CHICAGO, April 30 -- A Cook County judge found self-proclaimed neo-Nazi Jonathan Preston Haynes guilty of murder Friday in the slaying a prominent Wilmette plastic surgeon.
Haynes, who represented himself, said he had to kill the doctor to protect the integrity of Aryan beauty.
He will be eligible for the death penalty when he is sentenced Wednesday.
Cook County Circuit Judge Earl Strayhorn presided in Haynes' bench trial. Strayhorn found Haynes mentally competent to stand trial last month, though psychiatrists said he suffered from delusions. He also agreed to Haynes' request that he represent himself, though public defenders initially assigned to the case said he was not capable of an effective defense.
During the week-long trial, Haynes opened with a rambling statement explaining that he killed Dr. Martin Sullivan because he helped patients achieve 'fake' Aryan beauty through plastic surgery.
'I condemn blue-tinted contact lenses and bleached-blond hair... and I'm proud I found the courage to go against it with maximum force,' Haynes said. 'Don't decorate your outsides if your insides aren't as beautiful.'
Later, Haynes introduced charts and graphs to help support his philosophy. Haynes, a former chemist for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, is a dark-haired, bespectacled man who does not look Aryan.
Strayhorn also found Haynes guilty of one count of burglary. He killed Sullivan in his Wilmette office Aug. 6, 1993.
Prosecutors said Haynes was arrested the day after the killing and immediately asked for a pencil and paper to write a statement acknowledging he had shot Sullivan. Haynes also has confessed to the unsolved 1987 killing of San Francisco hair-colorist Frank Ringi.
