A 69-year-old Bartlett man has been found guilty but mentally ill in the stabbing death of his 93-year-old mother in 2019.
Edward Mitzelfeld was found guilty but mentally ill by Judge Daniel Guerin following a seven-day-long bench trial that concluded on March 22, 2024. Under Illinois law, a verdict of guilty but mentally ill, unlike guilt due to insanity, does not remove responsibility for the actions of the convicted. As such, Mitzelfeld is subject to the full range of possible sentences.
On May 29, 2019, at approximately 5:23pm, Bartlett police officers arrived at the home Mitzelfeld shared with his mother, Fraces Kelly to find Mitzelfeld in the front yard of the house with his hands raised. After entering the home, officers found Kelly lying face down on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood.
An investigation determined that Mitzelfeld and Kelly were in the kitchen together when Mitzelfeld stabbed Kelly numerous times in the back with a kitchen knife, leaving stab wounds that severed her aorta and entered her lungs. After the murder, Mitzelfeld called 911.
“This is a tragic case that has surely taken a tremendous toll on Frances’ and Edward’s entire family,” DePage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said. “It is my sincerest hope that with the trial now behind them, Frances’ surviving family and friends will somehow be able to gain some measure of closure on this horrible chapter in their lives and remember Frances for how she lived and not how she died.”
Mitzelfeld’s next court appearance is scheduled for May 10, 2024, for post-trial motions.
