Mahomet murder victim's mother pleads for answers
MAHOMET – Holly Cassano was a single mother devoted to her daughter and her friends. She worked two jobs for a while and was struggling in a relationship with the father of her child.
"She's 22. She thought she was an adult and thought she didn't need to tell her mommy everything," said her mother.
On Monday, Toni Cassano encountered the unthinkable. Unable to reach her daughter by phone, she drove to Holly Cassano's home and found her daughter slain.
"She was my baby. We spent almost every single day doing something together," said the 45-year-old mother.
Toni Cassano is now pleading with the public to come forward with information that may shed light on who could have stabbed her daughter in her home on DuPage Street in the Candlewood Estates mobile home park northeast of Mahomet.
Sheriff's investigators continue to follow up on numerous leads.
Cassano
"We are learning about her, her habits, her friends, her daily routines," said Lt. Ed Ogle, who has all his detectives working the case.
"We are still looking for that injured person. There's evidence to show a second person was there who was likely injured," he said. He declined to say if detectives found the murder weapon or what evidence they recovered from the home, which they finished processing Tuesday night.
Holly Cassano had gotten off from her job at Meijer in Champaign about 10:15 p.m. Sunday. Toni Cassano, who also lives in that park, was baby-sitting Holly's 17-month-old daughter as she normally did when her daughter worked. Their routine was to call or text each other about when and how to get the baby back to Holly.
"I texted her (Monday morning) at 8:30 and 9, and by 10:30, I still hadn't heard from her. I had to be at work at 11. I would have normally left her with Don (Toni's longtime live-in boyfriend) but for whatever reason, I still don't know why, I took the car to go check on her and found her," she said. "If it had to happen, I'm glad I was the one who found her and not somebody else."
Toni Cassano said she's heard a lot of information about her daughter from friends in the last few days that she didn't previously know.
"She loved her friends. They were just as important to her as her baby. She always remembered when it was somebody's birthday or wedding," she said.
She also said Holly was scared of the father of their child, having twice in the past five months sought orders of protection against him. Both times, judges denied her requests for lack of evidence.
In her petitions for protection, Ms. Cassano outlined several instances of verbal abuse and intimidation by her ex-boyfriend. Her June request contained a nine-page handwritten statement in which she referred to his repeated phone calls and text messages to her, his unwillingness to let her move out of the home they shared, his use of marijuana in front of their child, and his desire that Toni Cassano not be involved in raising their daughter.
In the August petition, she sought protection for herself and their daughter, stating that on Aug. 8, she went to get their daughter from his home but he didn't answer the door. She could hear her daughter inside the hot home crying. Ms. Cassano summoned her brother, who went in the house and found the baby in a soiled diaper on the couch and the father passed out with marijuana paraphernalia on his chest.
The court file contained an Aug. 8, 2009, letter sent to the father by the Department of Children and Family Services saying the department was looking into suspected abuse or neglect of his daughter.
Toni Cassano said her daughter's experiences with the judicial system left her disillusioned.
"Unless you have money to get a lawyer to fight for you, you have nothing. I'm not saying an order of protection may have prevented this. I sat there and listened to a judge deny it because she didn't have enough evidence. I understand that, but you have to dig deeper. These girls are scared," she said, acknowledging that her daughter was too fearful to share with a judge everything that had happened to her in front of her ex-boyfriend.
Toni Cassano is now turning her attention to planning a private funeral service for relatives of her daughter and a public memorial for friends later this month.
She's deriving strength from her faith and the support of friends and strangers who turned out at a candlelight vigil in her daughter's honor Wednesday night.
"It was awesome. I was just overwhelmed with the people who were there," she said.
Also on this date
- Former research official sues Carle over firing
- United Way lending shelter a hand
- Economic group seeks support for Olympian Drive project
- Tribute to 'a bright young officer'
- Waldenbooks in Danville mall scheduled to close
- Delinquent taxpayer list posted on Web site
- Open house to address southeast Urbana outages
- October saw state's tax revenue continue to fall
- House Dems push for votes on health bill
- Obituaries