A six-person jury ruled Thursday morning that Lauren Kiefer’s death on Christmas Day was a homicide. The 24-year-old woman was found by her mother at her home in unincorporated DuPage at 7:16 p.m. Dec. 25 and pronounced dead at the scene at 7:22 p.m. by an emergency physician from Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, chief deputy coroner Charles J. Dastych said during the inquest
Robert Rejda, 25, of Oakbrook Terrace has been charged with Kiefer’s rape and murder. He has been in custody since Jan. 11 for unrelated drug charges and also for another alleged home invasion and rape in Aurora last October.
The immediate cause of death was listed as multiple injuries, with blunt force trauma caused by assault given as further explanation, Dastych said. A forensic pathologist determined that Kiefer died within minutes of the attack. A toxicology report found caffeine and nicotine in her system, but nothing else, he said.
Authorities said Rejda, who lived less than a mile from Kiefer, was robbing her house when she came home and he viciously attacked her, beating her with a baseball bat. During the course of the assault, she also was sexually assaulted, they said.
Rejda, who faces charges of first-degree murder, home invasion, aggravated criminal sexual assault and residential burglary, is next scheduled to appear in court Tuesday, May 15.
