Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — A 39-year-old west suburban man was sentenced to 40 years in prison Monday for the brutal 2008 murder of his mother, which was instigated by her refusal to buy him tickets to an Avril Lavigne concert.
Judge Kathryn Creswell sentenced Robert Lyons of Carol Stream for the murder of Linda Bolek, then 61, according to the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office.
On Sept. 21, 2011, after a six-day trial, a jury found Lyons guilty of murder after deliberating for about two hours.
On March 14, 2008, Lyons and his mother got into an argument at the Carol Stream condominium they shared, prosecutors said.
Lyons flew into a rage and attacked his 61-year-old mother after she refused to call a friend to obtain skybox tickets for him to an upcoming Lavigne concert, prosecutors said.
The argument ended when Lyons picked up a cognac bottle and struck Bolek two times over the head. He then used two knives to stab Bolek in the back nine times as she lay on the floor, breaking part of one knife off in her body and bending the other, prosecutors said.
Bolek’s twin sister, Pat Lowry, said in September that Bolek had tried to help her troubled son, who had struggled with serious psychological and anger problems since he was a teen. Her efforts included allowing Lyons to move back in with her barely a year before she was slain because he needed a place to live.