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Crime & Safety

Prosecutor: Man Cleaned Up Blood After Beating Father, Went to Bar

Mark Williamson, 46, pleaded not guilty to charges after he was accused of seriously beating his father, and was also barred from having any contact with him after a Cook County judge issued a protection order.


An Orland Park man pleaded not guilty to felony attempted murder, aggravated battery and unlawful restraint Thursday, after he was accused of beating and strangling his 78-year-old father, according to police.

Mark Williamson has also been ordered to stay away from his father after Judge Colleen Ann Hyland granted prosecutors' request for an order of protection.

At a preliminary hearing in early December, the father testified that he was strangled by his son but a 'demon' was responsible for the attack. Williamson is in custody without bond.

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The father was not present during Thursday's hearing. Sherie L. Dedore, an assistant state's attorney with the Seniors and Persons with Disabilities Unit, said the protection order is needed because the elder Williamson cannot defend himself against his son.

"(Mark Williamson) not only choked the defendant and beat his head on a concrete floor, having him begging for his life," Dedore told Hyland, "Instead of calling the ambulance, he went to the bar. After he and the victim cleaned up the victim's own blood."

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Williamson's public defender, Samantha Blake objected to the protection order. 

"The victim ambivalently testified (at a preliminary hearing) and while he at some point admitted some of the allegations, the victim indicated he did not want to see his son in jail and he wanted his son to come home," Blake said. "He wanted him to get help for his mental problems."

Ultimately, Hyland overruled Blake's objection, based on the father's testimony.

Williamson is scheduled to be back in Hyland's courtroom on Jan. 25.

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