On Friday, May 7, 1976, Officer Joseph Guiliano of the Chicago Police Department received a call from dispatch at about 2 pm about a suspicious car parked at 140 South Whipple in Chicago. When he arrived, he saw a red 1972 Thunderbird with an Elk Grove Village sticker in the front window. The car lacked hubcaps, the right front window had been smashed & covered with a piece of cardboard & the ignition had been pulled. The car hadn’t been stripped so the officer concluded that it had been stolen by amateurs. Through a check with headquarters, it was determined that the car had not been reported stolen & was registered to Frank Columbo of Elk Grove Village which is a suburb 20 miles from where the car had been found.
Elk Grove Village was once home to farmers & German immigrants but eventually developed into a residential community, the population doubling in the 1960s as the village expanded its roads, new housing, schools & businesses. In 1976, Elk Grove Village was considered a safe haven from the crime that tended to plague the city of Chicago.
Car owner Frank Columbo was a successful auto parts salesman who Officer Giuliano tried to call over an hour in regards to the car, but only received a busy signal. The officer transmitted the information to the Elk Grove Village Police Department & at about 4:45 pm, an officer was dispatched to the Columbo home at 55 Brantwood Ave to let the residents know about the missing car that had been found in Chicago. As the officer arrived, he immediately noted three days worth of newspapers sitting on the front porch. The storm door was closed & unlocked & the front door stood ajar. The officer’s knocks went unanswered & all was quiet other than the sounds of a barking dog coming from inside.
The officer called for backup & while he waited, he walked the perimeter of the house & saw that there were no cars parked on the driveway or in the garage. Other than the front door being ajar, the rest of the windows & doors appeared intact & secure. When the backup officer arrived, they both entered the Colombo home.
Police were met with a truly horrific scene; they first found 43-year-old Frank lying on his back in the living room with a two-inch slash to his throat; he was dressed in a t-shirt, plaid pants & socks & was surrounded by broken glass & a torn & bloodied lamp shade was nearby & it was clear he had been dead for days.
Frank’s wife, 40-year-old Mary was lying on her back on the landing outside the bathroom with a bullet wound between her eyes & a one-inch slash wound to her throat. Part of an artificial fern plant & a bloodied magazine was next to her body & broken glass & beads were strewn near her head. The officers immediately called for an investigative unit & evidence technicians.
At about 5 pm, Investigator Raymond Rose was first to arrive at the scene from the Elk Grove Village PD. He viewed the bodies of Frank & Mary & noted that Mary still wore her large diamond wedding ring on her left hand. Her purse was located in the bathroom, the contents spilled to the floor in addition to a cigarette case & an ashtray. As Rose continued his investigation, he found four human teeth were found lying between the top of the stairs & the wall.
He found 13-year-old Michael lying on his back on his bedroom floor wearing a white t-shirt & blue sweatpants. His head was covered in blood & it appeared there was a bullet wound to the left side of his head & a second to his back. He was also found to have a multitude of stab wounds to his neck & chest & a pair of gold-plated scissors were found on his desk & a marbled-based bowling trophy was lying next to his body; both items were blood soaked.
As Rose continued through the house, he found a bloodied & crumpled magazine, loose coins, beads & portions of artificial ferns around the floor of the foyer. The kitchen garbage had been scattered across the floor & was bloodied. One of the kitchen cabinets was left open, the phone was off the hook & a personal telephone directory was open to a page that had the name & number of Frank & Mary’s oldest child written on it. In the upstairs primary bedroom, the covers were found pulled back with the sheets smooth & it looked as if someone had been getting ready for bed but hadn’t yet gotten into the bed. The room was tidy & orderly & did not appear to have been ransacked & a bedside alarm clock that had been set for 9 am, stood buzzing.
Outside the house, investigators found a nine inch knife lying next to the front stoop & a steak knife in a rock garden. It was clear to see that valuables within the home had been left untouched. In addition to the diamond ring that Mary wore, they found: Portable color TV sets, a CB radio, an eight-track recorder, stereo equipment, cameras, projectors, a .40 caliber shotgun & two air rifles. There was also a wall safe that no one had opened or attempted to pry open that contained nearly $5,000 ($26,862 today).
Rose felt that because the home’s windows were intact, the back door was locked, the front door showed no signs of forced entry, the phone line remained functioning on top of the fact that none of the family’s valuables had been taken, that robbery had not been a motive.
Rose was not able to locate Frank & Mary’s 19-year-old daughter Patricia or Patty Columbo. Detectives eventually tracked Patty down & called her to the station for questioning. When Patty arrived & was made aware of what had happened to her family, she did not appear to be outwardly distraught with the horrific news. She informed police that her father had ties to the mob & that Frank ran a mob chop shop for stolen cars behind the auto parts store he owned & it was her theory that this was the cause of her family’s murders. Detectives made note of her story as well as the fact that Patty openly flirted with male officers.
The autopsies were completed on Saturday, May 8 by the chief medical examiner of Cook County. Frank’s body was found to have irregular lacerations from a blunt object, likely a heavy crystal lamp & or the bowling trophy that was found near Michael’s body. Frank had suffered four gunshot wounds; one to the right-side of his face, one to the left-side of his face, one to his lower lip & one to the left-side of his head behind his ear. He had also sustained cuts from a sharp instrument & four of his teeth were missing.
Mary had died from the gunshot wound she sustained between her eyes & her throat had been slashed. Michael died after being shot from close range in the head. After he was shot, he was bludgeoned with a heavy instrument before his neck & chest had been punctured more than 90 times. The medical examiner noted that these wounds were very shallow & had likely been inflicted by a female. A single foreign hair was recovered from the front of Michael’s t-shirt during his autopsy.
Based on the victim’s stomach contents & the degree of rigor mortis, the medical examiner estimated that the Columbos had died between 11 pm on May 4, 1976 & 1 am on May 5, 1976, two days before Frank’s car was found in Chicago.
In the meantime, the evidence technician for the Elk Grove Village PD was inspecting Frank’s Thunderbird & pried open the trunk & noted smudges on the trunk, visible from five feet away that had been made by either grease or blood. The smudges had unfortunately been contaminated & were unable to be compared. Handprints were found on the fender & trunk of the car which came from the left hand of a person who was either missing a left index finger or had just not made an impression with that finger when touching the car. Glass was noted on the inside of the car as well as take-out bags from a fast food restaurant, a white box from the back seat & a bloodied artificial plant stalk similar to the one found by Mary’s body. When the glass fragments were analyzed, it was determined that they may have come from the broken lamp base found on the Columbo’s living room floor.
That same Saturday, less than five miles from Elk Grove Village, a Wood Dale police officer who was responding to the report of Mary’s missing car located the 1972 Oldsmobile ‘98 in the parking lot of a condo complex. There was no damage or theft noted & a resident of the complex indicated that when they left for work around 5:30 am on May 5, the car had not been there but when they returned at 5:30 pm, he noted the Oldsmobile parked there.
When the car was examined, five fingerprints were recovered as well as two different brands of cigarette butts from the ashtray & a blue blanket on the backseat. Part of the roof liner had red stains on it & it was removed.
The funerals for Frank, Mary & Michael Columbo were held on Monday, May 10, 1976. As part of standard procedure in a homicide investigation, detectives planned to attend. They also brought along a young, handsome officer to monitor Patty’s behavior since she’d been so flirtatious during her initial interview. When Patty arrived, officers noted that she brought her boyfriend, Frank DeLuca to the service with her. It was said that DeLuca sat alone & off to the side while Patty openly flirted with the officer. Relatives who had yet to meet DeLuca just assumed that her boyfriend was the officer based on her actions.
Frank Columbo’s older brother who lived only a block from the Columbo’s home, recalled arguing with Patty who wanted her family to be cremated despite their Catholic beliefs. During the wake, Patty showed no visible signs of emotion or grief.
In addition to flirting with the officer, detectives also noted that Patty laughed & joked over cigarettes outside the church & once inside, threw herself, wailing at her family’s slate gray coffins. The caskets were closed during the funeral & wake due to the extent of injuries the victims sustained.
As detectives looked into Patty’s suggestion that Frank had mob ties, they found absolutely no evidence to suggest that this was true or the fact that he’d been involved in any illegal activities. At this time, they began to turn their attention to Patty, Frank & Mary’s firstborn. Patty was born on June 21, 1956 & had been the apple of Frank’s eye & he called her “Princess” & treated her as such. Patty remained the center of her parent’s world for six years until Michael was born & she had to share the attention. Family & friends would later say that Patty had always been caring & maternal toward Michael while others described her as resentful & jealous over the attention he received from Frank.
As Patty reached adolescence, she grew into a beautiful young girl who attracted the attention of boys & men. She was known to be wild & uninhibited as well as headstrong in personality. She dropped out of high school when she was only sixteen. She’d also stolen the credit cards of two fellow employees at Walgreens where she worked at the cosmetic counter, racking up thousands of dollars in charges. Her father made restitution to pay off the amount but in July of 1974, she was convicted of deceptive practices & sentenced to two year’s probation; a probation she was still on at the time that her family was murdered.
During this time, she was dating Frank DeLuca who was a Purdue University graduate with a pharmacy degree who had been working at Walgreens since 1961 or 1962. By the time he met Patty in 1972, he’d been promoted to manager & at that time, he was 36-years-old, married & the father of five children & had a reputation around town as a swinger. 16-year-old Patty, 20 years DeLuca’s junior, was not the first Walgreens’ employee he’d had an affair with, but she may have been the youngest.
Patty was very open with DeLuca & allowed him to have sex with other women as well as photograph her & take videos. Frank & Mary were completely unaware of this relationship so in 1974 when Patty informed her parents that she wanted to move out of their home on Brantwood & into the DeLuca family home, Mary & Frank gave their blessing. Despite the fact that Frank DeLuca shared this home with his wife Marilyn & their children, Patty & Frank continued to have sex while Marilyn & the kids were either outside or in another room. Frank & Mary eventually discovered that their daughter was involved with a much older & married man with children & they were immediately upset & disappointed.
Patty lived with the DeLuca family for about a year before she returned to her family’s home in the summer of 1975 & told her father that she was done with Frank DeLuca & wanted to find her own place. Her dad was likely very relieved that the relationship was over, but little did he know, his daughter was lying to his face. Frank DeLuca had separated from Marilyn & Patty was still very much involved with him. Frank Columbo helped Patty find an apartment in Lombard, Illinois, about 15 miles from Elk Grove Village & agreed to pay the rent for her.
It didn’t take Frank long to realize that while he was paying for his daughter’s rent, DeLuca had moved in with her & they’d turned the place into their love nest. In August of 1975, one month before Marilyn DeLuca filed for divorce, Frank confronted his daughter & DeLuca in the Walgreens’ parking lot & ordered DeLuca to leave Patty alone. The confrontation soon became violent when Frank pointed a rifle at DeLuca’s head & shouted, “I’m going to blow your head off!” At this point, DeLuca crouched down & Frank bloodied his mouth with the butt of the rifle, knocking DeLuca to the ground. When DeLuca attempted to stand up, Frank hit him a second time with the rifle, this time in the stomach & DeLuca claimed Frank threatened, “You’re dead, you motherf*cker!”
Patty filed a complaint & Frank was charged with assault & was arrested but she soon withdrew the complaint. Once Frank was released from jail, he started to make plans to disown Patty. The Columbos had little to no contact with Patty until the late winter or early spring of 1976 when they began to reconcile as they learned that Patty & DeLuca planned to get married. DeLuca’s divorce was set to be finalized at the end of May so the couple planned to get married in June. According to DeLuca, Mary & Frank accepted their relationship & even planned to give them a washer & dryer as a wedding present.
On May 12, 1976, fingerprints were taken from Patty & DeLuca & it was then that police noted he was missing the index finger & tip of his middle finger on his left hand. No wounds were noted to either of the couple’s hands. On May 14, detectives spoke with 25-year-old Lanyon “Lannie” Mitchell who was a car salesman that had first met Patty in September of 1975 through her friend. Lannie indicated that he offered Patty money to go out with his friend, 34-year-old Roman Sobczynski, but Patty told him that she was living with her boyfriend but did need the money. She also told Lannie about her father striking DeLuca in the head with the rifle. In October, Lannie & his friend, Roman met up with Patty at the Where Else Lounge & they drank & danced & Patty also discussed the animosity between her parents & DeLuca. Here, she expressed her desire to have them killed. Lannie told Patty he would kill them for $10,000 each or $20,000 total. While speaking with police, Lannie assured them he had absolutely no intention of killing anyone & was only trying to impress Patty so she would have sex with him.
Lannie told police that Patty called him multiple times during October 1975, asking when he was going to kill her parents. He stalled by asking her for information about her parent’s schedules & activities. Patty gave him floorplan drawings of her family’s home & told him about the safe, the CB radio, furs & diamonds.
As November arrived, Patty demanded to know when Lannie planned to kill her parents & said she wanted it done sometime around Christmas. Roman Sobczynski spoke with Lannie & was told about their agreement & demanded up-front payment to continue with the plan. Patty said she wouldn’t pay them until after they were killed but she would have sex with both of them in exchange for pre-payment & they both agreed. After, Patty gave Lannie photos of her family & a rundown of their schedules.
In early December Patty & Lannie went to the Columbo house since Patty wanted him to case the house so he was ready. As they arrived, Mary answered the door & Lannie panicked, leaving & driving down the street. When she met back up with him, Patty told him that she & her mother had argued about DeLuca & she wanted them killed that very night. She told him she’d left the patio door open so he could enter the home.
When January of 1976 arrived & the hit had yet to be complete, Patty informed the men that her brother Michael was also going to have to be murdered for risk that he could figure things out later. Later that month, Patty told Lannie that she yet again left the patio door unlocked & that both she & DeLuca were getting very anxious to have it done. In mid-March, Lannie called Patty & asked her about the up-front money & she told him that both she & DeLuca didn’t have the money & questioned him about when the hits would happen.
Lannie reinforced to police that he was absolutely not the hit man & never had any intention of killing Frank, Mary or Michael; he said he’d only been stringing Patty along for sex & money. Detective went & picked up Roman Sobczynski who was a recruiting officer for the Cook County Department of Personnel. He was married & had three children. The police held him until 5 or 6 am the next morning but he refused to talk.
Detectives spoke with Mary Columbo’s sister, Carolyn Tygrett who recalled visiting Mary in late 1975 or early 1976 & during that time, Patty showed up saying she was there to pick something up. Patty left empty-handed & after she was gone, Mary noticed that the previously locked sliding door was now unlocked & at that point, she secured the door.
On May 15, 1976, just before 7 am, seven officers from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department went to Patty & DeLuca’s Lombard apartment with a search warrant. They were both arrested & charged with conspiracy, solicitation & the murders of Frank, Mary & Michael. DeLuca was released two days later on the 17th but Patty was held. On the day that she was brought in, she gave a written & verbal statement admitting to the fact that she had solicited the two men to murder her family but claimed she was unaware that her family had actually been murdered. She first denied knowing Lannie until she was brought to the room he was being held at the station. She told officers she didn’t believe that he’d killed her family.
When officers asked Patty about the schedule she’d given Lannie for her parent’s whereabouts, she claimed she’d only done so because she’d been forced at gunpoint. She said she was also forced to have sex with him. She said she hadn’t gone to the police at that point because she assumed they would uncover all the evidence themselves & that she was in fear for her life.
On May 26, Roman Sobczynski was offered immunity from the state in return for testifying against Patty & eventually, DeLuca. He corroborated everything that Lannie had told police & said that he’d spoken with DeLuca on the phone & he claimed that Frank Columbo had taken a contract out on him & that Michael Columbo would also have to be killed.
On July 17, 1976, Frank DeLuca was arrested yet again & brought into Cook County jail to await his trial. His cellmate for the next six months, Clifford Child’s claimed that DeLuca bragged that he had come up with the perfect plan to kill the Columbo family & he personally shot each family member himself. He said that Patty planned to meet with her parents on Tuesday, May 4 at 8 pm with the intent to reconcile & DeLuca delayed his arrival until 10 pm in order to establish an alibi from Walgreens. When he arrived, Frank Columbo answered the front door & as he turned to walk up the stairs, DeLuca shot him in the back of the head with a .32 caliber revolver & he shot Mary next. In the meantime, Patty went up to Michael’s room where he was sleeping. She & DeLuca forced him to stand up & DeLuca shot him in the head. In the attempt to stage the house like a robbery had taken place, they messed up the house & took $150 in cash, some jewelry & a few household appliances they’d placed into Frank’s Thunderbird. They drove the car to the spot it was found & left, expecting that the car would be broken into & traced back to the Columbos, solidifying the robbery motive. DeLuca explained to Clifford Childs that he’d been at the Columbo home for no more than 25 minutes & he’d worn gloves, going so far as to stuff the index finger of the glove where his finger was missing.
Childs would later testify in September of 1976 that DeLuca told him that there were two witnesses that were employed at Walgreens that he needed to be killed. He asked if Childs could arrange a hit & he agreed if DeLuca paid his bail money & it would cost $10,000 per hit. He gave a detailed description of these witnesses, one a married woman that had an affair with DeLuca before he met Patty. He also gave a description of their schedules as well as directions to their homes. DeLuca’s ex-wife Marilyn was to bail Childs out & Childs would then abduct & kill both witnesses & bury their bodies in Indiana. On November 25, 1976, Marilyn sent two money orders totaling just over $3,400 to Childs & another $830. On February 24, 1977, Marilyn picked Childs up & drove him to her home where she paid him another $1,300 in cash plus the use of DeLuca’s car. Marilyn herself was in deep financial trouble but was assured by Childs that he would pay her back.
Just like Lannie & Roman Sobczynski, Clifford Child indicated he never had any intention of following through with the hits & had only used DeLuca for financial benefit.
Just over a year after her family had been murdered, Patty & Frank DeLuca went to trial & chose a trial by jury. The trial included testimonies from Lannie Mitchell, Roman Sobczynski, Clifford Childs as well as two of DeLuca’s former coworkers who recounted statements or confessions he made about the Columbo family murders. Joy Heysek who met DeLuca through work & had also been involved in a sexual relationship testified that DeLuca spoke of his plans to have the family killed between November 1975 & April 1976 & told her that when they were dead, he would finally have their money to pay off his wife’s mortgage & sail around the world. She considered calling the Columbos to warn them but assumed they would think it was a prank call. An assistant manager from Walgreens, Hubert Green, also testified that DeLuca had openly discussed having the Columbo family murdered & then spoke about his involvement after he murdered them. Green said he hadn’t gone to police since he was fearful for his family’s safety.
After a few hours’ deliberation, the jury came back with a guilty verdict on all charges. Judge Eugene Pincham sentenced both Patty & DeLuca to 200-300 years on each of the three murder counts. Patty was given an additional 20-50 years on the solicitation to commit murder while DeLuca was given an additional 10-50 years to run concurrently with their other sentence.
A month after his conviction, DeLuca moved for a new trial on July 24, 1977 & Patty filed a motion for a new trial on August 8, 1977; both motions were denied. They both filed appeals in 1983 which were also denied.
In October of 1977, Frank DeLuca was sent to the Dixon Correctional Center to serve out his sentence & after 1986, he had no disciplinary infractions or tickets. Under Illinois law, both he & Patty became eligible for parole after serving 12 years.
In a parole hearing in May 2014, DeLuca told the Illinois Prisoner Review Board that he had no expectation of being paroled & what he & Patty did was “horrendous” & they should never leave prison. The court noted his poor health; he had hip & prostate issues & walked with a cane. His parole was denied due to the “heinous nature of the crime” & the parole for DeLuca would “depreciate the seriousness of the offense & promote disrespect for the law.” Frank DeLuca passed away in prison on Wednesday, January 4, 2023 when he was about 86-years-old. He & Patty had no interactions since 1977.
Patty was sent to Dwight Correctional Center in October of 1977 to serve her sentence. In 1979, she was implicated in a prison prostitution scheme that organized sexual acts between the female prisoners & the correction officers. She also collected many infarctions or tickets. She did go on to earn a Secretarial Science Degree, an Applied Science Degree in Computer Programming & an Associates Degree in Art from Joliet Junior College in 1981. She received her bachelor’s degree in 1991 from Illinois State University. She went on to work with various programs & a group of supporters who would submit letters or speak on her behalf of her good work at her parole hearings. In 2011 she was accepted at Lelie’s House which is a transitional house on the west side of Chicago that helps former female inmates transition back into society. Ironically, this location was only 2.5 miles from where her father’s car had been found.
Like DeLuca, Patty’s paroles have been denied due to the seriousness of the offense. She is currently 67-years-old & is incarcerated at the Logan Correctional Center
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