Private school teen 'enlisted gang member friends to help beat and kill his father before emptying his bank account and going on a 2-day shopping spree'

   

Brutal attack: Matthew Nellessen, left, had been out of jail for less than a month before he allegedly beat his father George, right, to death with a baseball bat

Authorities say Nellessen recruited Marlon Green (center) to help rob his father. Green then recruited Azari Braden (left) and Braden's brother Armon (right)

After beating him with the bat, authorities say Nellessen then stabbed his father in the throat, cutting his own hand in the process.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday that Nellessen, who had recently been released from jail, had planned to rob his 55-year-old father, whom he believed owed him money.

Prosecutors allege that Nellessen recruited gang member Marlon Green - whom he met while serving time in Cook County Jail after violating his probation following a conviction for burglary. 

Green, authorities claim, then recruited two brothers - Armon and Azari Braden - to help carry out the robbery.

In exchange for their help, Nellessen promised to split the proceeds of the robbery with his alleged accomplices.

On the day of the murder, authorities say Green and the Braden brothers drove to Nellessen's comfortable suburban home armed with a BB gun that resembled an actual pistol. 

Green and Armon Braden entered the house with Nellessen as Azari Braden waited in a getaway car. 

Authorities claim the three men were looking for financial information they could use to drain George Nellessen's bank account. 

'Matt (Nellessen) was happy they brought the BB gun,' Cook County Assistant State's Attorney MariaMcCarthy told jurors, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune. 'It would make things easier.'

As the three men were ransacking the home, George Nellessen came home from work. 

Green, Nellessen and Armon Braden then tied him to a chair in the family room and took $800 in cash from his wallet. 

They also forced him to sign a blank check, which Green later made out to Matthew Nellessen for $100,00.

The trio then used George Nellessen's laptop to to transfer $100,000 from his account to his son's.

'Matthew wanted that money more than anything in the world,' McCarthy told jurors.  

As the three men began to leave the home, authorities say Matthew Nellessen stopped them.

'He said, "This is personal," and got a (baseball) bat, duct taped (George Nellessen's) eyes, stuffed a towel in his mouth and swung that bat as hard as he could at his father’s head a number of times,' McCarthy said.

He then retrieved a steak knife and stabbed his father in the throat.

Green and Nellessen then stole his father's car as the Braden brothers drove home in a separate vehicle. 

After allegedly beating his father to death, Nellessen and Green checked into the Amber Inn on the South Side of Chicago. The following day, Nellessen brought his girlfriend to the hotel and took her to a movie - using the money he stole from his father to pay the bills.

George Nellessen's body wasn't discovered until April 14, when a friend stopped by his home. 

The friend then confronted Matthew Nellessen about murdering his father. The suspect fled, leading police on a car chase through the suburbs. 

Nellessen's attorneys say prosecutors have it all wrong - they say it was Green, a convicted felon, who hatched the plan to murder George Nellessen.

'The original plan was to rob and kill a rich white guy and the rich white kid,' Assistant Public Defender Dan Naranjo told the jury. 'Marlon Green took the life of George Nellessen.'

Nellessen, now 22, and the Braden brothers each have been charged with murder, armed robbery and home invasion.

Green cut a deal with prosecutors that allows him to avoid a murder conviction - Green agreed to testify against Nellessen in exchange for an 18-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to an armed robbery charge. 

In testimony on Wednesday, Nellessen's sister, Lisa, explained that the money Nellessen believed his father owed him were Social Security benefits left when the siblings' mother died in 2004. 

According to Lisa Nellessen, the money was intended to help pay college tuition for the children as well as a car for her brother and his private high school tuition.

Nellessen has prior convictions for burglary, drug possession and check forgery, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Nellessen had been out of the Cook County Jail for less than a month before he allegedly murdered his father.

John 8:44

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Proverbs 29:24

Whoso is partner with a thief hateth his own soul: he heareth cursing, and bewrayeth it not.

1 Peter 4:15

But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters.