• Incriminating statements to friends. High school friends Eileen Bakalla and Anne Lockett England testified James Degorski and Juan Luna told them about the murders in 1993, providing details that were never made public.

• Incriminating statements to authorities. Palatine Police Cmdr. William King, then a detective, and Cook County Circuit Court Judge Michael McHale, then an assistant state's attorney, testified Degorski confessed to them during interviews lasting more than nine hours on May 17, 2002. King testified Degorski said he shot two people in the cooler and Luna killed five victims in the freezer, that they'd mopped the floor and cleaned Luna's car, and that they tossed the gun into the Fox River.

• The murder weapon. McHale testified Degorski told him he bought a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver from an acquaintance named Matt Wzientek, who testified he stole the weapon from a friend's home in summer 1992 and sold the gun and bullets to Degorski for $15 later that year.

• Deborah Medow. The former employee of Little City testified that she brought two disabled residents of the Palatine residential home to Brown's for dinner shortly before the restaurant closed on Jan. 8, 1993. King testified Degorski recounted watching from Luna's car as a woman loaded two "crippled kids" into a van before they went into the restaurant.