Community Chat

[Mustang Shar]

I'm in the Chicago suburbs and we've been following this since it happened. Some Officers believed the suicide from day 1.

Police Officers around the country are just horrified and disgusted. As a wife of a former Officer (deceased now) , I knew where every penny was in our pay check to pay check budget! We live by a Code of Conduct, to live our lives on duty and privately, in an exemplary manner.  

His children will suffer beyond words. They have to move and start over....  

[Mz iMac]

UPDATE 11/5:

Detective: 'Hero' cop sought hit-man to cover up thefts

Nov 5, 2:09 PM (ET)

By DON BABWIN and MICHAEL TARM

(AP) This undated file photo provided by the Fox Lake Police Department shows Lt.... Full Image

FOX LAKE, Ill. (AP) — Months before an Illinois police officer staged his suicide to look like murder, prompting an expensive manhunt that put his community under siege, he tried to find a hit man to kill a village administrator he feared would expose him as a thief, a detective told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Det. Chris Covelli said Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz sent a text in April asking a woman to contact a "high ranking gang member to put a hit on the village manager." Gliniewicz also texted that perhaps the hit man could "plant something" on the manager, Covelli said.

Investigators found small packages of cocaine in his desk, "not linked to any case that we could find," and believe Gliniewicz may have sought to frame the manager, Anne Marrin, as a drug criminal before she exposed him as an embezzler, the detective said.

"We never found any explanation why those drugs were in his desk at the police station," Covelli said.

(AP) Lake County sheriff's Detective Chris Covelli from left, Lake County Major Crime... Full Image

Marrin, the village's first professional administrator, was auditing Fox Lake's finances, including the Police Explorers program that authorities say he secretly embezzled from for seven years.

Gliniewicz, often called "G.I. Joe," was a respected figure in the bedroom community of 10,000 people 50 miles north of Chicago. His death on Sept. 1, moments after he radioed that he was chasing three suspicious men, prompted an intense manhunt involving hundreds of officers, and raised fears of cop-killers on the loose.

Two months later, authorities announced that he in fact killed himself to cover his crimes. And now authorities are also investigating his wife, Melodie, and one of his sons, D.J., as well, an official said Thursday.

Melodie Gliniewicz helped her husband run the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post, which put young people interested in law enforcement careers through sophisticated training exercises. In a newspaper interview weeks ago, D.J. Gliniewicz, who is in his 20s, angrily dismissed suggestions that his father took his own life.

The official, who was briefed on the investigation, spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

(AP) Lake County Coroner Dr. Thomas Rudd, left, Lake County Major Crime Task Force Cmdr.... Full Image

Authorities refused to officially identify anyone beyond the lieutenant who is suspected in any crimes.

The family — the couple had three other children — issued a brief statement Wednesday through their attorneys in which they said they were still grieving but which didn't mention the finding that Lt. Gliniewicz took his own life or that he had been stealing from the youth program. The attorneys, Henry Tonigan and Andrew Kelleher, didn't immediately respond to voicemail and email messages sent Thursday seeking comment.

On Sept. 1 — the day he died — Gliniewicz radioed in that he was chasing three suspicious men into a swampy area. Backup officers found the Army veteran's body about 50 yards from his squad car.

Authorities launched a large and costly manhunt for the suspects, but produced only one arrest — a woman accused of calling in a false lead. As the probe stretched on, suspicion grew that he had killed himself, but investigators publicly treated it as a homicide investigation, while saying they couldn't rule out suicide.

On Wednesday, investigators confirmed those suspicions. Lake County Major Crimes Task Force Commander George Filenko, who led the investigation, said the 30-year police veteran had the kind of intimate knowledge of crime scenes needed to pull it off and clearly intended to mislead investigators.

(AP) Lake County Coroner Dr. Thomas Rudd, from left, Lake County Major Crime Task Force... Full Image

Up until the day he died, the village administrator was pressing to see the explorer program's books as part of a village-wide audit.

Recovered text messages and other records now show Gliniewicz spent the money on mortgage payments, travel expenses, gym memberships, adult websites, withdrawing cash and making loans, Filenko said.

His precise motive for trying to make his death look like a homicide remains unclear. Filenko said he didn't know whether a suicide finding would prevent his family from receiving benefits.

"Gliniewicz committed the ultimate betrayal," Filenko said Wednesday. "We completely believed from Day One that this was a homicide."

The huge outpouring of grief in the village where the 52-year-old officer had long been a role model has been replaced by a sense of betrayal. Tribute to their slain hero have come down; signs praising "G.I. Joe" have disappeared, replaced in one place by a poster labeling him "G.I. Joke."

ARTICLE LINK

[Puzzle Piece]

@Mustang Shar I agree with your post.  I strongly suspect the wife was also involved. and others as well. 

[Lucky Charm]

I believe they are looking into the wife and a son as possibly involved. 

What a mess that man made of himself and his family.

[Marp]

This story keeps getting worse and worse. 

FOX LAKE, Ill. (AP) — An Illinois police officer who staged his suicide to make it look like he was murdered had a troubled job history, ranging from numerous suspensions to sexual harassment allegations to complaints that he intimidated an emergency dispatcher with guns, according to his personnel records.

Despite a reputation as a respected youth mentor, Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz also had problems off the job, including one incident in which a sheriff's deputy found him passed out in his truck and took him home, only to have Gliniewicz report his truck stolen the next day, according to documents in the file.

The records were released late Thursday by the Village of Fox Lake in response to a Freedom of Information request, after a day in which officials said Gliniewicz had sought out a hit man to kill a village administrator he feared would expose him as a thief, and may have planned to plant cocaine on the administrator to discredit her as a criminal.

Full article:  http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OFFICER_SHOT_MANHUNT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT...

[RetRN]

He sounds like a real jerk and conartist. I believe his family and others will be arrested. He had his son in the service marry his former mistress so that the son would collect more money. Seems it all caught up with him in the end but he hurt a lot of people along the way.

[Puzzle Piece]

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@RetRN wrote:

He sounds like a real jerk and conartist. I believe his family and others will be arrested. He had his son in the service marry his former mistress so that the son would collect more money. Seems it all caught up with him in the end but he hurt a lot of people along the way.

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What !!!! He had his son marry his former mistress ?? For money???  He certainly centered his life on getting more and more money any way he could.  He must have been a sociopath. 

[Tique]

Those of us who live in this area saw the days of tributes to this man and portions of the funeral service that were televised. The community embraced the widow and their sons. If that woman knew all alone what her husband did, there 's a special place waiting for her. Another thing that keeps flashing through my mind is how insistent she was that ther husband would never take his own life when the first mention of a possible suicide was made.  That whole funeral setting with honor guard and motorcades was befitting someone who was a real hero. Most of us know soneone who deserved that kind of sendoff and didn't receive it but this scumbag did.  

[MyGirlsMom]

His actions reverberated throughout the country and that in itself is horrific.  Many people were up in arms because they intimated that there was a deliberate movement against Law Enforcement. 

This is more than sickening.

[brii]

I actually felt sorry for his family.  They knew all along and that sickens me.