In murder case, a French disconnection

Roche: Don’t blame Accutane
Roche Pharmaceuticals expressed its sympathy for the Cornbleet family, but it said no studies had found a cause-and-effect relationship between Accutane and psychiatric events. The case is about murder, not Accutane, the company said, maintaining that it was safe and effective and had been used by millions of people worldwide.

But Peterson described a Jeckyll-and-Hyde transformation after his son took the drug, saying, “I know what he was like before Accutane and after — totally different people.”

“There are multiple victims and multiple villains, and I feel that one of the victims is Dr. Cornbleet and one of the villains is Dr. Cornbleet,” Peterson said. “One of the victims is Hans Peterson; one of the villains is Hans Peterson.”

The Cornbleets go online
Did Hans Peterson kill Dr. David Cornbleet? He says he did.

Was he responsible when he did so — was he in full possession of his mental faculties? The Cornbleet family would like an Illinois jury to make that decision.

“In his confession, when he actually spoke with them, he actually said he was doing this to avoid U.S. justice when asked about it,” Jon Cornbleet said, citing French authorities. “He blatantly said, ‘I’m doing this to avoid U.S. justice.’”

So the Cornbleet family has taken its campaign to the same forum Peterson used — the Web.

Dan Drucker, who is engaged to Jocelyn Cornbleet, set up a profile on MySpace.com. At first, it sought help finding Cornbleet’s killer. Since Peterson’s confession, it has morphed into a public relations megaphone urging visitors to put pressure on the French and U.S. governments to return Peterson to Illinois. Numerous supporters have followed suit, creating a network of online discussion about the case. (Note: The family has created a new site, drcornbleet.com, and the MySpace page as it looks now doesn't reflect their first efforts).

“The whole idea is to create enough buzz and awareness about this,” Drucker told NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV of Chicago.

“I actually have a master’s in marketing,” said Drucker, who said he had studied “how the Internet is the main tool that [young people] use to gather any information, any news. It’s the way they also communicate with one another.”

Prosecutors and Chicago police said they supported the family’s efforts. Police even provided video footage.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” said Bernie Murray, chief of criminal prosecutions for the state’s attorney’s office in Cook County.

“I’ve tried all sorts of cases for over 20 years,” Murray told “Dateline NBC.” “I’ve never seen a situation like this where a crime was committed right here in the heart of Chicago, where all the evidence that will be related to this case comes from either Chicago or nearby, and what we see is a foreign country saying, ‘No, we’d like to try him in our country.’

“It’s bizarre.”

But Jean-Baptiste Main de Boissière, the French consul general in Chicago, said there was no leeway. A French law passed in 1927 makes it illegal to extradite French citizens, he said.

“The person who is described as the murderer has dual citizenship,” de Boissière said. “He’s a U.S. national, but he’s also a French national.”

Whatever happens, a joint loss
Meanwhile, even as they argue over Hans Peterson’s ultimate responsibility for his actions, the families of David Cornbleet and Hans Peterson share an ultimate loss, and they share a reciprocal empathy.

“I can’t imagine what he’s going through knowing that he raised this individual,” Jocelyn Cornbleet said of Peterson’s father. “Trying to stick up for his son after he’s done this.”

And Thomas Peterson said: “I want the Cornbleet family to know that they have our deepest sympathy and condolence for the loss of Dr. Cornbleet. It was a very horrible way that he died, and my heart goes out to the family.

“Suicide would have been better than this,” he said. “At least no one else would have got hurt, and [his son’s] misery would have been ended.”

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