Ziz Willding Memorial Page

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Gigi Willding is directing PML Theater's latest play, "12 Angry Men." The story involves a young man who stabbed his father to death. Willding's daughter, Elizabeth, was stabbed to death in 2004.

Had Elizabeth Willding been alive, her mother knows exactly what she would have said.

"She would have told me, 'Good luck, you look beautiful, things will be great,'" Gigi Willding said. "Liz always made me feel so special."

Willding was talking about last Friday's opening night of "12 Angry Men," the latest play she is directing at PM&L Theater in Antioch.

The courtroom drama takes the audience into the jury room as 12 men decide the fate of a boy who stabbed his father to death.

Willding knows the subject matter intimately.

Three years ago, she found Elizabeth murdered in their Ingleside home. The 16-year-old was stabbed 43 times.

"I don't know if I was trying to prove to myself that I was strong enough to direct this, but the script is the best I've ever read," she said. "I find myself so engrossed with the characters, it has actually taken my mind away from where I am now. For a brief time, I can go back to who I once was."

For Willding, life is divided into two segments: everything that happened before July 14, 2004, and what has happened since she found her youngest daughter murdered.

"I went down to our family room three times before I finally saw her," Willding said. "She was laying half on and half off the couch. I took one look at her and knew she was dead."

Within six hours, police were questioning Willding's neighbor, Adam Christenson.

Christenson, who was 21 at the time, was later charged with first-degree murder. He is awaiting trial.

According to police, Christenson and two friends had stolen Elizabeth's Xbox video game player and a digital camera the previous day.

Christenson reportedly returned alone the following day for the camera's accessories and, after struggling with Elizabeth, killed her.

She died of multiple stab wounds to the neck and suffered wounds to her arms, chest and back. Willding was told her daughter lost three-fourths of the blood in her body.

In the months after the murder, Willding had a coping trick. Every time things got too hard to handle, she would lock herself in the bathroom and scream.

Since listening to testimony from detectives at a Sept. 11 pretrial hearing, she is finding herself going into the bathroom to scream more and more often.

Willding will be in court Wednesday when a judge will hear two motions: the first to throw out Christenson's confession and a second claiming he is insane.

"The effect the hearings have had on me is not good," she said. "It is like it is happening all over again, only the difference is then it was surreal and now it is real."

Willding said the murder had a tremendous effect on her other daughters, Courtney, 24, of Antioch and Stephanie, 22, of Chicago, and changed all of their lives forever.

"We never went back to the house," she said. "I've seen what this has done to my girls, to my ex-husband. I've watched my parents age terribly over this."

Elizabeth would have graduated from Grant High School and planned to become a plastic surgeon. She wanted to help children injured in accidents.

Willding doesn't have any doubt her daughter would have fulfilled that dream.

"Liz was like an old wise soul," she said. "She was kind and nonjudgmental, and I could talk to her about anything."

Elizabeth shared her mother's love of the theater, which is one reason Willding went back to PM&L after Elizabeth's death.

"12 Angry Men," is the third show Willding has directed since the murder, but the first she feels she has put "all her Gigi" into. The final performance is Oct. 14.

Willding said she wanted to find out if she had the strength and talent to direct the show.

"It was a wonderful experience, but since it opened, I'm having trouble watching it," she said. "My job is done, the actors are doing a wonderful job, and now the reality of what the script is about is hitting a little too close to home."

Willding said she was honest with the actors about what has happened to her and they are extremely supportive, especially when she is having a rough night.

Her decision to direct this play raised a few eyebrows.

"My first thought was, this has to be rough given the subject matter," said Jim Behr, who plays Juror No. 8 and has known the Willding family for about seven years.

Behr said he talked to Willding about her concerns before production started so he knew going in there were some discomforts -- namely a scene in which one juror lunges at another with a knife.

"After talking to her, I realized the play would be therapeutic," Behr said. "She has done a wonderful job."