Updated April 17, 11:40 a.m.
A Kentucky man who reportedly had threatened the life of his ex-girlfriend has been charged with attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed her stepbrother multiple times inside her Brookfield apartment on April 12.
At a hearing Monday morning at the Maybrook courthouse, Judge Kristyna Ryan denied bond for 26-year-old Jeffrey Gurley of Campbellsville, Ky., who was also charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He is scheduled to appear in court again on April 18, where his case is likely to be sent to a grand jury for indictment.
Gurley’s alleged victim, a 34-year-old Hodgkins man, was reported to be in critical condition at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.
According to the prosecutor, Gurley has an extensive criminal record in Kentucky and was on probation when he came to Brookfield looking for his 32-year-old former girlfriend, who lived in an apartment in the 8900 block of Burlington Ave.
The woman knew that Gurley was on his way, because he had phoned her on April 11. Gurley told the woman he was taking a bus to see her. That same day, the woman phoned Brookfield police to have them escort her to her apartment to collect some belongings. She said she was afraid of Gurley because of his violent past. A Cook County prosecutor told Ryan that Gurley previously had made death threats against the woman.
Information obtained by the Landmark from the Taylor County Detention Center in Campbellsville, Ky., showed that Gurley had been arrested and detained there several times since 2008.
Starting in November 2008, he spent more than a year in the county lockup after being arrested and charged with a variety of drug trafficking and weapons offenses. In 2010, he spent another 114 days in the jail after being charged with contempt of court, libel and resisting a court order.
He was last arrested in Taylor County in August 2011 and charged with filing a false police report.
A jail staff member confirmed that the woman Gurley was on his way to see in Brookfield was a former employee at the Taylor County Detention Center.
On April 12, the woman went back to her apartment, accompanied this time by her stepbrother. She waited outside in the car while he went in to retrieve some items.
When her stepbrother did not come back outside 10 minutes later, the woman called police. When police knocked on the door to the apartment, Gurley reportedly opened the door, acting in a very nervous manner. Looking inside, the officer could see Gurley standing next to a pool of blood and heard a faint cry for help coming from inside.
Gurley slammed the door in the officer’s face, but the officer was able to force his way inside and drew his gun. At that point, Gurley reportedly stretched out both arms, saying, “Just take me to jail” and indicating that a man needed help in the bedroom.
The victim, who was covered in blood, had been stabbed in the chest at least seven times and had his hands bound in front of him. Police also said a belt from a bath robe was wound tightly around the man’s throat, and that he was hanging from a bar in a closet.
According to the prosecutor, Gurley had stabbed the man using a kitchen knife, choked him and then used the belt to hang him.
