Young Man on Trial in Brutal 2011 Stabbing and Beating Death of His Father

Matthew Nellessen "had the time of his life" after robbing, beating and fatally stabbing his 55-year-old father in his Arlington Heights home, said a Cook County prosecutor in the opening day of the young man's murder trial.

Nellesen, 19 at the time, recruited a thug he met in jail, Marlon Green, who enlisted two others in the plot to rob George Nellessen, prosecutors said. In 2011, they tied the father to a chair, then forced him to turn over his bank information and write a blank check, which the younger Nellesen tried to cash for $100,000.

For three days, Matthew Nellesen lived it up on the money he stole, money from his late mother's Social Security benefit, which had been used to pay his private school tuition, buy him a car and put his sister through college, reports George Houde in the Chicago Tribune.

But before leaving the home, Nellessen beat his father in the head with a baseball bat and stabbed him in the throat with a steak knife, telling his accomplices "this is personal." His body was found on April 14, 2011, by a family friend, the Tribune reports, who confronted Nellessen. The son then led police on a car chase through the northwest suburbs before his capture.

On Thursday, Green testified that "killing his father was never part of the plan," reports the Daily Herald.

Read more:

• in the Chicago Tribune
• in the Daily Herald