Suicidal Model Crashed at 87 MPH, Prosecutor Says

Oct. 18, 2007 — -- Prosecutors in the Chicago murder trial of a suicidal blond model said the woman's Ford Mustang was traveling 87 mph when she slammed into a stopped car carrying three musicians, killing them.

"There was no putting on the brakes, no attempt to swerve and no attempt to get out of the way because she was trying to commit suicide," prosecutor Jim McAuliff said in opening arguments, according to the Skokie Review newspaper.

A defense attorney said in opening arguments that defendant Jeanette Sliwinski, then 23, was sober, but suffering from delusions when she struck a Honda Civic stopped at a red light in a northern Chicago suburb in July 2005. The car was carrying Michael Dahlquist, 39, John Glick, 35, and Douglas Meis, 29, three local men who worked day jobs together at an audio electronics company.

But a fire department lieutenant testified that an open bottle of Seagram's gin was found in Sliwinski's car and that she was "frustrated and angry" minutes after the accident as rescue workers extracted her from her car.

"She said she just wanted to hurt herself. She didn't want to hurt anybody else," testified Brent Fowler, a former Skokie police commander who interviewed the woman after the accident, reports the Chicago Sun Times. Fowler reportedly said Sliwinski was "conscious, clear and alert" four hours after the crash.

Sliwinski faces three counts of first-degree murder and could face life in prison if convicted.

A police detective who arrived on the scene shortly after the accident testified that a woman later identified as Sliwinski's mother came to the accident scene, picked up her daughter's purse and began to walk away with it, according to the Sun Times.

The woman "said that was her daughter that was in the crash. … I told her I needed the purse back,'' Skokie police Detective Michael Libau said from the witness stand.

Another detective testified that he spoke with Sliwinski two hours after the crash.

"She said as she approached the intersection she saw a bunch of cars stopped at a light," Detective Alex Vincic told prosecutors. "She said she did not try to avoid them at all."

Earlier this week, Meis' older brother David told ABC News that the death of his brother and his co-workers still haunts him two years later.

"Your mind is your worst enemy," he told the ABC News Law & Justice unit Monday. "You hope and pray that they all died instantly, but your mind just wonders how things all played out."

"It was the worst day of my life," he said.

For a year after his brother's death, David Meis said, every day felt "like a bad dream" for him, his younger brother Scott and their parents, Ronald and Gail. The latter three traveled to Chicago this week for the trial.

'Took Three Wonderful Lives'

"For such a long time it felt like something you see on the evening news, but say, 'That could never happen to me,'" David Meis said.

"The one thing that would have brought this thing to closure would have been had she been successful in what she set out to do that day," he said, referring to the alleged suicide attempt by Sliwinski, an ex-model and the daughter of Polish immigrants.

Sliwinski's lawyers have denied that she was attempting suicide. Her current attorney did not return a call seeking comment on the case.

"She left this big, open-ended, ironic twist, in that she took three wonderful, beautiful lives and walked away with a broken ankle," David Meis said. He said that his father was a Navy pilot and that the family moved often.

"A lot of time when you move like that, your best friends become your brothers. We were a very close-knit family."

The crash and subsequent arrest brought Sliwinski Internet infamy. Many blogs and Web sites have posted modeling pictures of Sliwinski since she was arrested. Click here for pictures.

Monday, Sliwinski cried in court as her attorneys waived her right to a jury trial. The case will be heard by a county circuit court judge. Opening arguments began Tuesday morning.

Begs Forgiveness

Police say Sliwinski told them she'd had a fight with her mother that day, and en route to a psychiatry appointment sought to kill herself. The young woman drove through three red lights at 70 mph, police and prosecutors said at the time.

The 2000 Ford Mustang hit the Honda Civic so hard it threw both cars into the air, each landing upside down, crushed against the pavement.

The depth of the tragedy has not been lost on Sliwinski. Four days after the crash, she released a statement from her hospital bed, where she was recovering from the ankle injury under police guard.

"I pray and beg for forgiveness from everyone who is saddened by the deaths," she said in the statement, on behalf of her and her parents, Ted and Ursula.

"If we had an explanation for what happened, we would tell you what it is, but we have no explanation," the statement continued.

"We have only our heartfelt grief and prayers. We are all praying for the families of these fine young men and for the many friends whose lives were touched by their music and love."

College Grad, Lingerie Model

Sliwinski reportedly graduated from Columbia College, earning a degree in marketing and education in 2004. Her slender figure graced the pages of the Chicago's City Girls calendar in 2002 and 2003. She'd also done other modeling, including a Lee Jeans ad, a Frederick's of Hollywood lingerie show and assorted trade shows, according to the Chicago Sun Times.

Sliwinski has been through several attorneys since her legal odyssey began, each of whom has argued in one form or another that she was suffering from mental problems at the time of the crash. At least five psychiatrists are expected to testify that she was insane at the time of the crash, the Sun Times reported.

Sergio Tovar described the scene that fateful day. Tovar, manager of a nearby Mattress World, heard a loud thud outside his store as he chatted with a client, according to a 2005 Sun Times report.

"A quarter of a second after that, the [Mustang] was airborne," he told the newspaper. He said he ran outside carrying a pillow. He saw the Honda flipped over, he said at the time, with the rear end crushed into the back passenger seat.

There was a body in the middle of the road, Tovar said. And beside it was Sliwinski's car. He said her feet were dangling from the passenger-side window.

"She said, 'Get me out of here,'" Tovar said. That was July 14, 2005. Lunch hour in Chicago.

This week, more than two years later, her murder trial begins.