Man gets natural-life sentence for 2015 Woodridge murder

A Chicago man who killed his girlfriend in Woodridge was sentenced April 4 to natural life in prison.

DuPage County Judge Jeffrey MacKay sentenced Launden Luckett, 34, of the zero to 100 block of West 114th Street, to two terms of natural life without the possibility of parole for stabbing Cecily Dickey to death Oct. 17, 2015, at her apartment.

A jury found Luckett guilty of first-degree murder in November after a five-day trial. At the time, MacKay ruled the murder was accompanied by exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior, indicative of wanton cruelty. That’s the legal standard to meet to impose a natural life sentence.

According to authorities, Dickey had brought Luckett to her apartment on Oct. 16, 2015. Early the next day, they started arguing and the argument turned physical. Dickey ran to a bathroom to attempt to get away from Luckett, but he chased her and stabbed her in the stomach.

She ran out of the bathroom. Luckett then grabbed her, knocked her to the floor, stabbed her again and choked her. Afterward, he took her cellphone, debit card and car, according to authorities.

Luckett was charged with the murder two months later while in the Cook County Jail on unrelated charges.