Man Guilty of Fatal 1980 Hit-and-Run Now Faces Murder Case in Same Death
In 1980, Ronald Rice stood before a judge in suburban Chicago and apologized for hiding the body of an 11-year-old boy that he accidentally hit with his car. He was sentenced to 6 months in the hit-and-run case.
But today Cook County officials said that was far from the full story. They have charged Rice, who is now 54, with first-degree murder in the death of Edwin Gulbransen. Rice drove into the boy’s bicycle on purpose, officials contend, and then sexually assaulted and murdered him after persuading the youth to get into his car, reports the Chicago Tribune in a breaking news story.
The hit-and-run case was reinvestigated based on information provided by the Illinois Department of Corrections, where Rice is serving a 60-year prison term for sexual assault, the newspaper recounts.
“We are absolutely convinced that this is the truth of what happened in 1980,” said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, after Rice was denied bond at a bail hearing this morning.
