Maria Lech still looking for answers about her daughter

JOLIET – Maria Lech will never find closure.

Even if the facts supported David McCarthy’s confession to fatally striking her daughter with his car six years ago and he’d been found guilty at trial, even if a new suspect is identified, Melissa Lech’s mother will always have a sense of unease.

“There is really never closure when you lose a child. Her room is still waiting in the house, I haven’t moved anything,” Maria Lech said Thursday after prosecutors dropped charges against McCarthy.

Recent psychological evaluations done separately by the defense and prosecution concluded McCarthy concocted a false confession based on media reports about the case.

Melissa Lech, 20, was a Plainfield South High School graduate who was preparing to start her junior year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign when she was killed Aug. 7, 2008, by a hit-and-run driver on McDonough Street.

No suspects were identified until February 2012 when McCarthy, 30, knocked on the door of Melissa’s older sister, Michelle Lech, and said he thought about what happened every time the case was mentioned in the news. Michelle Lech gave McCarthy’s license plate number to Joliet police and he was arrested later that day.

Maria Lech believes McCarthy provided details about the accident that hadn’t been made public, but assistant public defenders Stephen Whitmore and Tony Purrazzo said that is not correct.

“[McCarthy] suffers from a delusional disorder,” Whitmore said.

“He didn’t have any independent recollection of the case outside what had already been reported,” Purrazzo added.

When Whitmore and Purrazzo informed McCarthy on Thursday morning in court that he would not be prosecuted, he laughed with apparent delight and began shaking their hands enthusiastically.

Whitmore said obtaining McCarthy’s medical and psychological records through subpoena was a lengthy process. The defense submitted an evaluation of McCarthy’s false confession to the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office in March. Dr. Randi Zoot then evaluated McCarthy for the state and agreed with the defense in her own report.

“Over the years [McCarthy] has admitted to a number of things which could not possibly be true and [are] based upon fantasy,” Zoot wrote. “Mr. McCarthy has had obsessive thinking over various situations, which then develops into full blown delusional belief.”

After McCarthy confessed to Michelle Lech, police found the car he’d claimed to have been driving and obtained samples to match to a paint chip recovered from Melissa’s body. FBI lab testing showed the paint chip did not match McCarthy’s vehicle, according to Whitmore and prosecutors.

McCarthy was ordered released from the county jail Thursday afternoon. Whitmore said McCarthy’s family indicated earlier they will seek psychological counseling for him, but he was not privy to their final plans.

When Judge Robert Livas approved the motion to dismiss the charges, Maria Lech stood up and slowly clapped before walking out with a sarcastic “Thank you.”

Outside the courthouse, Maria Lech asked McCarthy to leave her daughters alone, but invited him to see her if he wanted to talk.

“I’m not a psychiatrist. But I’ve dealt with so much pain in my life. Losing my husband to cancer. Losing Melissa ... without being delusional,” she said.