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The First Degree

Episode 370: Brown's Chicken Massacre, Part 2

The First Degree

Alexis Linkletter and Jac Vanek

True Crime, Society & Culture, News

4.5 • 10K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For nearly ten years, investigators had no clue who killed seven people in the Palatine Brown’s Chicken on January 8th of 1993. They followed more than 4,800 leads and arrested several potential suspects, but nothing came of these efforts. The murders of Brown’s Chicken employees 16-year-old Michael Castro, 17-year-old Rico Solis, 31-year-old Tom Mennes, 32-year-old Marcus Nellsen, and 47-year-old Lupe Maldonado and owners 49-year-old Lynn Ehlenfeldt and 50-year-old Dick Ehlenfeldt were a tragic mystery. The case remained cold until April of 2002, when Anne Lockette spoke to the authorities. At the time of the crime, her boyfriend, 20-year-old Jim Degorski, and his friend, 18-year-old Juan Luna, robbed the Brown’s Chicken, stole $1,800, and told her every detail—but not before threatening Anne’s own life. In episode 370, Jac and Alexis dive into how a confounding case was solved with Anne’s key testimony and  DNA technology advancments that allowed better testing of saliva samples gathered from a half-eaten chicken bone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:28.6

The first degree.

0:31.6

First degree.

0:32.6

First degree.

0:33.6

First degree.

0:34.6

First degree.

0:35.6

First degree.

0:36.6

The first degree.

0:38.3

You see it on the news.

0:39.3

You see it on the paper.

0:40.3

You see it on Facebook.

0:42.3

These things are supposed to happen in movies, not in real life. Wenten and arrested him in the scene you'd imagine from a movie.

0:54.5

They were in vans from the power company, waiting for him to come out of the house.

1:00.4

And for Martin, his name was completely drawn to the ringer in the press and as a former

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