"A career criminal" who was found guilty of beating and stabbing a woman to death in her Island Lake home is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Howard Dibbern, 52, was found guilty but mentally ill in the 2014 death of Karen Scavelli, 48, and on Wednesday was sentenced to 48 years for the murder.
Dibbern, who authorities said fled from the murder scene in Scavelli's car and later crashed it into a house Mundelein while being pursued by police, was sentenced to an additional eight years for possession of a stolen motor vehicle, plus five years for concealment of a homicidal death that will be served concurrent with the eight-year term.
McHenry County Judge Sharon Prather called Dibbern a "career criminal" and handed down the sentence after finding him guilty in September of Scavelli's murder. Though Prather acknowledged at the time that Dibbern suffered from mental illness, she said his public defenders did not succeed in proving that he was not guilty by reason of insanity, as they had argued at his trial.
All three of Scavelli's children and her sister, Carol Reed, read victim impact statements during the sentencing hearing.
Assistant State's Attorney Robert Zalud said while most people were preparing to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with their families, Scavelli's family in the courtroom "with fervent and frightened hope for some justice."
"There's nothing redeemable about Mr. Dibbern. He's a career criminal," Zalud said. "He has more in common with a vulture than he does you or I, Your Honor." Zalud said Dibbern was released from prison less than two months before he killed Scavelli and was on parole at the time.
"He never got the long, extended sentence he truly deserved" for his prior crimes, Zalud said.
Scavelli's relatives described her as extremely compassionate, loving and considerate toward humans and animals.
Her son, Bernardo "Dino" Scavelli, spoke about how his mother helped him lose more than 100 pounds by working out with him and cooking him healthy meals.
He said she told him he was "brilliant" even after he was diagnosed with a learning disorder and encouraged him to go to college but did not live to see him graduate. He said he now suffers from anxiety, depression and insomnia and "can't even function day to day without hundreds of dollars of medication."
Bernardo and his sister, Nicole Allard, spoke about the financial burdens they've faced since their mother's passing.
Allard said her mother worked multiple jobs to take care of the family, sent her kids to school with extra food in case any other children were hungry and was a mother figure for all the kids in their neighborhood.
The night Scavelli was murdered, Allard said, "my world was completely turned upside down. Words like 'mom' and 'home' became 'victim' and 'crime scene.'" Allard said there are rooms in the home she still can't enter because she knows the horrific things that happened to her mother in them.
Scavelli's other son, Joseph, recalled the last time he saw his mother, when she kissed and hugged him goodbye the morning before her death.
"Learning my mom was murdered was the worst moment of my life," he said. "Every time I heard the word 'mom,' I couldn't help but cry. ... There are so many things still ahead in her life that she won't get to experience all because of Dibbern."
Reed, Scavelli's older sister, said she wakes up most mornings "with tears in my eyes from dreaming of her." She said learning the details of her sister's brutal murder has left her with "more anxiety and depression than I thought humanly possible."
Authorities said Dibbern and Scavelli met at a Fox Lake bar where Scavelli worked a second job. Prosecutors said Dibbern led Scavelli to believe that he was a millionaire and was going to help her financially. Defense attorneys and their experts argued that Dibbern had delusions of grandeur, one of the many symptoms of the serious mental illnesses from which he has suffered for decades.
Just days before Scavelli's murder, Dibbern had been released from Elgin Mental Health Center, where he had been admitted because of a suicide attempt, officials said.
According to authorities, Dibbern fled from Scavelli's home after killing her and went drinking in bars, where he gave away some of Scavelli's personal belongings and flirted with women. After he crashed the car, he emerged with a knife and a hammer, cutting and hitting himself and saying he didn't want to go back to prison, authorities said.
Scavelli's relatives urged the judge to impose a sentence lengthy enough to prevent him from ever hurting another person again.
Dibbern's public defender, Richard Behof, noted that expert doctors who testified for the defense said the man suffered from mental illness. Behof said his client is taking a psychotropic medication and he asked Prather to consider that fact in her sentencing.
Behof read a short statement written by Dibbern in which the defendant expressed remorse for the slaying and stated that he has "been dealing with problems most of my life."
"Please allow me to show you my sincerest apologies from the deepest part of my soul," he wrote.
Prather called Scavelli's murder a "brutal and senseless" act.
"Mr. Dibbern is no doubt a career criminal," she said. "He preys on innocent people." Prather noted that Dibbern had been in the county's Department of Corrections on six occasions prior to Scavelli's murder.
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