adler, of McKeesport. “It's shocking that I'm not (surprised). It's just the nature of the beast.”
As McKeesport police continue to look into the case, sources say that county homicide detectives have been notified of the incident in case a crime was committed outside McKeesport.
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