Man who killed mom with baseball bat thought she was an intruder: prosecutors

A west suburban man has been charged with beating his mother to death with a baseball bat earlier this year when he mistook her for an intruder in their Campton Hills home.

Thomas W. Summerwill, 21, is charged with two felony counts of second-degree murder for the death of his mother, Mary Summerwill, according to a statement from the Kane County state’s attorney’s office.

He awoke on the morning of March 24 and thought someone had broken into his bedroom at the home in the first block of Willowbrook Drive in Campton Hills, prosecutors said. He grabbed a baseball bat and hit the person in the head multiple times, not realizing that it was actually his 53-year-old mother.

Mary Summerwill died of her blunt-force injuries, prosecutors said.

The state’s attorney’s office said Thomas Summerwill’s belief that he was acting in self-defense “was not reasonable because of his alcohol impairment.”

He turned himself in to police on Monday, prosecutors said. Associate Judge Keith Johnson set his bail at $300,000 Tuesday and scheduled his next court date for March 23.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.