Father Arrested in Slayings of 2 Girls

A man with a record of criminal assault was arrested Tuesday and charged with murdering his 8-year-old daughter and her second-grade classmate as the girls played in a small-town park over the weekend.

Authorities said Jerry Branton Hobbs III came across his daughter Laura and her best friend, 9-year-old Krystal Tobias, on a bike path in the early evening of Mother’s Day. He allegedly forced the girls off the path, beat them, stabbed them repeatedly around their necks, and left them side by side in the brush.

Before dawn the next day, Hobbs joined other family members combing the park for the girls as part of a community search effort. About 6 a.m., he called out: “I think I found them,” then dashed into the underbrush, authorities said. Hobbs soon ran back to the trail, they said, crying and shouting that the girls were dead.

Hobbs returned to the scene with investigators Tuesday. Authorities would not say what he told them. But they were clearly shaken.

“There’s no rational explanation or reasonable motive,” said Michael J. Waller, the Lake County state’s attorney. “This is the most horrific crime I’ve ever seen.”

Hobbs, 34, is in custody and is scheduled to be at a bond hearing today at the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan.

Waller would not say whether he planned to seek the death penalty.

Hobbs was released from a Texas prison last month after serving two years for domestic assault in August 2001. The officer who responded to that assault reported that he saw Hobbs chasing several people around with a chain saw, Texas officials said.

The felony assault followed a string of misdemeanor offenses that made Hobbs a familiar presence at the correctional center in Wichita County, Texas. “He has been in our facility numerous times,” said Lt. Derek Meador of the Wichita County Sheriff’s Department.

Court records show 10 misdemeanors dating to 1991, including two convictions for assault, two for possessing marijuana and two for driving with a suspended license. Most of those convictions resulted in fines of a few hundred dollars and, at most, four days in jail. Hobbs’ longest incarceration came after the 2001 assault and chain saw incident.

After he was released last month, Hobbs moved to this quiet community of 23,000 in northern Illinois, apparently hoping to reconcile with his family. But neighbors said they could hear frequent fights.

On Mother’s Day, they said they heard not fights, but laughter, as Laura and Krystal spent much of the sunny afternoon outside, joining a throng of children biking and roller-skating from barbecue to barbecue, picnic to picnic, all up and down Gilboa Avenue.

The girls -- inseparable friends and members of the same Girl Scout troop -- relaxed in a friend’s hammock for a while, then rode around their neighborhood sharing a bike, one of them pedaling while the other perched on the handlebars, neighbors said. In the late afternoon, they apparently decided to head for Beulah Park, which features a bike trail winding around a wooded ravine.

Police said when the girls had not returned by early evening, Hobbs went looking for them.

Laura’s and Krystal’s bodies were found fully clothed about 50 yards off the bike path. They did not appear to have been sexually assaulted. The bike they had been sharing was tipped on its side, about 20 yards away.

“They weren’t lured there,” Waller said. “This was a crime committed by one girl’s father.”

After questioning the girls’ relatives, including Hobbs, for hours, investigators arrived Tuesday afternoon at Laura’s house. On the front gate, next to the “Do Not Disturb” sign, neighbors had posted a hand-lettered sign: “May your angels rest peacefully in Heaven.” A bouquet of spring flowers stood in a pitcher on the front lawn.

As police began hauling bags of evidence out of the house, a school bus swung out of Beulah Park Elementary, a block away.

Neighbors rushed to pick up their children, hoping to shield them from the sight of detectives swarming Laura’s small home.

“They’ve seen enough and heard enough,” said Cynthia Curtis, 21. “They don’t need to see any more.”

Times staff writer Stephanie Simon in St. Louis contributed to this report.