Man says accused murderer bragged he could make people ‘disappear’
BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter drozek@suntimes.com January 30, 2012 1:30PM
Mario Casciaro
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Updated: January 31, 2012 1:48PM
Years after Johnsburg teenager Brian Carrick vanished, the man charged in his 2002 disappearance allegedly warned another McHenry County man during a barroom argument not to anger him.
Christopher Amen — whose his nickname is “Priest” — testified Monday that Mario Casciaro bragged during a “heated” 2008 argument he could make bad things happen to people who crossed him.
“He said, “Remember, Priest, I make people disappear,” Amen told jurors hearing Casciaro’s murder trial.
Amen was the last witness called in Casciaro’s trial stemming from the Dec. 20, 2002, disappearance and presumed death of the 17-year-old Carrick, whose body has never been found.
Jurors are expected to begin deliberating Tuesday.
Casciaro was charged in 2010 with murdering Carrick after another man who was present during an altercation between him and Carrick implicated Casciaro in the teen’s death.
Now 28, Casciaro worked in 2002 with Carrick in a Johnsburg grocery store that was partly owned by Casciaro’s family.
Drops of Carrick’s blood were found in a cooler and back hallway at Val’s Foods after the teen disappeared.
Prosecutors have argued Carrick was killed in the store when Casciaro and another co-worker, Shane Lamb, tried to collect a small drug debt from the teen.
Lamb testified earlier that Casciaro called him to the store to order Carrick to pay money he owed Casciaro for marijuana.
Lamb, a beefy convicted felon, admitted he punched the teen unconscious in a produce cooler because he lost his temper while arguing about the money Carrick owed, though he acknowledged Casciaro never told him to punch or harm Carrick.
In exchange for his testimony, Lamb was given immunity from being prosecuted for Carrick’s disappearance, but received a six-year prison term for an unrelated drug offense.
Amen, a 27-year-old convicted drug dealer, also testified Casciaro in 2002 told him he recently had hired Lamb to “act like the muscle” to help collect drug debts.
Casciaro’s attorneys didn’t call any witnesses, but offered several documents and written statements — including one in which an investigator said Amen claimed he overheard Casciaro brag that he could make people “disappear.”
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