Marcus Edward Nellsen was 31 when he was killed on January 8, 1993, at the Brown’s Chicken & Pasta restaurant at 168 West Northwest Highway in Palatine, Illinois. He was one of seven people shot and killed during an armed robbery that also claimed the lives of owners Richard and Lynn Ehlenfeldt and employees Guadalupe Maldonado, Michael Castro, Rico Solis, and Thomas Mennes.

The case remained unsolved for nearly nine years until one perpetrator, Juan Luna, was implicated by his girlfriend in 2002 and later linked by DNA; he was convicted in 2007. James Degorski was convicted in 2009. Both received life sentences without parole.

The massacre had a profound effect on the Palatine community and the victims’ families, who endured years of uncertainty before those convictions.