Judge Rejects Death Penalty In Torture Murder Of 4-Year-Old Boy

CHICAGO - A Cook County Criminal Court judge, saying he would not give in to ``the outrage of public opinion,'' sentenced a mother and her live-in boyfriend to life in prison yesterday for the torture murder of the woman's 4-year-old son.

The case had drawn wide public interest because the victim, Lattie McGee Jr., had been beaten, burned with cigarettes and an iron, deprived of food and water, and hung upside down in a darkened closet for hours.

Judge Michael Getty, bombarded with calls and letters pleading for the death penalty, rejected capital punishment for the boyfriend, Johnny Campbell, saying evidence of Campbell's mental illness at the time of the murder ``is absolutely overwhelming.''

Two psychiatrists and one psychologist testified last week that Campbell was psychotic when Lattie and his 6-year-old brother, Cornelius Abraham, were abused for 2 1/2 months in 1987.

Campbell was under the delusion the two boys were homosexuals and that his ``disciplining'' was necessary to stop their behavior, the expert witnesses said.

In also sparing the life of Alicia Abraham, the mother, Getty said she hadn't been present in the same room when Campbell inflicted the fatal beating to her son, Lattie, on Aug. 14, 1987.

``I'm happy for society,'' said assistant public defender Marijane Placek, Campbell's attorney, referring to the sentence. ``We've been killing sick people for an easy solution.''

Assistant State's Attorney James Bigoness, who prosecuted the case, said Campbell had never been institutionalized for mental illness before the murder and managed to hold down a job with U.S. Steel for 16 years before he was dismissed for alcohol and drug abuse.

Bigoness also contended that Abraham was in an adjoining room when Campbell fatally beat Lattie. ``She could see it, she could hear it, she could have prevented it,'' he said.

Abraham also bore responsibility for Lattie's malnutrition and bronchial pneumonia, two contributing factors to his death, Bigoness said. The boy weighed 26 pounds at death.

``This case screamed for the death penalty,'' he added. ``It was a case where anything less than death wouldn't fit the crime.''

Campbell, who pleaded guilty but mentally ill to Lattie's murder, doesn't intend to appeal the sentencing, Placek said. Abraham, however, will appeal her conviction by Getty, Abraham's lawyer, Clyde Lemons, said.

In addition to imposing life imprisonment without possibility of parole, Getty also sentenced Abraham and Campbell to consecutive 30-year prison terms for aggravated child abuse.

In a move that caught some courtroom spectators by surprise, Getty singled out Lattie's father, Lattie McGee Sr., for criticism for failing to check on his children during the fateful 2 1/2-month period in 1987.

McGee rolled his eyes upward at the judge's comments. McGee told reporters later, ``That's his opinion, not mine.''

Getty also criticized the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services for dropping a complaint of negligence against Abraham two years before the murder. David Schneidman, a department spokesman, said the agency provided Abraham with more than a year of counseling before closing the case. No further reports of neglect had been made against Abraham, he said.

Abraham and her children became homeless soon after the agency closed the case, and she met Campbell in a shelter, Getty said.