Logan Petre could one day walk out of prison, but he’ll be an old man after serving time for killing his dad, Leo Petre, on Father’s Day weekend 2024.

Petre, 23, of Marseilles was sentenced to 52 years for strangling his father, but he wasn’t present in La Salle County Circuit Court when his sentence was handed down.

Petre was brought in for the 1 p.m. hearing, but he didn’t last 15 minutes before Circuit Judge Michelle A. Vescogni held him in direct contempt (vacated after she sentenced him to prison) and ordered him out of the courtroom.

“It’s unbelievable the amount of rage that comes out of him at the slightest offense.”

—  Jeremiah Adams, La Salle County state's attorney

Petre had been thrice removed at a hearing Sept. 5 when Vescogni delivered a ruling finding Petre guilty of murdering his father. Any hopes that he would regain his composure Monday were quickly dashed.

As Vescogni and the attorneys discussed whether to keep Petre physically restrained at sentencing, Petre repeatedly exploded and yelled that his rights were being violated.

“You’re not treating me like I’m a human being,” Petre said, adding later that he’d been placed in almost around-the-clock segregation for the past four months. “You guys have been holding me hostage.”

After repeatedly warning Petre to pipe down, Vescogni ordered him removed. After a short recess, she determined that safety concerns for others precluded Petre from returning to open court.

Although it’s rare for a murderer to be sentenced while not personally present, it’s not unprecedented in La Salle County. Streator killer Carl Lenard refused to come out of his cell for sentencing in 2017.

Petre was convicted after an intermittent bench trial in the spring. He and Ottawa defense attorney Ryan Hamer argued that Leo Petre was impaired and head-butted Logan, initiating an altercation in which Logan feared for his life.

Vescogni wouldn’t buy it. She rejected Logan’s statements to the police, save for one.

When police asked how long he held Leo in a neck hold, Logan answered, “Ten minutes at least, probably five.”

It was, the judge ruled, long enough to rule out self-defense.

“This was not second-degree murder. This was not involuntary manslaughter. This was first-degree murder,” Vescogni said.

At sentencing Monday, Hamer asked Vescogni to consider the minimum 20 years, citing not only Logan’s youth (he was 21 at the time) but also evidence of provocation by his father and injuries that Logan suffered during the quarrel. Hamer also suggested that Petre was a good candidate for mental health treatment in the Department of Corrections.

“This is a tragic situation,” Hamer said. “There’s no question about that.”

But Assistant La Salle County State’s Attorney Jeremiah Adams asked for the maximum 60 years. Adams said there was no provocation by Leo Petre. Rather, Leo’s death was the culmination of a period of increasingly erratic and violent behavior.

Witnesses called to the stand Monday described a downward spiral in which Logan Petre drank heavily, alienated his friends and, shortly before his murder arrest, charged into a friend’s home and threatened to kill him with a knife.

“Except for his youth, there’s no mitigation at all,” Adams said. “The defendant is a danger to everyone everywhere he goes. It’s unbelievable the amount of rage that comes out of him at the slightest offense.”

Vescogni largely agreed. The judge said she considered applying the statutory factors in mitigation – “I tried,” she said. “I have really, really tried” – but said she couldn’t get past the danger Logan posed to specific individuals and society at large.

She settled on a near-maximum term of 52 years.

Petre’s prison time isn’t quite set in stone. He has several open cases, and one of them is a pending charge of home invasion. If convicted, Petre would be required by statute to serve a sentence of six to 30 years back-to-back with his sentence for murder.