Court grants woman new trial

Was convicted in 1979 shooting death of husband

A court has ruled that a woman convicted of having her husband murdered in Inverness in 1979 should get a new trial to present her defense that she changed her mind about the scheme.

Jacquelyn Greco was convicted of murder in the shooting death of Carl Gaimari in 2016, based largely on incriminating statements she made decades after the crime. Prosecutors said she went along with a plan to kill her husband so she could be with her boyfriend, a Chicago police officer she later married.

The Illinois Appellate Court decided that the trial court improperly failed to instruct the jury to consider Greco’s defense that she had withdrawn from any such plot.

In April 1979, two gunmen broke into the couple’s home, tied up the defendant and three of their young children, locked them in a closet, and shot Gaimari to death with his own guns that were in the house. The couple’s 16-year-old daughter discovered what happened when she came home.

Greco’s sister, Elsie Fry, testified that when she arrived at the scene, Greco told her, “I didn’t do it.”

About a year before the murder, Fry testified, Greco had told her, “we figured out a way to kill Carl,” that someone was going to break in and tie her up and kill him.

In 2012, Fry agreed to tape record a phone conversation with Greco, who confirmed her previous statements, saying, “I told you exactly what was going to happen.”

Later, Greco added, “That is enough to put me away. Not that I killed him but that I knew.”

“That is what I wanted to happen, but then I didn’t want it to happen,” she said, adding that Greco used to beat her.

Under Illinois law, someone can be held accountable if they take part in a plan to commit murder, even if they don’t commit the crime directly.

Evidence at the trial established that both Greco and Gaimari had affairs during their marriage. Greco’s boyfriend, Sam Greco, moved into the couple’s house just a week after the murder. The couple married that August and later moved the family to California before returning to Chicago.

Sam Greco was never charged in the crime, and died last year. Prosecutors have never publicly identified or charged the gunmen, but said the investigation remains open.

Jacquelyn Greco was sentenced in 2016 to 30 years in prison, which at age 73, may have meant she would die in prison. If convicted again, she would face a new sentence.