The casket of Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz is taken from Strang Funeral Home in Antioch on Sept. 7, 2015, for his funeral.
The casket of Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz is taken from Strang Funeral Home in Antioch on Sept. 7, 2015, for his funeral. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)

When Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz's body was found more than two weeks ago now, in the marsh grass in a semirural area, it instantly became national news.

His was the latest in a string of police killings across the country, so some 400 cops fanned out in Fox Lake, with six helicopters overhead, police dogs hunting for the suspected killer or killers.


As that happened, a retired Chicago police lieutenant with two sons now on the job talked to me about the feelings among police, about the shootings and anti-police protests and the sense that they were all under siege.

But a couple of days later, he called me again, saying simply, "I've got a feeling there's something wrong with this one."


Me too. And since then, it's only gotten worse.

There have been turf battles between the Lake County coroner and the Lake County Major Crime Task Force investigating Gliniewicz's death as well and an angry news release issued by police, closed-door meetings excluding the coroner, secrecy and denials.

"Let me put it like this … tension?" Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd told us Wednesday. "What tension? You have to be able to talk to people to have tension, and there's no conversation between me and (task force commander) George Filenko.

"So tension in a marriage, just because you're there in front of them, you fight, you throw things, you scream, you make love, you get angry," Rudd said. "You've got to be in contact or in communication with somebody to have tension. I have no animosity or tension toward George or anybody on the task force. I have no dislike."

The coroner decides if a death is a homicide, a suicide or a death by "undetermined" means. But Rudd had been kept out of at least one major meeting on the Gliniewicz case, and was bashed by investigators when he dared mention (about a week later) one simple fact:

That G.I. Joe died of a catastrophic gunshot wound.

So the local cops can't handle a coroner saying the obvious?

A source inside the task force said that its investigators understand the public's concerns about the information blackout, but that "we can't make assumptions in our work."

Rudd agrees but says the information he released wasn't all that earth-shaking.

"My feeling as a physician and a pathologist is to try to create the least amount of paranoia out there, as to why facts are being withheld," Rudd said. Releasing basic information helps alleviate that concern, he said. "And I think that's why Dr. (Stephen) Cina, as chief of Cook County does it; and I think that's why Dr. Nancy Jones, (the former Cook County medical examiner) did it."

Yet by withholding even mundane details of the case, the task force fuels speculation.

"So there's a problem, and old homicide dicks like me can see it, and every cop in the Midwest is talking about it," said a retired Chicago police detective I spoke to Wednesday in a suburban diner.


He's handled hundreds of killings, from police suicides to mob hits, and he was on a local gun range the other day, qualifying for his concealed carry certificate.

Just then the range instructor asked if there were any questions.

"So I ask, 'What do you guys think about this Fox Lake thing?' " he said. "And of course, they're all police and everyone came up and we started talking. The sense among most of us is that this one in Fox Lake is a cluster (bleep)."

The tragedy is that it's been more than two weeks since Gliniewicz's body was found and there is still no definitive word whether it was murder or a suicide.

The Tribune reported this week that the death investigation was being conducted as a homicide — but also as a possible suicide. Yet even the slightest mention of suicide infuriates local cops and his grieving family.

Complicating matters is that, oddly, ballistics results on Gliniewicz's gun have not yet been returned, nor has a gunshot residue test, said a spokesman for the task force. Two weeks at the lab in the death of a police officer?

The task force spokesman also would not answer questions about how close the gun was to Gliniewicz's chest when it was fired, or even if the fatal shot came from the lieutenant's own gun.

Gliniewicz's last communication with his dispatcher said he was following three suspects before 8 a.m. in a rural area. The suspects were male, one black and two white.

Within minutes, hundreds of police from nearby jurisdictions fanned out, with helicopters overhead, snipers at the ready and police dogs hunting.

Three suspects fitting the description were later found on video, but investigators cleared them.

So, were there three other men, two white one black, in the same quiet rural area before 8 a.m. as Gliniewicz passed by?

And how were these other three completely missed by the hundreds of police on foot and dogs and helicopters actively searching for men of their description?

Gliniewicz's family deserves an answer.

The people of Fox Lake deserve an answer, like the parents who brought their children to pray at Lt. Gliniewicz's funeral, and police families that attended from near and far.

And the hundreds and hundreds of friends and neighbors who stood at attention, and departments that devoted precious resources and manpower to find the killers deserve answers.

What's worrisome is that this one could be listed ultimately, not as homicide or suicide, but as "undetermined."

And then there is no closure, no answers, nothing. His family and Lake County deserve more than that.

Twitter @John_Kass

Recommended on Chicago Tribune