Police: Disgraced Illinois Cop Tried to Hire Hit Man to Kill Snooping Town Administrator
The disgraced police officer accused of embezzling money from a youth group before committing suicide apparently tried to have a woman murdered last spring because she was close to discovering his crime.
Officers in Lake County, IL discovered the body of Lt. Joseph Gliniewicz earlier this month. At first they thought he had been attacked by a suspect. Just before his death, he had radioed in about following some suspicious men, and he’d been shot twice: once in his bulletproof vest and once under it.
The discovery sparked a large-scale manhunt, and Gliniewicz was—for a brief moment—lauded as a hero.
But subsequent evidence—including the lack of a struggle, the missing money, and some fairly incriminating text messages—indicate he staged his suicide to look like a crime scene. Now his wife and son are the subject of a criminal investigation, and the evidence keeps rolling out.
In a press conference today, investigators said they found several packets of cocaine in Gliniewicz’s desk and found on his cell phone some deleted texts about having a woman murdered. Via the AP:
An official says an Illinois police officer who killed himself tried to arrange for a gang member “to put a hit” on a village administrator because he feared she would discover he had been embezzling money.
Lake County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Christopher Covelli also said Thursday that investigators found packets of cocaine in Fox Lake Police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz’s desk after his Sept. 1 death.
Covelli says investigators recovered deleted text messages in which Gliniewicz mentioned the possibility of planting something on the administrator, Anne Marrin, although he says they don’t know if that’s why he had the cocaine.
According to the AP, he intended to pay a “high-ranking gang member” to carry out the hit. A Sheriff’s spokesperson says he texted a woman in April asking for the introduction.
