'I turned into Mr. Hyde from Dr. Jekyll:' Dugan

Dugan 'couldn't stop' himself from killing 10-year-old

Referring to a famous fictional villain, Brian Dugan told a psychologist he couldn't stop himself from kidnapping and murdering Jeanine Nicarico, even though he knew his actions were wrong.

"I turned into Mr. Hyde from Dr. Jekyll -- that's what it was," Dugan said in a recorded interview played Tuesday for the DuPage County jury that will decide whether he receives a death sentence for fatally bludgeoning the 10-year-old Naperville girl in 1983.

Defense attorneys trying to save Dugan's life played the Sept. 5 videotaped interview to bolster their claims that the 53-year-old Aurora man is a psychopath who can't control his actions.

Speaking in a soft voice, Dugan claimed he originally had planned to burglarize a home in Jeanine's Naperville subdivision, but then when he saw the fifth-grader home alone, he suddenly decided to kidnap, rape and murder her.

"I was terrified after I committed the crime, but it didn't stop me. I couldn't stop," Dugan said during the interview with forensic psychologist Kent Kiehl.

Dugan is already serving life sentences for the 1984 slaying of 27-year-old Donna Schnorr and the 1985 killing of 7-year-old Melissa Ackerman. If jurors choose not to sentence Dugan to death for Jeanine's murder, he will be sentenced to another life term.

On the videotape, Dugan also talked about what he called his "philosophical objection" to the death penalty -- although jurors didn't hear that testimony.

"It's useless. It's overkill," Dugan said. "It makes society as bad as someone who shows no remorse."

But he expressed ambivalence about actually being executed, referring to it as "early release" from his life sentences.

"I really don't care about dying," Dugan said. "It's like early release."