Rock Falls man’s murder trial canceled day before jury selection when attorneys announce plea deal

MORRISON – The day before the first-degree murder trial in a Rock Falls fatal stabbing case was set to begin, attorneys announced they’ve reached a tentative plea agreement.

The potential plea announcement came Wednesday afternoon at the tail end of four days of hearings that included prosecutors’ motion to delay Kyle Cooper’s trial, the Illinois State Police’s motion to intervene in the case over DNA testing and hearings for more than a dozen pretrial motions.

Cooper, 36, of Rock Falls, was set to go to trial Thursday, May 15, in connection with the Feb. 14 stabbing death of Daniel J. Gordon, 27, also of Rock Falls, outside of a Rock Falls residence in the 600 block of West 20th Street after the two fought. When officers arrived, they found Gordon suffering from severe abdominal injuries. He was taken to CGH Medical Center in Sterling and died that morning.

[ Judge: Probable cause exists in Rock Falls stabbing case, will continue toward trial ]

Cooper, wearing bloodstained clothes, turned himself in at the Whiteside County Sheriff’s Office later that morning and was charged with aggravated battery, police said. He was formally charged four days later with murder and an additional count of aggravated battery. He has been detained in the Whiteside County Jail since his Feb. 14 arrest.

The plea announcement Wednesday came at the conclusion of an hour of testimony from Autumn Day, a Rock Falls police officer who is the case’s lead homicide investigator and the fourth of four law-enforcement officers questioned by defense attorney Jim Mertes about preservation of evidence that occurred in the hours after Gordon’s death.

On Wednesday, the last of several motion hearings began at 10 a.m. Whiteside County Circuit Court Judge James Heuerman went over several motions, including two that pertained to allowing certain autopsy photos to be shown during trial, followed by Day taking the stand.

Mertes grilled Day about a white SUV that was within the cordoned-off crime scene area but was not searched or processed for evidence, although it transported Gordon to the stabbing location just moments before the fight and witnesses said Cooper had pulled Gordon from the vehicle as the altercation began.

He asked those questions as he alluded to Day being the lead homicide investigator. Day, however, said that she wasn’t named lead investigator on the case until March 3. She said Rock Falls Police Chief David Pilgrim told her at the scene that she was not lead investigator and that she did not complete state-required lead homicide detective training until Feb. 28.

Mertes questioned her as to why she didn’t clarify that she was not the lead at the scene during testimony March 3 and April 9 in which she answered questions and affirmed she was lead the lead detective when providing testimony about the investigation.

“At the time I answered the question, I was the lead investigator,” Day said.

Day and two other Rock Falls police officers who took the stand Friday acknowledged that evidence preservation protocol had been violated on-scene when Gordon’s girlfriend, who was driving the white SUV, was allowed to enter the SUV after police arrived and the area had been cordoned off as a crime scene.

Day also acknowledged that a log of activity of the crime scene, which lists who enters and leaves a crime scene during an investigation, was not created and that witnesses were allowed into the scene when they should not have been there. She also acknowledged the white SUV should have been processed for evidence.

After a one-hour break following her testimony, Mertes and State’s Attorney Colleen Buckwalter came back into the courtroom and announced that a potential plea agreement was on the table.

Heuerman at that time was considering two defense motions in limine that pertained to Day’s testimony. He did not rule on them, instead setting them aside pending a pretrial conference set for 9 a.m. May 22, when details of the plea agreement will be presented.

Wednesday’s trial cancelation is one of several twists in the case over the past few weeks. The trial was set to begin April 8, then continued until May 13 at the request of prosecutors who were waiting for DNA testing results to arrive from the state crime lab.

[ DNA testing in Rock Falls’ Valentine’s Day fatal stabbing hits legal snag; May 13 trial faces delay ]

The state on May 8 asked for the trial to be pushed to June 10 for the same reason, but Heuerman denied the motion, saying the trial would proceed without those results.

[ Rock Falls murder trial pushed to Thursday by lead detective’s illness, ongoing pretrial motion discussions ]

Then on Monday the trial was pushed to Thursday, May 15, because Day was ill and unable to testify in the pretrial motion hearing on Monday. Her testimony date was moved to Wednesday, and the attorneys and Heuerman agreed to schedule additional time to tackle an abundance of pretrial motions.

The May 22 hearing is expected to last half a day.