Man gets 38 years for killing stepmother with hammer

A Fox River Grove man who beat his stepmother to death with a hammer after family members urged him to seek mental health treatment has been sentenced to 38 years in prison.

Martin Green pleaded guilty but mentally ill in November to fatally bludgeoning 52-year-old Patricia McNamara on Feb. 10, 2010, in the family’s northwest suburban home.

Green, 29, attacked and killed McNamara the same day he had been told by relatives to undergo treatment for mental problems or move out of the home, McHenry County prosecutors said.

He left the house but later returned and killed McNamara, then fled.

Green later left his bloody clothes in a trash container, then washed himself in the nearby Fox River, authorities said.

He initially was determined to be mentally unfit to stand trial for the killing and spent several months in a mental health center receiving treatment before being deemed competent to stand trial.