By Dan Rozek
Chicago Sun-Times
LAKE COUNTY, Ill. — In phone calls from the Lake County Jail, Robert Bostic told friends to make sure witnesses to the 1982 killing for which he was awaiting trial hadn’t provided new information to authorities.
“Tell them to say the same story they said the last time, you know,” Bostic said in a May 21 phone call to a friend.
The recorded calls played Wednesday for jurors at his murder trial show he was trying to influence the testimony of key witnesses, Lake County prosecutors said.
Bostic is charged with gunning down Carlton Richmond on June 25, 1982, in the Round Lake Beach hangout of “The Wheelmen,” a motorcycle club to which he belonged.
The killing remained unsolved for decades largely because club members told police they didn’t see the shooting, even though several acknowledged they were there when Richmond was killed.
Bostic was arrested in January after officials said four witnesses offered new information. Since then, some have recanted, prosecutors said.
Jurors were expected to begin deliberating Thursday.
Bostic’s calls from jail are critical evidence, prosecutor Ken LaRue argued. “The defendant was reaching out to have someone talk to them about their testimony,” he said.
Defense attorney Joe Salvi dismissed that claim as “unsubstantiated.”
Several former club members denied Wednesday that they had offered any new information when they were re-interviewed by police last year.
“I told him pretty much nothing. I didn’t remember much from that long ago,” John Winandy said of questioning Nov. 10 by Round Lake Beach Detective Gary Lunn.
Lunn testified that Winandy claimed he saw Bostic standing “a few feet” from Richmond just after the shooting and heard the dying man exclaim, “You shot me.”
Lunn acknowledged Winandy wasn’t asked to make a written statement.
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