A twisted Illinois man convicted of killing his mother and hacking her body into pieces has been sentenced to more than 62 years in prison.
Brian Peck, 60, was harshly rebuked Monday by a judge who said he showed “irretrievable depravity” in the 2017 slaying and dismemberment of 76-year-old Gail Peck in their shared suburban Chicago home.
“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. But he’ll spend 62 ½ years in prison, minus roughly four years he completed while awaiting trial, since the latter sentences will be served at 50%.
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”.
“How can you value your mother so cheaply?” Gail Peck’s longtime pal 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 had insisted he killed his mother in self-defense after she attacked him with a knife for repeatedly playing a Jimi Hendrix song. Peck, who is 6 feet tall and weighed about 250 pounds at the time, claimed that his mother, who was 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 140 pounds, came at him with a military-grade survival knife.
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 that he tossed 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.
“I loved my mom with all my heart and soul,” Peck insisted in court Monday, prompting detectives to turn away during his statement.
Peck, who was Gail’s only child, admitted dismembering his mother because he didn’t think cops would believe his self-defense story.
Cataldo, meanwhile, did not hold back while admonishing the convicted first-degree murderer.
“What kind of a human being could look at their mother … and dismember her body like that?” the judge asked.
