Chicago Tribune
September 20, 2015
The last time Willie Britton saw his stepfather Jerome Lawrence, the year was 1999, and Lawrence was being arrested on a domestic battery charge for beating Britton’s mother.
Within a month of that arrest, police were interviewing Britton and his mother about Lawrence in connection with a far more gruesome crime — the slaying and home invasion of Far Northwest Side resident Marjorie Collette.
Lawrence escaped from an Arkansas jail before he could be charged and managed to elude authorities despite multiple arrests in Florida.
Sixteen years later, Britton, now 32, who has had nightmares about seeing his stepfather again, relived one of his worst fears as he walked past Lawrence on Friday.
When Lawrence walked into the Cook County Circuit Court courtroom, he stared into the sparsely occupied gallery, where Collette’s niece, Judy Beavis, was seated.