Talk:Brown's Chicken massacre

Untitled discussion
from VfD:

This page was listed it on cleanup; I've done some work on it. However, I'm not sure if it falls within our purview. As one who lived in the area at the time, I can testify that this event got a lot of media attention. Not sure what long term effects it had, if any. No vote. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 05:20, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * Keep. I think the murder of 7 people probably is encyclopedic, and Wikipedia is not Paper. Darksun 10:37, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Agreed. keep.  Posiduck 15:03, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a garbage dump. Not notable. --Improv 15:40, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * What's this Brown guy got against chickens? Ha ha. Anyway, I suppose it's notable enough, keep. Everyking 14:53, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Seems notable enough to me MarkS 15:15, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * K absolutely. Wolfman 18:37, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. The murder of 7 people is notable enough. Nadavspi 19:22, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. a bit of history. -R. S. Shaw 02:50, 2004 Oct 17 (UTC)
 * Worthy of a keep. And best keep your day job, Everyking. Denni &#9775; 03:03, 2004 Oct 17 (UTC)
 * If a mass murder's not notable then what the hell is? Keep. -- Necrothesp 18:15, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Strong keep, both for content and my belief that things should not be nominated for deletion unless it's clear to the nominator they merit deletion. &mdash; siro  &chi;  o  19:55, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Intrigue 20:37, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Definite Keep.  Radman1 14:38, 18 Oct 2004 (PST)
 * Keep. Its a notable event and I still hear it brought up around the local area from time to time. ScottM 23:50, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep most definitely. It was a major news event in the Chicago area and nationally as well. Cvkline (talk) 02:13, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

end moved discussion

Article is a bit sketchy. I can't tell what led to the arrest of the two killers. Was it the dna chicken thing or the girlfriend's conefession? I thought the girlfriend came first and was confirmed by the dna, but I can't tell from the article, and I'm not sure. ThaddeusFrye 18:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I checked and confirmed my memory with the chicago tribune, and edited the article accordingly. ThaddeusFrye 19:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The article does not mention the means of murder, i.e., what the people died of. Johns1952 (talk) 13:48, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point. For the record, they were all shot, "execution-style". &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 13:59, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

reverted anonymous changes
An anonymous editor changed the article to say that the DNA match was a partial one and that the details cited by the girlfried were only "not known" to have been made public. Since these changes were made without citing and documentation, I reverted them back to the version of the story as it's been decribed in media sources I've seen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThaddeusFrye (talk • contribs)

Trial commencement?
According to the article, James Degorski's trial was supposed to have begun on the 30th. Has it? &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 04:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC) yess the trial has started, i was there for the opening arguements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.31.54.12 (talk) 01:27, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Death Penalty
Why didn't they get the death penalty? Could their cases still be re-opened so that they could get the death penalty?

--Atikokan (talk) 04:15, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * On September 29, 2009 James Degorski was found guilty of all seven counts of murder. On October 20, 2009 he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. All but two of the jurors had voted for the death penalty.[10] At-least in Illinois (I am not sure about other jurisdictions), the jury must be unanimous when determine whether someone should receive the death penalty. Please check out this article for more information. For future reference, the discision page on articles are only reserved for topics and discussions directly related to the improvement of a Wikipedia article. Thanks! --  StarScream1007  ►Talk  03:21, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

From the article: "All but one juror had voted for the death penalty for Luna, but in Illinois the vote must be unanimous, so Luna was spared the death penalty." I'm not interested in attempting to edit this myself, but it should definitely be updated. While the death penalty was sought in this particular trial, Illinois has since repaeled the death penalty; therefore, it's inaccurate to imply that the unanimous vote law is still relevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.64.246.14 (talk) 20:15, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I addressed that somewhat. Not perfect, but we also lack state-specific articles on capital punishment from which I could easily get wording. &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 00:46, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm deleting that abhorrent 'info box'
Attack type: Weapons: Perpetrators: Victims:

You make it sound like a boxing match or a World War 2 battle. In fact it's even mildly offensive in the context of a battle in war, but in this context? It's incredibly offensive. This is a news story and should be treated simply as a news story. If you have a creepy personal file of murders and massacres, feel free to continue to write them up that way in your creepy little file. This is a general use encyclopedia and should not be treating the murder of 7 innocent people like that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.77.90 (talk) 22:10, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

2014 Story About James Degorski
As some of you may have already read, James Degorski was awarded $451,000 In Civil Suit, in which he alleged a prison guard punched and injured his face. I was wondering if this is worth mentioning in the article. At first I wanted to add it, but felt it does not directly pertain to the Browns Chicken Massacre itself. It seems more of something that should belong in Degorski's article (if it existed). Again, that's just my take. --  StarScream1007  ►Talk  04:09, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Two editors have since added this information, and it has been removed twice, with the argument "this is not directly related to the murders". I have just restored the paragraph again. Here are my arguments: AxelBoldt (talk) 00:55, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The civil suit is indirectly related to the murders: (1) without the murders the civil suit would never have happened, and (2) the victims' families now stand a chance to receive some compensation from Degorsky. That is similar to but more relevant than the fact, mentioned in the article, that a Chase branch now takes the spot of the Brown's Chicken restaurant: an indirect consequence of the murders.
 * While admittedly not directly related to the murders, the information is clearly directly related to the murderer Degorski. Since Degorski does not have nor deserve his own article (WP:1E), information about him should be collected here. (For instance, if Degorski had died in 2012 in prison, we would certainly have added that information to this article.) We could collect the information about him in a separate section rather than incorporate it in the general Recent History section if that is seen as preferable.
 * Suppressing this information cannot possibly aid our readers; those readers not interested in the information can always ignore it, so no harm is done.


 * I'm in favor of keeping it in. It's somewhat tangential, but it ensures some degree of currency in the article... and readers will likely expect it here. We shouldn't surprise our readers. The Chase branch is much closer to inappropriate, perhaps per WP:IINFO, but it's something our readers will certainly be expecting. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 17:05, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Article move
First off, let me state that I know very little about this incident aside from what I have read in the article and know even less about the Brown's Chicken restaurants. When I came upon this article, I was somewhat confused by its title at first glance as to what it regarded. So I would like to suggest a move of this article to the title Brown's Chicken restaurant shooting for the sake of clarity and consistency with similar articles.

The trend with articles of this type has been leaning towards the use of the term "shooting" versus "massacre": 2013 Santa Monica shooting, Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, 2012 Aurora shooting, etc. There are exceptions such as Virginia Tech massacre, but given the creation dates it would seem that the term "massacre" was used because of articles like San Ysidro McDonald's massacre and others created earlier. There is considerable discussion about the use of the term on the Virginia Tech article's Talk page.

Obviously a redirect would be created and anyone using the term would still find this article.

I am in no way trying to change the impact or impression or any other interpretation of the event, this is simply for consistency sake with similar articles. Does anyone object to this move (and if so, why?) or have an alternative they wish to suggest? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 17:50, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * That title change is not in keeping with what this event is most commonly known as. GigglesnortHotel (talk) 15:50, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Dead link
There is a dead link in the "Perpetrators" section. Otr500 (talk) 02:44, 5 January 2020 (UTC)