Man Sentenced to Life For Oak Brook Parking Lot Murder

A British Columbia man will spend the rest of his life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to the first-degree murder of a Westmont woman he met through an online dating service.

DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert B. Berlin announced in a press release Friday the outcome of the case involving Dmitry Smirnov, 21 in connection with the April slaying of Jitka Vesel, 36, of Westmont.

On April 13, at approximately 9 p.m., Smirnov waited in the parking lot of an Oak Brook office park, 122 W. 22^nd St., for Vesel to leave an office building where she was attending a meeting. Upon leaving the building, Smirnov approached Vesel as she entered her vehicle. Smirnov then shot her multiple times with a handgun he had illegally purchased and fled the scene.

Approximately 10 minutes later, Oak Brook Police were alerted to a woman’s body found in the parking lot. Authorities pronounced Vesel dead at the scene. Smirnov turned himself into authorities several hours later without incident.

An investigation into the murder revealed that Smirnov and Vesel had a brief personal relationship that ended approximately three years earlier, at which time Smirnov returned to his home in Canada. The investigation also revealed that days before the murder, Smirnov re-entered the United States and illegally purchased the handgun used in the murder. Smirnov also purchased a GPS device which he attached to Vesel’s vehicle so he would be able to track her movements.

“Nearly three years after ending a relationship with a man she met through an online dating service, Jitka Vesel’s life was taken from her by the hands of that very same man,” Berlin said. “The loss of life in this methodically planned murder is senseless. The morning of the murder, Smirnov researched the status of capital punishment in Illinois and learned that Illinois had recently abolished the death penalty. After maliciously gunning Jitka down that evening, Smirnov asked authorities about the death penalty in Illinois and was reassured that it was indeed abolished only weeks earlier.

"This case is proof that the death penalty does indeed act as a deterrent," Berlin said. "If the death penalty was still the law in Illinois, it is quite possible Jitka Vesel would be alive today. While Jitka is no longer with us, perhaps her family can take solace in the fact that the man responsible for her murder has been held responsible and will spend the rest of his life behind bars."