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Slain teen's family pledges to push for death penalty
Vow made during funeral services
By John Bebow, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporter Carlos Sadovi contributed to this report
Published December 16, 2003
As relatives paid final respects Monday to slain Hammond teen James Raganyi, they vowed to ask for the death penalty against his accused killer and encouraged authorities to create a murderers registry to track killers who win release from prison.
"The laws need to be changed," Keith Raganyi said Monday shortly before services for his nephew.
Hammond police provided no updates Monday in their ongoing investigation of the deaths of two other Hammond teens found last week in the basement of David Maust, 49, a twice-convicted killer released from an Illinois prison in 1999. Hammond police have charged Maust with Raganyi's murder. Prosecutors have not indicated whether they will seek the death penalty.
Services also were held Monday in south suburban Steger for 13-year-old Michael Dennis, whose body also was found in Maust's basement. Details on funeral services were not available for Nick James, 19, the third victim found in the Hammond basement.
James had been missing since May. Dennis and Raganyi, 16, had been missing since leaving runaway notes on Sept. 10.
The memory of that date was particularly harsh for Bob Raganyi, another uncle of the slain boy. On Sept. 10, Bob Raganyi was celebrating his 20th wedding anniversary with his wife in Las Vegas. He said he was enjoying the show "Lord of the Dance" at the time Maust has told police he strangled James Raganyi.
"I don't want people to forget these three boys," Bob Raganyi said. "They can't forget them."
He said that even better than giving Maust the death penalty might be starting a registry to notify neighbors when released killers move into their community. "Maybe the purpose of all this is to get that law passed," he said.
Staffers for Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan staffers spent the weekend researching the idea.
"It's a question of community notification: how much and how long," said Madigan spokeswoman Melissa Merz.
Maust was convicted in 1994 for the 1981 murder of a teen near Elgin and thereby "slipped in" before reporting requirements for freed sex offenders and child killers took effect in 1996, Merz said.
Under current state law, released child murderers are treated differently depending on the date of their offense.
A first-degree murderer whose victim was under 18 is listed as a "sex offender" in the state's registry for 10 years, if the crime occurred between June 1, 1996, and June 30, 1999.
Any murderer released for a child killing that occurred after June 1999 is listed for life in the sex registry.
And, all murderers of teens required to register as sex offenders also must tell local police in Illinois if they plan to move out of state. Illinois police are then required to notify police in the locations where such convicts move.
The Illinois registry of some 15,000 sex offenders provides little detail about most of the convicts. The same is true of the Indiana sex offenders database.
Also Monday, a Chicago man said he survived an attack by Maust in 1979. Maust, then 24, was acquitted of aggravated battery for the September 1979 stabbing of 19-year-old Mark Ehrhardt.
Ehrhardt said he and Maust, co-workers at a machine shop, were socializing that night in Maust's apartment in Chicago.
"I just remember waking up and turning around to see him walking to the kitchen with a knife, then I felt something warm and I didn't realize until then that I was stabbed," Ehrhardt said from his Downstate home.
Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune
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