Officer’s death a suicide
Inquiry finds policeman hailed as hero staged scene, hid his crimes.
FOX LAKE, Ill. — A police officer, who was lauded as a hero after his fatal shooting triggered a costly manhunt, killed himself because he was about to be exposed as a thief, authorities said Wednesday.
For weeks, investigators said they were searching for the killers of Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz. Thousands attended his funeral, and many lauded him as a hero.
But after a manhunt for three phantom suspects came up empty, investigators said they realized that he was something else: A small-time embezzler, who meticulously staged his death to make it look like he was slain in the line of duty.
The 30-year police veteran killed himself Sept. 1 because his theft of thousands of dollars from a youth prog ra m wa s about to be exposed, authorities revealed Wednesday.
“Gliniewicz committed the ultimate betrayal,” said George Filenko, commander of the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force. “We completely believed from day one that this was a homicide.”
Recovered text messages and other records show that Gliniewicz embezzled from the village’s Police Explorer program for seven years, spending the money on mortgage payments, travel expenses, gym memberships, adult websites and loans to friends, Filenko said.
“We have determined this staged suicide was the end result of extensive criminal acts that Gliniewicz had been committing,” he said.
Filenko said he could not reveal more details about these crimes because “the investigation strongly suggests criminal activity on the part of at least two other individuals.”
The revelation shocked people in Fox Lake, a village of 10,000 about 50 miles north of Chicago, where the 52-yearold married father of four had long been a role model.
“He was a great guy. I looked up to him. I am really upset about this. It really opens your eyes up,” said Tim Pederson, 22, who was an explorer under Gliniewicz and now works as a corrections officer.
Minutes before he died, Gliniewicz radioed that he was chasing three suspicious men into a swampy area. Backup officers followed a trail of equipment to the Army veteran’s body, about 50 yards from his squad car.
The first bullet from his handgun struck his cellphone and bullet-resistant vest. The second pierced his upper chest. His head was scraped and bruised, although the coroner said that could have been intentional. The swampy terrain was otherwise undisturbed, and his gun wasn’t found for more than an hour, even though it was less than 3 feet from the body, Filenko said.
By then, a manhunt had begun and was growing quickly, with hundreds of officers searching houses, cabins and even boats on lakes. Helicopters with heat-sensing scanners and K-9 units scoured the area for days. Some 50 suburban Chicago police departments and sheriff’s offices assisted, racking up more than $300,000 in overtime and other costs, according to an analysis the Daily Herald newspaper published in early October.
More than 100 investigators stayed on the case for weeks, even after questions arose. The vague description Gliniewicz had radioed in — two white men and a black man — didn’t help. No one was ever arrested.
Lawyers for the Gliniewicz family said the family has no comment on Wednesday’s news and continues to cope with his death.
Attorneys Andrew Kelleher Jr. and Henry Tonigan issued a statement that doesn’t mention the investigation’s findings but says it “has been another day of deep sorrow for the Gliniewicz family.”
The officer’s son, D.J. Gliniewicz, said weeks ago that his father “never once” thought of killing himself.
Incriminating texts and Facebook messages Gliniewicz sent tell a different story, revealing his increasing anxiety after Fox Lake hired its first professional administrator, Anne Marrin. She began auditing all of the village departments, including the Explorer program.
Gliniewicz deleted the messages, but investigators recovered and released some of them verbatim Wednesday, without identifying who he sent them to.
“This village administrator hates me and explorer program,” he wrote in June. “This situation right here would give her the means to CRUCIFY ME (if) it were discovered.”
Filenko wouldn’t say how much money Gliniewicz allegedly embezzled, only that it’s in the “five figures.” Marrin said the village didn’t know how much the program took in or spent, and also needed an accurate inventory of assets for insurance purposes. “That was the problem — we didn’t have any of the financials.”
Marrin said she was shocked to learn that Gliniewicz had threatened her personally.
In one of the texts, Gliniewicz and “Individual #2” discussed trying to get Marrin out of office, perhaps by arresting her for drunken driving or something more ominous. “Trust me ive thoug it through MANY SCENARIOS from planting things to the volo bog,” Gliniewicz wrote, referring to a local body of water that would be difficult to search.