A Cary man twice convicted of attempted murder in Cook County, and acquitted of murder as a teen in 1980, has turned himself in after being wanted on a sixth alleged offense of drunk driving.
George G. Gnewuch, 64, is charged with aggravated DUI, a Class X felony, as well as driving with a revoked license and leaving the scene of an accident, according to a criminal complaint filed against him in McHenry County court.
Gnewuch turned himself in to McHenry County jail at about 5 a.m. Thursday, the jail log shows. Because the alleged victim in the current DUI case is a person well known to McHenry County judges and administrators, the Illinois Supreme Court reassigned the matter to be heard by a Kane County judge, Salvatore LoPiccolo, records show.
LoPiccolo granted the state’s attorney’s request during his first court appearance Thursday to keep Gnewuch detained in jail.
Authorities said that about 6:40 p.m. Dec. 1, Gnewuch was driving his pickup truck too fast east on Route 14 near the Hollows Conservation Area in Cary when he crashed into another vehicle. He left the scene without attending to the person in the other vehicle, according to the complaint.
Records show he was first charged with a Class A misdemeanor DUI offense. But when the results of a blood-alcohol concentration test allegedly came back at 0.168, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08, and authorities learned of his past offenses, the charge was elevated to a Class X felony, records show. If convicted, he could face prison sentencing of six to 30 years.
After the crash, authorities said Gnewuch drove about three miles away from the crash while his truck was missing a front tire. He allegedly smelled of alcohol and told police that he had been drinking and should not be driving, according to a police report.
According to court records, Gnewuch’s past DUI offenses occurred in Cook County in 1984, 1985, 1991, 2003 and 2004.
In 1994, Gnewuch was convicted of attempted murder in connection with a 1992 attack of a woman in her Schaumburg home, according to reporting in the Chicago Tribune at the time and Cook County records. Gnewuch entered the home of the woman, who was a neighbor, and “repeatedly slashed” her face and body with a knife after she asked him to turn down his stereo, according to the report.
In 1980, when he was a teenager, Gnewuch was found not guilty of murder by a McHenry County jury in the death of Karen J. Cheshier, according to a story in the Daily Crystal Lake Herald from 1980.
Cheshier was a 34-year-old married mother of three who lived in the Fox River Valley Gardens subdivision in Port Barrington. Gnewuch also lived in the neighborhood at the time; he was 16 and had been a babysitter in the Cheshier home, according to a 1978 story in the Daily Sentinel in Woodstock,
Police said Cheshier’s attacker entered the home through a back window and bludgeoned her to death with a carpenter’s claw hammer while she was in her bed, according to the Sentinel. Her husband was out of town on business during the attack, and her nude body was discovered in her bed by her children, the Sentinel reported; the murder weapon had been found outside the home.
Although he was later acquitted, authorities said at the time that Gnewuch was “a prime suspect” in the murder. Because he was a juvenile, he initially was taken into custody at a Lake County juvenile detention center and later transported to the McHenry County jail and tried as an adult. He remained in the county jail until his acquittal, according to the Daily Crystal Lake Herald story.
In 1986, Gnewuch was convicted in an attempted murder that occurred in Des Plaines and was sentenced to six years in prison, according to the Tribune story and records in Cook County courts. He was paroled from Vandalia Correctional Center on Aug. 30, 1988, and discharged from parole three years later, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.
“It’s clear that this is a man who has not learned from his previous convictions,” McHenry County State’s Attorney Randi Freese said in a news release. “He continues to commit crimes, and continues to put lives in our community at risk. We are happy that Judge LoPiccolo has kept this man off our streets.”
Gnewuch is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 6, according to the release.