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Chicago Tribune Comatose Gold Coast Victim Dies 22 Days After Shooting July 10, 1989|By Katherine Seigenthaler. Dana Feitler, the young woman who was shot on the Gold Coast after her assailants forced her to withdraw $400 from an automatic teller machine, died late Sunday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She never awoke from a coma induced in the early morning hours of June 18, when she was forced into an alley a block from her home and shot once in the back of the head at close range. She was 24. Feitler, who was scheduled to begin graduate studies in business administration at the University of Chicago the day after she was shot, died at 9:06 p.m., said Gretchen Rubin, a hospital spokeswoman. Feitler`s family asked the hospital to issue this statement on their behalf: ``We would like to express our appreciation to Dr. Robert Levy and his staff and to the Chicago Police Department for their diligence. We would also like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the hundreds of people who have shown their sympathy and support, including Dana`s colleagues at Continental Bank.`` Feitler had worked at the bank before she was shot. Doctors initially held out hope that Feitler might emerge from her coma. But when she showed no significant signs of neurological improvement 10 days after the shooting, they concluded that she never would recover. Her family decided to remove her from monitoring equipment and transfer her from the intensive care unit to a regular room. She lived for 12 more days. Police still have no suspects in the robbery and shooting, which received a barrage of media attention because it occurred in the heart of the affluent Gold Coast. Feitler was accosted by as many as three men about 1:30 a.m. in the lobby of her apartment building at 1446 N. Dearborn St., according to police. She then went with her assailants to a nearby automatic teller machine, where receipts indicated that she withdrew $400. She was shot shortly afterwards. Last Thursday, Chicago Police Supt. LeRoy Martin called for the City Council to restrict unenclosed automatic teller machines that dispense cash at curbside. A memorial service for Feitler, who grew up in Whitefish Bay, Wis., will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at the University School of Milwaukee, 2100 W. Fairy Chasm Rd., in River Hills, Wis. Feitler graduated cum laude from Colby College in Waterville, Me., and had worked 18 months for Continental Bank before leaving June 9 to begin her graduate studies. She is survived by her parents, Robert and Joan; a sister, Pamela Hoehn-Saric; two brothers, Robert Jr., and Richard; and her grandparents, Irwin and Bernice Feitler. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-07-10/news/8902160099_1_automatic-teller-robbery-and-shooting-graduate-studies

Chicago Tribune Feitler Killer Gets 90 Years In Prison May 05, 1992|By Terry Wilson. A former police informant whose assistance in an intensive Gold Coast murder investigation ended when he was charged with the killing was sentenced Monday to 90 years in prison. Lee Harris, 36, appeared before Cook County Circuit Judge John Crilly, who sentenced him to 60 years in prison for the murder of Dana Feitler, 24, and a consecutive 30-year term for aggravated kidnapping and armed robbery for forcing Feitler to an automatic teller machine and making her withdraw money. ``We were very pleased with the sentence,`` said the victim`s father, Robert Feitler of Milwaukee. ``We`re pleased this is behind us, and we`re pleased Lee Harris will not be able to hurt anyone in Chicago again.`` Prosecutors Scott Nelson and Anthony Calabrese had asked that Harris be sentenced to death for abducting Feitler from the lobby of her Gold Coast apartment building July 18, 1989, and forcing her at gunpoint to withdraw the cash. ``Lee Harris had the option of letting her go,`` Nelson argued. ``But they (Harris and some friends) took her in an alley and shot her in the head and killed her. Consider what he did and what he should pay, and that would be death by lethal injection.`` Harris` attorney, Andrea Lyon, argued that the jury that convicted him last month had to deal with contradictory testimony. She asked that his life be spared. In a statement that Harris wrote and Lyon read in court last month, he denied any role in the killing. Harris, who had helped police solve a number of murders by tipping them off to the killers, implicated himself in Feitler`s shooting after several months of giving police false leads. He later said he joined three friends once they abducted Feitler, a University of Chicago graduate student. Although a witness testified that she saw Feitler walking with three men the night she was killed and testified that Feitler had maintained eye contact with her for a long time, no other suspects have been arrested. While awaiting trial at the Cook County Jail, Harris is said to have told another inmate the names of two people who allegedly were involved in the killing, according to Belmont Area Detective Richard Zuley. ``He gave some names that are areas to be explored,`` Zuley said. ``This case is not closed.`` http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-05-05/news/9202090824_1_lethal-injection-killing-harris-attorney