News

Countryside, Willow Spring duo charged in murder-for-hire plot

By James Pluta

DuPage County prosecutors say Johnny Borizov of Willow Springs was so
intent on ending the lives of his girlfriend, her brother and their family
that he conspired with a friend to kill them while making sure he had an
iron-clad alibi on the morning of the murders.

But the scheme allegedly cooked up between Borizov, 28, of 11280 W. 84th
Place and the alleged killer, Jacob Bradley Nodarse, 23, of 5408 S. 6th
Ave., Countryside, quickly unraveled when just hours after the
multiple-gunshot deaths of Jeffrey Kramer, 50, his wife, Lori, 48, and son
Michael, 20, shortly after 3 a.m. March 2 in their Darien home, both were
in custody.

Borizov was quickly taken into custody because he and 25-year-old Angela
Kramer — who survived the attack by hiding in a bedroom closet — were
involved in an ongoing custody battle over their 13-month-old son,
Nicholas, and Nodarse was arrested while sleeping in a van outside his
parent’s home in Florida where he had allegedly drove immediately
following the murders.

Nodarse was arrested by federal authorities and charged with obstruction
of justice.

Within a few days, Nodarse was talking to authorities, not just making an
alleged statement that he “would do anything” for his friend, Borizov,
according to prosecutors, but where he dumped his shoes and the gun police
stated was used in the slayings: a trash bin behind an IHOP restaurant in
Terre Haute, Ind.

But before he was even apprehended, police caught Nodarse making a call
from a prepaid cell phone to Borizov, allegedly telling him he was in
Florida and feared he was being followed. Borizov, said prosecutors, was
already in police custody as a possible suspect in the murders.

On March 9, the DuPage State’s Attorneys’ Office and Darien Police
announced indictments charging Borizov and Nodarse with three counts each
of first-degree murder — charges for which they are being held without
bond in the DuPage County Jail.

Borizov also is being held on four counts of solicitation of murder. Both
also face one count each of conspiracy to commit murder.

Funeral services for the three slain members of the Kramer family — owners
of a Cicero-based towing firm — were held March 8, with burials at Mount
Auburn Memorial Park in Stickney were preceded by hundreds of mourners
including a convoy of towing trucks from throughout the region.

Neighbors of the alleged gunman — a onetime student in La Grange
Elementary School District 102 who was a teenage runaway taken in by a
family friend at the age of 16 — seemed to know nothing about Nodarse or
any of his activities of late.

The nondescript two-flat apartment where he lived, one of two Countryside
homes occupied by his family, is on a typical residential street that
backs up to a parking lot and a restaurant that opens for business this
weekend.

Prosecutors allege the duo plotted out the murders of the Kramer family
throughout February, talking to each other mostly by telephone.

Then, on Feb. 25, the same day Nodarse quit his job as a service
technician at a Westmont BMW dealership, he purchased a handgun, which
prosecutors maintain was the weapon used in the slayings.

In the early morning hours of March 2 — as Borizov was at a casino in
Joliet — Nodarse used a hammer to break through a front window of the
Kramer’s home and entered.

He then went on a shooting rampage which left the parents and son dead and
spared the lives of the daughter, 29-year-old son, Anthony, who escaped
through a basement window, and the dead son’s 17-year-old girlfriend,
Tina, who was asleep with him on a couch before he tried to fend off
Nodarse with a knife.

The pair had also allegedly plotted to kill Angela Kramer, but police said
she escaped detection as Nodarse roamed the house in search of more
victims. While hiding, she managed to call police from her cell phone.

Prosecutors stated Borizov targeted the family over “a heated custody
battle” between Angela Kramer and Borizov over their son, and that Borizov
allegedly had a “strong dislike” of her family.

Nicholas was placed into Angela Kramer’s custody last week.

Calling the acts “premeditated murder,” DuPage State’s Attorney Joseph
Birkett stated this week, “Nodarse was used as a tool by Johnny Borizov to
commit a horrendous crime.”

Borizov’s attorney maintains his client is innocent of the charges.