Slain pastor called `friend to everyone'

[DJDarknez]

By John Keilman and Scott Goldstein, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporter Mary Ann Fergus contributed to this report
Published July 2, 2005


As investigators continued to search for clues Friday in the murder of a Buffalo Grove minister and his daughter, members of Rev. Ivon Harris' church held a somber prayer service to honor a man they recalled as a compassionate, jovial giant.

"He was a friend to everyone that came through our doors," said Carol Kubala Ruiz, who frequently assisted Harris with prayers during services at Trinity Lutheran Church on the Northwest Side of Chicago. "And he welcomed everyone with a big bearhug."

Buffalo Grove police offered little new information about the slayings of Harris, 65, and his daughter, Sarah, 24, a schoolteacher. Firefighters responding to a blaze at the family's home Wednesday night found their bodies inside. They had been beaten and stabbed.

The Cook County medical examiner's office Friday said both died of smoke inhalation, as well as multiple sharp and blunt force trauma wounds. It called the deaths homicides.

While the state fire marshal's office said the fatal blaze was set intentionally, Buffalo Grove police Cmdr. Steve Husak said detectives were still talking with the family's friends and acquaintances, trying to establish a timeline of the victims' final hours. Investigators were examining all possibilities, from robbery to random violence.

"At this point, we don't want to rule anything out," he said.

One sign of trouble came in 2002 when Sarah Harris obtained a protective order against an acquaintance she said had threatened and harassed her with abusive phone calls for almost two years. The person, she said, also had physically prevented her from leaving and had violently broken some of her possessions.

She said she was in fear for her life, and was suffering sleeplessness and emotional problems that prompted her to take medication and get counseling.

The order, which directed the person to stay away from Sarah and her parents, expired last year.

At the Harris family home Friday, a small memorial had sprung up near a tree on the front lawn.

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jkeilman@tribune.com

sgoldstein@tribune.com

[DJDarknez]

By Fernando Diaz
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Saturday, July 02, 2005


The congregation of Trinity Slovak Lutheran Church gathered Friday inside what had once been Ivon Harris? church to remember the demonstrative, generous pastor and his warm, energetic, daughter ? both of whom met shocking, violent deaths this week.

?God cried? when the world lost Ivon and Sarah Harris, the Rev. Reyna Purcell told the members, who sat solemnly in the wooden pews.

The 65-year-old pastor and his 24-year-old daughter, a fledgling elementary school teacher, were found murdered Wednesday evening inside their Buffalo Grove home. Their bodies were discovered bound, stabbed and beaten after firefighters put out a fire and police went inside to investigate.

The shock and mystery over the deaths hung over the service at the Gothic-style Trinity Slovak Lutheran Church as mourners honored a man who always preferred a hug over a handshake, and a young woman who was excited about her career as a teacher.

Large black and purple ribbons were tied over entrances to the church, which has catered to the area?s Slovak community since it was built on Chicago?s Northwest Side in 1949.


At a prayer service Friday morning, the interim pastor led a simple ceremony of hymns and prayers.

?It is hard to stand before you today and pretend that I can say anything to make it feel better,? Purcell said. She spoke somberly to the mourners young and old who filled the pews and who had listened to Harris? sermons for nearly 11 years.

?The family chain at Trinity has been broken. It will never be the same,? Purcell said over the hum of large fans near the stained glass windows.

Buffalo Grove investigators have not yet contacted the church, but Rev. Harris? office has been locked in case any of his papers or personal items might be useful to police, Purcell said.

Several police officers patrolled the grounds during Friday?s church service. Purcell said she does not know if Nancy Eileen Harris has been assigned special police protection, but that she is ?understandably in shock.?

Congregation member Jerry Cicela of Berwyn said Ivon Harris learned to speak the Slovak language phonetically so he could read his sermons in it.

?I cannot remember a more tragic experience this church has gone through,? Cicela said. ?He and his daughter were fine people.?

After finishing the service with ?Amazing Grace? and prayers, the congregation filed into the gym adjoining the church. A line formed near a guest book, where photographs of Harris dotted the wall and the pages of a scrapbook with handwritten notes in the margin, including big colored letters saying, ?We love you Pastor Harris and Sarah.?

Funeral arrangements are pending, according to Steve Fusek, the church council president. The church comes under the control of the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Fusek said Purcell will probably be there about a month before a permanent replacement for Harris is selected.

Ivon Harris recently had been on leave while recuperating from surgery and was preparing to resume his duties at the church, said another member of the congregation, Cindy Lebak of Highland Park.

?We were going to help him with his recuperation,? she said, her voice quavering. ?And now we are going to have to bury him.?

[DJDarknez]

Your probably wondering why this is here. Why I decided to post these particular news pieces.

I mean, what's another murder, right? A girl and her father, dead. Stabbed. Beaten. Tied up. Burned.

One of the major differences between these articles and others is that I knew this girl. I went to middle school and high school with Sarah Harris.

When I first read the first article (which appeared in the print version Chicago Tribune today), I actually first saw her face. Her and her fathers. I remember thinking "Hey, that girl looks like Sarah Harris". Sure enough, the caption was "Sarah Harris".

My eyes then drifted to the headline of the story, at the top of the page. Pastor and his daughter dead. My breathing actually stopped for a second. "No," I thought. "No way. Sarah? Murdered?"

For those of you who didn't know Sarah, which is pretty much everyone here, let me tell you about her. She was quite possibly one of the kindest people you ever would have met.

Her personality, I'm sure was passed on to her from her father. Probably her mother, too. She was never biased, and made friends just as easily as we blink our eyes. Anyone who met her instantly liked her, for she was one of the nicest people in our class (class of yr. 2000).

Granted, I must admit that her and I were not exactly what some people would call friends. More like passing acquaintances. Just the occasional hello in the hallway. Lunchtable buddies, you could call it. Matters not. She was still a good, decent human being.

I actually saw her for a few brief minutes last year, at a club/bar near where we lived, called Dakota's. We chatted for a few minutes, where I embarrasingly got her mixed up with another Sarah from previous school years. I wish we had chatted longer, since it would have been the last.

The horrendous brutality of what happened is shocking and appalling. That some.....thing (doesn't even deserve to be called human) would tie up, beat, stab, then leave to be burned a pastor and his daughter sickens me, and I'm sure most of Northern Illinois.

This thing, if / when the police are able to figure out who did it, should have fun in jail. I'm only too certain that there are many guests of the Cook County Penal System that are God-fearing men.

What's going to happpen to this thing when the convicts find out that it murdered a man of God and his daughter? Surely it will not have a pleasant stay behind bars.

And rightfully so for taking two innocent, kindred lives.

[DJDarknez]

Cops try to build timeline in deaths
Investigators study last hours of pastor, daughter found slain

By Mary Ann Fergus, Tribune staff reporter. Freelance reporter Carolyn Rusin contributed to this report
Published July 6, 2005


Nearly a week after a minister and his adult daughter were found slain amid flames and smoke in their Buffalo Grove home, police said Tuesday that they continue to pursue multiple leads but have no suspects.

More than 40 investigators are following leads and trying to establish a timeline for the last hours of Ivon and Sarah Harris, said Buffalo Grove Police Cmdr. Steve Husak.

"They're ... talking to people--friends, neighbors--anyone who had contact with them," Husak said.

Investigators said they don't have a motive but haven't ruled out anything, including robbery.

Nor have police established whether the slayings were a random act or if someone the victims knew killed them, Husak said.

"It's hard to say, so we tell people to act as safe as possible," he said. "Conduct themselves as they would any other time ... lock their doors, raise their level of awareness."

Firefighters went to a fire June 29 at the Harris home in the 800 block of Saxon Place and found the bludgeoned bodies.

The Cook County medical examiner's office said the father and daughter died of smoke inhalation, though each also had stab wounds and blunt-force trauma.

The investigative team has five detectives from the Buffalo Grove Police Department and about 30 detectives and seven evidence technicians from the Lake County Major Crime Task Force, Husak said.

While investigators search for the killer, Ivon Harris' wife, Eileen, finalized funeral plans for her husband and daughter.

Visitation for Ivon Harris, 65, and Sarah, 24, will be held from 1 to 9 p.m. Friday in Mary Seat of Wisdom Catholic Church, 920 Granville Ave., Park Ridge. Services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday in Trinity Lutheran Church, 5106 N. La Crosse Ave., Chicago, where Harris was pastor for the last 11 years.

On Saxon Place, a memorial grows around a tree on the family's front lawn. Friends and neighbors left a half-dozen bouquets and stuffed animals amid two white crosses carrying the names and pictures of Ivon and Sarah Harris.

On the base of Sarah Harris' cross, someone scrawled, "God knows who did this and we will pray for you to come clean with the truth."

Residents on the street said they're a little more security-minded in a neighborhood they always considered safe.

"It kind of gives you a funny feeling," said Joseph Lee, a next-door neighbor of the Harris family. "We'll be glad when they find out who is at the bottom of this, that it's not a random thing."

Tanya Edelstein, another neighbor, said she spoke recently with Eileen Harris and to her son, Nathan.

"They seem to be OK--as much as you can be," Edelstein said. "They're in shock."

Edelstein said she and other family members previously didn't worry if they left their back-yard gate or garage door open.

"Not anymore," she said.

The Harris family has established a scholarship fund in Sarah Harris' name at Bradley University, where she graduated magna cum laude in 2004. She worked last year as a teacher's aide for 5th-grade classes at Ivy Hall Elementary School in Buffalo Grove and was to return as a teacher for the same grade in the fall.

The family is considering honoring education majors who volunteer, as Sarah Harris did, through the schools' Center for Learning Assistance, said Tom Hammerton, executive director of development for Bradley.

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mfergus@tribune.com

[DJDarknez]

YES! THEY CAUGHT THE FUCKER!

By Mary Ann Fergus
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 21, 2005, 11:32 AM CDT


A 44-year-old Chicago man has been charged with the murders of a Lutheran minister and his daughter, who were slain after they discovered the man allegedly burglarizing their home in northwest suburban Buffalo Grove.

Russell H. Sedelmaier, of the 5600 block of North Mason Avenue, was charged with first-degree murder, home invasion and aggravated arson, authorities said at a news conference this morning to announce the man's arrest.

He is accused of the June 29 slayings of Rev. Ivon Harris, 65, a pastor at a Chicago church, and Sarah Harris, 24. The suspect had worked as a house cleaner for the family for the last five or six years, police said.

"This was not a random act," Police Chief Steve S. Balinski said. "Buffalo Grove remains a safe community."

Sedelmaier is in police custody pending an afternoon bond hearing in the Rolling Meadows branch of Cook County Circuit Court.

Investigators linked the suspect to the slayings after matching evidence from the crime scene to the suspect, police said.

Police sources said investigators zeroed in on Sedelmaier late Wednesday afternoon after learning the Northern Illinois Crime Laboratory had matched DNA samples taken from 15 cigarette butts found at the crime scene with DNA taken from a cheek swab from Sedelmaier.

Additionally, fingerprints from the crime scene matched the suspect's, sources said.

Police Cmdr. Steve Husak said Sedelmaier "acknowledged his involvement" in the crime to investigators in a videotaped interview.

Sarah Harris arrived home the afternoon of June 29 to find Sedelmaier in her house, in the 800 block of Saxon Place, Husak said.

"There appears to have been some kind of struggle. She ended up bound with duct tape," Husak said. "Sometime after that, Mr. Harris came home. There was a struggle, and blunt trauma occurred."

Sedelmaier then set fire to the family's two-story home to cover the crime and fled, Husak said.

Harris' wife, Eileen, arrived home about 8 p.m. to find smoke billowing from the dwelling. Firefighters later discovered the bludgeoned bodies of Sarah and Ivon Harris in the ground-floor family room.

Autopsies showed the father and daughter died of smoke inhalation. They also suffered blunt trauma and multiple stab wounds, and at least one victim's throat was slashed.

Ivon Harris was pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, at 5106 N. La Crosse Ave. on Chicago's Northwest Side. Sarah Harris received a degree in elementary education from Bradley University last year and had worked as a teacher's aide at Ivy Hall Elementary School, Buffalo Grove.

Police said Sedelmaier appears to have known the Harrises through the cleaning company he worked for, not through their church or other personal contacts.

The break in the case came after three weeks of investigative work by five detectives from the Buffalo Grove Police Department and about 30 detectives and several evidence technicians from the Lake County Major Crime Task Force. In recent days, investigators were re-interviewing people to confirm alibis, Husak said in an interview Wednesday.

DNA samples and fingerprints had been taken from some of those questioned in connection with the deaths, and DNA evidence and fingerprints from the crime scene were being tested at the Northern Illinois Police Lab.

Investigators have followed up on more than 200 tips from the public, neighbors, friends and family members as they search for clues in a case that bewildered those who knew the pastor and his daughter.

Freelance writer Mark Shuman contributed to this story.