Crime & Safety

Man Gets 6-Year Prison Term for Savage Bat Attack on Mom

Although the attack nearly killed Kathleen Conrad, she and her husband asked for leniency for their son, who pleaded guilty to aggravated domestic battery.

A former Plainfield student who nearly killed his mother with a baseball bat because she and his father took away his cell phone and car keys as a punishment was sentenced to six years in prison Monday.

Joseph P. Conrad, now 22, was charged with attempted murder after he savagely beat his mother on the morning of Dec. 5, 2011, and then spent the day running errands before returning to their 2317 Hastings Drive home, located near Caton Farm and County Line roads, to stage the attack scene to look like a house break-in.

In exchange for his guilty plea, the charge against Conrad was reduced to aggravated domestic battery, according to a story in the Joliet Herald-News.

The plea deal had the blessing of Conrad's mother, Kathleen, who told Will County Judge Carla Alessio-Policandriotes that while she supported leniency for her son, she would also not allow him to live in her home again once he is released from prison, the story said.

While she's recovered from her injuries, she remains "very emotional" in the wake of the attack, the story said.

Conrad, speaking on his own behalf, told the judge that attacking his mother, who was then 43, was the "the worst decision I've ever made in my entire life," the Herald-News story said.

Conrad's attack was provoked because his parents had decided to punish him after he failed to clean up the bathroom after shaving, according to police reports. The couple woke him in the morning to inform him of their decision, and then his father went to work and his mother took a shower, reports said.

Conrad, a 2009 Plainfield South High School graduate, was waiting with an aluminum baseball bat for his mother to come downstairs, where he attacked her and left her for dead. He then took a shower, wiped the bat clean with tissue and ran several errands, including going to the dentist and filling his car with gas, the Herald-News story said.

When he came home several hours later, he smashed a window with the bat and then call 911 to report a home invasion.

Joliet police arrested Conrad after noting several inconsistencies in his story and eventually admitted to attacking his mother. He has been held in the Will County jail in lieu of $1 million bond.


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