From 1995: Court may overturn murder conviction after others confess

For the past two months, Lionel Lane has sat in a prison cell at the Pontiac Correctional Center for a murder that Kane County prosecutors now say was committed by someone else. So when Lane walks into Room 311 of the Kane County Courthouse Friday morning, a judge will be asked to overturn his conviction and is likely to walk out a free man. Convicted in February of the murder of elderly Aurora Township widow Virginia Johannessen, Lane was sentenced to 60 years in prison. But earlier this month, prosecutors from the Kane County State’s Attorney’s office announced that two men confessed to murdering Johannessen and two other people. Donald F. Lippert, a 20-year-old Woodridge resident, told authorities that he and his cousin, Edward L. Tenney, a 35-year-old Aurora resident, acted alone in killing Johannessen. In a taped confession, Lippert said he and Tenney walked to Johannessen’s house on the night of the January 1993 murder, shot the 76-year-old woman and drove her car to the parking lot of an Aurora grocery store near an apartment they shared. The duo also has been charged with the October 1993 murder of 56-year-old dairy heiress Mary Jill Oberweis, who lived on the same street as Johannessen. Lippert alone faces charges in DuPage County of murdering 24-year-old Aurora resident Jerry David Weber in April 1992. The confessions contradict testimony from Lori Mohle, Lane’s former girlfriend and mother of his son, who testified in court that Lane was in Johannessen’s house when the murder occurred. On Wednesday morning, a motion was filed in Kane County court asking for Lane’s conviction to be overturned and a new trial to be set so that prosecutors can drop the charges against Lane. Judge James T. Doyle then can set Lane free or send him back to Kane County jail for processing. The new development came as no surprise to Lane’s public defenders, Regina Harris and Don Zuelke, who said they never stopped talking about the case even after Lane was found guilty. “He maintained to us that he was innocent,” Harris said. “What really convinced us was his refusal to save his own skin.” Lane refused to cut a deal with prosecutors in return for testimony against three other suspects who were found not guilty of the crime, saying he couldn’t lie in court. Assistant Kane County State’s Attorney John Barsanti, who prosecuted Lane’s case, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Kenneth Johannessen, Virginia’s nephew, said he was surprised at the news after Lane’s stoic behavior at a March sentencing hearing. “If someone was sending me up for 60 years, I’d be screaming and yelling that I didn’t do it,” Johannessen said. “There was just no reaction. It was just so cold.”