Brian Peck Chicago man sentenced 62 years jail for murdering and dismembering his mother and throwing her body parts in lagoon.
An Illinois man convicted of killing his mother and dismembering her body parts has been sentenced to more than 62 years in prison.
During his sentencing on Monday, Brian Peck, 60, was regaled by the judge who said the son had showed ‘irretrievable depravity’ in the 2017 slaying and dismemberment of his 76-year-old mother, Gail Peck in their shared suburban Chicago home, the Daily Herald reported.
‘It does not get much worse than that,’ Cook County Judge Joseph Cataldo said in court.
Peck, of Elgin, was sentenced to 50 years for killing his mother, 20 years for dismembering her body and five years for concealing her death. In total, the son will spend 62 ½ years in prison — minus roughly four years he completed while awaiting trial — since the latter sentences will be served at 50%, the Daily Herald reported.
Peck was convicted in February of killing his mother — a breast cancer survivor and dog lover who friends said would celebrate life ‘even if there was no occasion,’ the Daily Herald reported.
‘I loved my mom with all my heart and soul,’
According to a previous report, Peck and his mother had moved into their home in Elgin only a few months prior to the mother’s gruesome murder.
‘How can you value your mother so cheaply?’ Gail Peck’s longtime friend, Sherry Orrico asked in court Monday. ‘She did not get the honor she deserves because she is buried in pieces with parts of her still missing … Now I know evil is just evil. There’s nothing to understand.’
Peck who according to prosecutors had a long criminal history including six felony convictions, insisted he killed his mother in self-defense after she attacked him with a knife for repeatedly playing a Jimi Hendrix song.
Peck said he then ‘swept’ his mother’s leg, knocking her to the floor, before stomping on her and putting his foot to her throat. He proceeded to dismember her body and put some of her remains into garbage bags before throwing them into Lake Michigan.
Peck also put some of his mother’s remains into a suitcase and duffel bag weighed down with bricks before tossing them into Chicago’s Lincoln Park Lagoon a day later.
The following day, Gail Peck was reported missing by her son, who claimed to cops she took her dog for a walk but did not return. A fisherman then retrieved the duffel bag containing some of her body parts from the lagoon a day later, the Daily Herald reported.
‘I loved my mom with all my heart and soul,’ Peck told the court Monday.
Peck, who was Gail’s only child, admitted dismembering his mother because he didn’t think cops would believe his self-defense story, the Naperville Sun reported.
Offered Judge Cataldo, ‘What kind of a human being could look at their mother … and dismember her body like that?’
