An Illinois man, Neil Howard, 46, has been convicted of strangling his 60-year-old mother with a bungee cord in their shared home because he was sick of her “sleeping around.”
On Tuesday, Tuesday, Feb. 11, Howard was convicted on first-degree murder charges and faces a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison.
Neil was sitting alone at the family’s house in Troy when his mother Norma Caraker returned home from a date, back on Sept. 13, 2023, according to Law and Crime.
A drunk Howard snapped and wrapped a bungee cord around his mother’s neck, strangling her to death, according to Assistant State’s Attorney Luke Yager, the report states.
“This defendant had had enough of his mother. He’d had enough of her sleeping around. He’d had enough of her not giving him money,” Yager levied in Madison County court.
Howard called police to the home at about 1:30 a.m. that night, telling a dispatcher he was “worried about his mother because she was unresponsive.”
Troy Police officers arrived and found Caraker in her bed with a bungee cord still secured around her neck. Attempts to revive the 60-year-old were futile and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Howard, visibly drunk, told investigators at the time that he had seen an unknown man run out of a sliding glass door in the home just before finding his mother, according to the Bellevue News-Democrat.
Investigators found that the door in question was locked from the inside. Howard was arrested at the scene.
On Tuesday, Feb. 11, Howard was convicted on first-degree murd£r charges and faces a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison.
The defence plans to appeal the verdict based on what they say is a sloppy crime scene investigation conducted by the Troy Police Department, Law and Crime reports.
Howard, convicted of k!lling his mother, was once questioned in the death of his father, according to the Edwardsville Intelligencer.
Back in 2005, Howard was eyed as a suspect in the Dallas County, Texas, death of George Howard Jr., the father of the accused, according to the outlet.
George Howard d!ed at his residence and Neil Howard was arrested by Mesquite Police in connection to the death. He was released when prosecutors were unable to convince a grand jury that the 26-year-old should face trial.
