Patricia Columbo - Family killer asks parole
Indigo Ace
Family killer asks parole
Woman was 19 when her brother, parents were slain in 1976
By Aamer Madhani
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 8, 2006
More than 30 years after she was jailed for killing her mother, father
and her 13-year-old brother, Patricia Columbo told the Illinois Prison
Review Board on Friday that she is ready to rejoin society.
Columbo was 19 years old when she and her 39-year-old lover, Frank
DeLuca, fatally shot Columbo's parents and brother in the family's Elk
Grove Village home. Columbo's brother, Michael, also was stabbed 87
times and her mother, Mary, had her throat slit.
Prosecutors argued at Columbo's 1977 trial that she and DeLuca killed
the family because her parents disapproved of their relationship, and
Patricia Columbo hoped to collect a large inheritance after their
deaths. Columbo, who is serving a 200- to 300-year prison sentence,
acknowledged on Friday her responsibility for killing her family, but
she said that details of the slayings are still fuzzy in her mind.
"To try and express the regret, I wouldn't know where to begin,"
Columbo said during the hearing at the Dwight Correctional Center in
Downstate Livingston County. "I can't even wrap my mind around it."
At one point during the hearing, she was asked by a panel member to
talk about her educational and volunteer experiences at the prison.
But Columbo demurred, saying it was unseemly for a convicted
"triple-murderer" to pat herself on the back for "getting my GED and
bachelor's degree." Her attorney, Joey Mogul, said that Columbo has
been a model prisoner at Dwight since arriving in 1977, throwing
herself into volunteer work, education and employment.
Now 50, the graying Columbo hardly resembles the teenager with the
Farrah Fawcett-style hair whose arrest shocked Chicagoans in May 1976.
Ray Rose, who was the lead Elk Grove Village detective on the case in
1976, was among those who spoke against paroling Columbo, arguing that
the severity of her crime outweighs the good deeds she has done since
being jailed.
"I cannot and will not simply forgive these crimes, and the Illinois
Prison Review Board should not either," Rose said. "How can you be
rehabilitated after you kill your entire family and then mutilate
[their corpses] after killing them?"
The board is to decide whether to grant Columbo parole by the end of
the month. It is her 14th appeal to the review board since she became
parole eligible in 1986.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0607080055jul08,1,3161561.story?coll=chi-newslocal-hed
--
Anne, indigoace at goodsol period com
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cro...@earthlink.net
pay your way to a college degree...not at all annoying to those of us who
worked 3 jobs to get through school!
"Indigo Ace" <indi...@seesignature.com> wrote in message
news:44b56756...@news.prodigy.net...
kandl...@hotmail.com
anybody know?
imnot911
kandl...@hotmail.com wrote:
> The article doesn't mention what happened to Frank DeLuca. Does
> anybody know?
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-trish07.html#
Frank DeLuca is imprisoned at the Centralia Correctional Center in
southern Illinois. In a 1993 letter to friends, which he recently
shared with the Chicago Sun-Times and NBC5 News, DeLuca wrote: "We
arrived at that house together, both knowing what was about to take
place. And regardless of what she says, or you may choose to believe, I
am not the person who stabbed that boy one hundred times. Such was her
hatred for her brother, and her family." DeLuca wrote that he had
accepted full responsibility for his actions and is resigned to living
out his life behind bars. He declined to be interviewed in person or on
camera for this story unless the Sun-Times and NBC5 helped to arrange a
polygraph test.
scooter34
I just read this book (Love's Blood by Clark Howard) two weeks ago -
Mummy gave me a sack of true crime books. I had kind of given up the
genre because, from highs like "Helter Skelter" and "Fatal Vision" and
Ann Rule's work, true crime seemed to have descended to tawdry sex
tales and a skim job based on newspaper accounts.
I ended up feeling that this was a person who never really had a
chance. I make no excuses for her, but I would recommend this tale to
those looking for a middling-good story. The book left me with the
question, "Where is the line between punishment and mercy?"
Thanks for posting the article. I suspect she will be denied, again.
scooter34
bmp1213
Centralia Correctional Center
AusWendy
"scooter34" <momofpe...@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:1152549198.5...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>
> I just read this book (Love's Blood by Clark Howard) two weeks ago -
> Mummy gave me a sack of true crime books. I had kind of given up the
> genre because, from highs like "Helter Skelter" and "Fatal Vision" and
> Ann Rule's work, true crime seemed to have descended to tawdry sex
> tales and a skim job based on newspaper accounts.
Yep I've read that one Scooter and I also enjoyed it.
Anne Rule's work is unreal. The trouble is none of my favourite authors can
write fast enough lol.
Aus Wendy
annastj
make sense of any of it. Not that you could ever make sense of
senseless murder, but at any rate find some sort of explanation.
I read Love's Blood and found myself feeling sorry for Patricia
Columbo, she comes across so well, she is likable. Then I went on to
read Mom, Dad, Mike & Pattie and depicted there is a person that is
nowhere near the one described in Love's Blood. And now I'm even more
confused.
Patricia Columbo has a cousin, who is in the process of writing yet
another book on this, claiming that the truth will finally be revealed.
Have a look at her blog: http://marys-ghost.msn.spaces.com It's not the
most well written thing in the world, but it makes for interesting
reading and a different perspective.