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Waukegan murder victim’s twin sister charged with attempted robbery

The twin sister of Holly Staker, a Waukegan girl who was raped and murdered in 1992, is being held in Lake County jail after she was arrested and charged with attempted aggravated robbery on Wednesday, officials said.

Heather Staker, 31, of the 3300 block of Brooke Avenue in Waukegan, was being held on $50,000 bail, a jail official said Saturday afternoon. She tried to rob a cigarette shop but was overpowered and held by a clerk until police arrived, according to the Waukegan News Sun.

Waukegan police declined to comment beyond confirming the arrest.

“(Police) Chief (Dan) Greathouse feels that the Staker family has been through enough at this time and doesn’t want to put any more stress on the Staker family,” Waukegan Police Cmdr. Gabe Guzman said via email.

Holly Staker was 11 when she was killed; her body was founded in a Waukegan apartment where she and her sister Heather frequently baby-sat two young children. Juan Rivera, who was 19 at the time of the murder, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. On Dec. 9, the Illinois Appellate Court threw out Rivera’s conviction, and he was released from prison Jan. 6.

In an interview with the Daily Herald earlier this month, the twins’ parents, Mike and Nancy Kalinowski, said that Heather Staker has struggled to cope with the loss of her sister, suffering from substance abuse issues and having scrapes with the law.

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