NAPERVILLE - Storyteller and actress Diane Ladley says she meant no disrespect when she added a real-life murder scene to her lantern-led "Ghastly Walking Tour" of this Chicago suburb. Her customers requested the addition to the $15 tour of spooky spots, she said.
But some residents object, including the mayor and the current owner of the home where a Naperville mother drugged and smothered her three children in 1999.
"If a hundred years go by, maybe you could talk about it at that point," said attorney John Donahue, who represented Marilyn Lemak at her 2001 trial and her 2002 sentencing. "There are family members who are alive and well. To have this thing revisited just brings out the nightmare for them."
Seven years ago, Lemak was 41 and in the middle of a divorce from her physician husband, David. On March 4, she killed their children, Nicholas, 7, Emily, 6, and Thomas, 3, then slit her wrists in a botched suicide attempt.
"To people in Naperville, (the Lemak) murder still seems so fresh," said Ladley, whose Naperville Ghost Tours Inc., also offers ghost-hunting classes and trolley tours. "They don't realize it's been seven years."
Tourists stand across the street from the site of the murders, a restored Victorian home, when they hear the Lemak story, Ladley said. The details of the tale come from news accounts and police reports. The tourists learn that David has remarried and moved to another state, and that Marilyn is serving a life sentence in an Illinois prison.
"Is it entertaining? Yes," Ladley said. "But it also is a lesson in evil. You can't hide your eyes from evil. It doesn't go away."
Bart Madden now lives in the home with his wife and two young children. He isn't amused.
"I don't think legally we can do anything," he said, but, "this is so anti the spirit of the neighborhood."
Naperville Mayor George Pradel, a friend of the Lemaks, said he was upset to hear about the tour.
"Just thinking about it makes me feel sad inside and brings back all the memories of what happened," he said.
Ladley said when she heard nothing after sending a letter about her plans to the Lemak home's current owners, that meant they consented.
The homeowners say they remember hearing from Ladley.
"After reading the letter I didn't want to talk to this person," Bart Madden said.
"We were livid," said his wife, Maricela.
"I would have gone to the city, but I feel I don't have a leg to stand on," Bart Madden added. "People get to walk on the sidewalk."
http://www.sj-r.com/sections/news/stories/98210.asp
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
