By PF Staff
info@purofutbolonline.com

Lake County, IL. – On Friday, March 6, 2026, a jury convicted Jesus Vargas, 33, of First-Degree Murder in connection to a 2022 stabbing of a Grayslake man.
The jury trial began on Monday, March 2, 2026, lasting five days. The State was represented by Assistant State’s Attorneys Brooke Wanzenberg, Daniel Lenzini, and Russel Caskey. Prosecutors called more than a dozen witnesses, including law enforcement officers, medical personnel, and expert witnesses.
Vargas was first charged in February 2022, after Round Lake Beach Police and the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force (LCMCTF) responded to the 2000 block of Apache Tral in Round Lake Beach. When officers arrived, they found Brian Mahdee, 37, with several stab wounds on his body and was pronounced deceased at the scene.
At the trial, law enforcement testified that when they first arrived at the scene, Vargas had non-life-threatening wounds to his arm. An eyewitness told jurors that Vargas inflicted the wounds on himself in an attempt to make it appear that he had acted in self-defense after being attacked by the victim.
The witness also described how Vargas brutally attacked Mahdee while Mahdee was seated and using his phone. Witnesses further stated that after the attack, Vargas attempted to clean up the scene and asked others present not to call the police.
Investigators testified that during the interrogation, Vargas gave several inconsistent statements and claimed to police that he was defending himself. Investigators explained how evidence showed that Vargas attempted to stage the scene to support that claim. Expert testimony further established that the DNA recovered from the weapon was inconsistent with Vargas’s self-defense claim.