By Dan Rozek
The Chicago Sun-Times
ZION, Ill. — The father charged with fatally stabbing his 8-year-old daughter and her friend should be freed now that DNA evidence has linked another man to the 2005 slayings, his attorneys said Wednesday.
But attorneys for Jerry Hobbs III reluctantly agreed during a court hearing to give Lake County prosecutors more time to investigate the new DNA match that appears to tie a former Zion man — rather than Hobbs — to the killings.
“The bottom line is we want our guy out,” said Greg Ticsay, a Lake County assistant public defender who represents Hobbs. “We would prefer he would be out right now. We hope he’ll be released as soon as possible.”
Hobbs, 39, still is scheduled to stand trial in October for the fatal stabbing of his daughter Laura and her 9-year-old friend, Krystal Tobias. The girls vanished May 8, 2005, Mother’s Day, while playing near their homes in Zion.
During a search the next day, Hobbs, an ex-convict who had been released from prison less than a month earlier, found the girls’ bodies in nearby Beulah Park.
After a 20-hour interrogation, Hobbs confessed and was charged with their murders, authorities have said, though no DNA or physical evidence linked him to the killings.
But DNA samples taken from Laura Hobbs and placed in a national database were matched June 25 to a man jailed out of state, Lake County prosecutors disclosed Tuesday. The 21-year-old man is a former Zion resident who lived in the north suburb at the time of the slayings and knew at least one of the girls, a law enforcement source said.
That match prompted prosecutors and the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force to review the evidence against Hobbs.
“We are being proactive in investigating this information,” Lake County Deputy State’s Attorney Jeffrey Pavletic said during the hearing as he obtained a judge’s approval to delay legal proceedings for two weeks while the case against Hobbs is reviewed.
Authorities haven’t publicly disclosed the identity of the man whose DNA matched the genetic material recovered from Laura Hobbs’ body, but sources said he is a U.S. Marine facing charges of attacking three women in Arlington County, Virginia, in February. One of the women was kidnapped and raped in the Feb. 27 attack, Arlington County police said.
Hobbs’ attorneys said they think the new DNA evidence should be enough to free him.
“Our goal is to see the charges against our client dropped,” said Keith Grant, another assistant public defender representing Hobbs.
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