Episode 8: 18 Years

CounterClock

This episode explores the unsolved 2008 Lane Bryant murders in Tinley Park, examining the case's enduring mystery, lack of progress, and emotional toll on victims' families and investigators. It highlights unanswered questions about the killer’s motive, the role of the community, and the possibility that someone close to the suspect may know the truth. The episode also reflects on the limitations

Key takeaways

• The killer’s motive remains unknown, with location and timing suggesting a targeted act.
• No one has claimed the $100,000 reward, suggesting someone may know but stay silent.
• Families report declining police communication, leading to frustration and distrust.

Transcript preview

This is episode 8, 18 years. A quick note before we get started. As always at the end of the season I'll be coming back in a few weeks with a bonus Q&A episode. So if you haven't made a list of all your burning questions about this case or jotted down that one aha moment or detail you'd like me to know about, get on it and send me an email to the show's inbox, counterclock at audio Chuck.com. I'm still following leads in this case, and if you're the tip you think I should know about. Make sure you email me by June 10th so I can read through all your submissions and try to address them in the bonus episode. And if you're listening to this well after the deadline, you can still email me. I read messages even months later. I just won't be able to specifically cover it in the Q&A. All right, now on to the episode. persons of interest that have cycloned around the Lane Bryant murders for the past 18 years. There's really just one inquiry that is perhaps the most central. Why did he pick that Lane Bryant store? No matter how many different ways you look at the case or how far you dive into each of the victim's lives, it's the location of the crime that I find myself returning to over and over again, especially when I visited Brookside Marketplace. There are cameras up now on some of the exits, some of these doors in the back near the dumpsters and near the tree line, so clearly they've put security in over the last 17, 18 years. It's just such a shame it wasn't here in 2008. You would never know being back here today what happened here. Here's former Tinley Park Mayor Ed Zabroki, retired T. Pee commander Rick Bruno, and victim Connie Wolfo's brother, Aaron. something brought him there. You got pieces and you just something that's not tying this together. I think once you find the motivation, all the pieces will come together. What is the motive? I think if you get a motive you can almost understand what makes the guy tick. I don't know if this thing was random. Was he just there and was just on a bad thing? There's a lot of bad people. I have right. Some people just go around doing bad things. We see it all the time here about it all the time here about it. Or was he there for someone. Somewhere down the line, it sounds as though, maybe possibly he was there to see someone or someone, him and somebody, whoever somebody there knew, he knew that he was going there for a particular person and I think everybody else kind of got caught up in the mix. In late September 2008, almost eight months after the Lane Bryant store was boarded up and sealed off as a crime scene. Field Office returned to the brick and mortar building to search it for additional clues. What or if they found anything useful is unclear. But they certainly deemed it necessary to circle back around to the plaza even that many months after the murders. Two months later in November 2008 charming shops Lane Bryant's parent company sent folks to the location too. That crew took down the signage leaving only a faint outline of letters above the store's entryway. They took the letters. But you can still see that it said Lane Bryant and it's just that daily reminder of what happened. That's Marie, the employee at Sally Beauty Supply, who was an ear witness to the murders. For a very long time from like 2008 to 2013, we were us and then like a nail salon. We were the only ones over on that side and it was just very haunting. But perhaps no one was more haunted by the unsolved crime than Tinley Park's then police chief, Mike O'Connell. close with the chief told me that up until he passed away in May 2011, Mike carried the weight of the vexing quintuple homicide like a chain around his neck. On a regular basis, Mike, Ed, and the former commander of the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force would get together, crowd around some beers and discuss the confounding crime at length. Whenever we got together, I have a beer or something together, he would always say, Ed, we're going to get that guy before I die. We're going to get that guy before I die. We're going to die. that really haunted him. Mike was a very religious guy. I mean he was a Catholic and he you know he he was a very straight guy and he played it by the book and he says we got to get this guy. He took it very personally and it was always on his mind. In 2018 about seven years after Mike O'Connell's death, Tinley Park Police released a 3D rendering of the suspect composite sketch which remains the most up-to-date image of the perpetrator. But even that getting renewed media attention didn't seem to move the needle in the case. The unanswered question I've had to come to terms with goes beyond just who is this guy. It's why has no one said, hey, I know who he is? It didn't happen in 2008 when memories were fresher, and it doesn't appear to be happening today, nearly two decades later. Here's former police commander Rick Bruno and Chicago journalist Ben Bradley. I thought we'd have them by that evening and when we didn't I thought we'd have them within the next couple of days and then it stretched on and not. We would do stories that it was you know one month later nobody was arrested and one year later and five years later and ten years later and I do remember going back for one of those stories and with the Tinley Park police station they they had a room that was set aside years later where all the case files were out and they said they still had full-time detectives working the case and revisiting every lead. But it was also strange to see this entire horrendous murder compiled into one small meeting room. We don't know if a lead is in one of those file boxes. We don't know if somebody that police interviewed early on is the killer. We don't know if a lead is in one of those file boxes. We don't know if somebody that police interviewed early on is the killer. We don't even know if the killer. And that the killer could be dead and has been for years isn't an unfounded one. crime for which his DNA would likely have been taken. That could be why authorities haven't gotten a hit in nearly two decades. It's either that or he is still alive and he's been laying low, very low. The person who did it has the most incentive to keep their mouth shut and very often they don't and that's how they get caught. This person has clearly kept their mouth shut. Over the years the amount of resources dedicated to the case has ebb flowed. Long time Tinley Park resident Brian Yonker, whose company owned the billboard truck the suspect sketch was featured on. Later became a village council member. He remembers the Lane Bryant case was always top of mind. It was always a line item budget in the budget. It was discussed where you know there were dedicate so many people towards this and it was an actual line item in the budget for the police department. Former Mayor Ed Zabroki remembers the same thing. I think we initially had two cops full-time on it. I think we initially had two cops if I remember correctly. And I think they were on it for about two years and then Mike changed them. And I think that occurred several times. Not only within our department, but somewhere in the back of my cobwebs of my mind, it seems that either Mike or somebody after him brought in a different team. The different team Ed Zabroki is referring to is the V-Dok Society. A non-profit group of retired federal agents, criminalists, and forensic experts who helped law enforcement agencies from all over the country, particularly puzzling unsolved unsolved crimes. In the fall of 2016, two investigators from the village's police department and a Will County State's attorney traveled to Pennsylvania and presented the Lane Bryant case to Vadoc's members. But if anything helpful came from that endeavor remains unclear. Just another avenue of investigation with potential that seemingly led nowhere. In 2021, TPP claimed it had detectives assigned to the case full time. However, the investigators that were on it in 2021 were not the same ones who were said to be on it two years later in 2023, and so on. And with each transition, victims' family members have noticed something happening, something that breaks their hearts in a whole new way. Here's a victim, Carrie Chuso's widow where Tony and Michelle Talos, who lost her sister Jennifer. weekly at the very beginning and I was just waiting I was waiting for that one phone call I was excited like I was like okay there's a survivor that means that something's got to be done like he there's no way that he can get away with it and then every once in a while they would let me know hey I just want to let you know we haven't given up we're still working it you know we're still leaves just something I haven't heard anything