[Zirko] 2 families bound by blood and death
Anne Warfield
2 families bound by blood and death
A saga of drama, turmoil even before 2 women were slain
By Susan Kuczka and Courtney Flynn, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune
reporter Bill Glauber contributed to this report
Published March 2, 2005
Murder charges filed this week against a Chicago man in the deaths of
his former companion and her mother cast a spotlight on two families
bound by blood and marriage, the descendants of an immigrant community
often shrouded in secrecy.
The Zirkos and Ballogs are linked to what members of one of the
families' call the "Hungarian Gypsy" community--now frequently
referred to as Roma by many who consider the term Gypsy pejorative.
Steven L. Zirko, 42, a piano teacher and musician, was charged Monday
with first degree murder in the deaths of Mary Lacey, 38, and her
mother, Margaret Ballog, 60, whose bodies were found Dec. 13 in
Lacey's Glenview home.
"Our family had been entertainers across the United States and
throughout Chicago for decades," David Ballog Jr., Lacey's cousin,
said outside the courtroom. "And all I want to say is we're not
ashamed to say we're Hungarian Gypsies."
Like others in this tightknit community, both families had become
assimilated into American life since their ancestors left Central
Europe and moved to the Midwest at the outset of the 20th Century.
Steven Zirko and Mary Lacey were related, said her ex-husband,
Raymond, who also said he was related to both of them. Mary Lacey and
Steven Zirko's mothers were related through marriage, Raymond Lacey
said.
"Mary and Steven were together when they were teenagers," he said.
Mary Lacey's grandfather, Bela Ballog, was the "king of the gypsy
violinists" who toured the old Keith-Orpheum theater circuit. Playing
in an orchestra that included his six brothers, he was known for
playing difficult concertos from memory.
Bela Ballog died of a heart attack at 51 in 1953. At his funeral, 50
violinists, guitarists and bass viola players performed dirges outside
St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church on Chicago's North Side. The crowd
sobbed to the strains of the "Gypsy Death March."
There also were criminal elements within the families.
On one side of Lacey's family was David Ballog Jr., who led a band of
fraud artists who ripped off insurance companies with fake falls and
accidents. The ring of family members and acquaintances was convicted
in the mid-1990s, and among those sentenced were David Ballog Jr. and
15 of his relatives.
David Ballog Jr., who now takes jobs advising insurance seminars on
foiling con artists, said none of Lacey's immediate family was
involved in the scams, and he expressed remorse for sullying his
family's name.
Zirko's father also had a run-in with the law.
William Zirko was charged with attempted murder and aggravated
discharge of a firearm in 1994 when he fired a handgun at his cousin
Kalman Bandy in a McDonald's restaurant. The murder charge was
dropped. William Zirko pleaded guilty to the firearm violation and was
sentenced to 18 months of probation, which he completed.
Despite the problems, family was everything for Mary Lacey, who had
five sisters and two brothers.
She married Raymond Lacey at 16, and they later lived in west suburban
Elmwood Park, where she stayed home with their first child, Susan, 20,
and their son, Raymond Jr., 18.
The marriage dissolved about 1996, around the time she publicly
resumed her relationship with Steven Zirko. Raymond Lacey said he
believed his wife never really let go emotionally of her childhood
sweetheart.
"Some people are just sick with a person," said Lacey's sister Helena
Kolbasky. "She was in love. He loved her too, I think."
Zirko was a piano player with a large repertoire who worked the cruise
ships out of Florida and the smoky bars of Chicago. He played jazz,
rock, pop and the blues and handled his own bookings.
Sometime in 1998, Lacey and Zirko had a wedding ceremony in a Catholic
church in Coral Springs, Fla., her family said.
Photos show a happy couple posing with the extended Zirko-Ballog
family. Lacey wore white, her blond hair piled high. Zirko wore a
black tuxedo, white tie and white rose attached to a lapel.
But the couple never got a marriage license, Lacey's family said. They
said Zirko and Lacey got into a furious fight the night of the
wedding.
Police reports filed even after the couple permanently separated in
December 2002 outline angry tirades in which Zirko allegedly "punched
her in the stomach with a closed fist" and called family members to
say he was "going to demolish her face." They had two children, now 8
and 6.
Police encouraged Lacey on several occasions to press charges against
Zirko. But in some instances she told them she just wanted officers to
warn him to leave her alone.
Then, early last year, Zirko allegedly approached his chiropractor,
Chad C. Larson, about problems he was having with Lacey.
Last fall, Larson contacted Palatine police, who told him to hide a
tape recorder in his office while Zirko was there. But a video camera
Larson stored in a gym bag only recorded muffled sounds of a meeting.
Steven Greenberg, the chiropractor's attorney, said Palatine police
blew the case by relying so heavily on Larson instead of using an
undercover officer to pose as a hit man, which could have led to an
arrest.
Police said they pursued the case diligently.
"We acted on each and every piece of information we received in this
case. The facts of our investigation will be revealed at the trial,"
Palatine Police Cmdr. Mike Seebacher said.
Prosecutors believe that on Dec. 13 Zirko drove his girlfriend's Jeep
to Lacey's Glenview home, where he shot and stabbed her and shot her
mom.
Five days later, hundreds of people packed a double funeral at St.
William Parish Church in Chicago, where religion and family tradition
melded in ceremony and song.
Echoing the clan's musical roots, two family violinists played two
favored songs.
"Ave Maria."
And "Blue Christmas."
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0503020091mar02,1,7954863.story?coll=chi-news-hed
--
Anne Warfield
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/