CHICAGO - A suburban Chicago man has been convicted in the 2017 slaying and dismemberment of his mother, whose partial remains were found in a Chicago lagoon.
A Cook County jury deliberated about 2½ hours on Tuesday before finding Brian Peck of Elgin guilty of first-degree murder, dismembering a human body and concealing a homicide death.
Peck, 59, had testified on Monday that he killed his 76-year-old mother, Gail Peck, in self-defense on Oct. 25, 2017.
Gail and Brian Peck (Elgin Police Department)
Peck, who is 6 feet tall and weighed about 250 pounds at the time, claimed that his mother, who was 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 140 pounds, came at him with a military-grade survival knife after becoming annoyed at him for playing loud music, The (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald reported.
He said a struggle ensued, during which he "swept her leg," causing her to fall.
Authorities said Peck stomped on his mother’s head, dismembered her body and put some of her remains in garbage bags that he tossed into Lake Michigan the same day she was slain.
Some of her remains were later discovered in a lagoon at Chicago’s Lincoln Park, but her head and one of her arms remain missing.
An assistant Cook County medical examiner determined that Gail Peck’s cause of death was homicide by unspecified means.
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