Cops & Crime: $60,000 bail for a frosty beer out of stranger's fridge?

For many, knowledge of the criminal justice system comes mostly from reruns of “Law & Order” and “CSI.”

Police officers, victims, witnesses, defendants, lawyers and the journalists who cover them know better.

Cops don't drive vintage Dodge Chargers on undercover assignments. Defense lawyers and prosecutors are more likely to share jokes while waiting their turn in crowded courtrooms than they are to shout over one another in heated trials. DNA test results take months to arrive, not hours.

With this new weekly column, we hope to pull back the veil on crime in the suburbs and the people who fight, perpetrate and fall victim to it; to tell you stories about what's going on behind the scenes; warn you about the latest ways the bad guys are trying to rip you off; and, we hope, entertain you along the way.

Combined, we have nearly 45 years experience covering the suburbs, many of them spent prowling courtrooms and cop shops for the scoops on crime in your hometowns.

And, as far as we know, our rap sheets are clean.

Without further ado:

<h3 class="leadin">That's a costly brew

We get it. Sometimes nothing quite quenches your thirst like a cold beer.

But a Wheeling woman who prosecutors say couldn't keep her thirst under control this week is facing at least a $6,000 tab - if she wants to get out of jail.

Lidia Zuradzka, 54, is behind bars at the Cook County jail on $60,000 bail after police said she walked into a garage in her hometown Monday and helped herself to a chilled Heineken.

It's not a first-time thing for Zuradzka. According to some reporting by legal affairs writer Barbara Vitello, Zuradzka is on parole after serving time for breaking into a Wheeling home in 2014 and announcing, “I want beer.” She also has previous convictions for theft, criminal trespass and residential burglary dating back to 2008.

A judge granted her admission to the Westcare Impact Program, the county jail's substance abuse program.

<h3 class="leadin">Services for Baby Hope

In a perfect world, DuPage County investigators will find the mother of Baby Hope and the family will come together for the proper burial of the infant found dead this week along a road near Wheaton.

But, as staff writer Jessica Cilella told us Thursday, sometimes the families are never found and their remains sit in the morgue for months, sometimes years. That's when Wheeling-based nonprofit Rest In His Arms comes into play.

Since it was founded 11 years ago, the group has provided funerals and burials for 32 Illinois children who were abandoned or died tragically.

“We want Rest In His Arms to go out of business,” founder Susan Walker told Cilella. “We don't like providing funerals, but we'll keep doing it as long as we need to.”

Walker said the search for next of kin typically takes at least 90 days. On average, Rest In His Arms isn't able to do a burial until six months to a year after the death. In one case, it took two years.

“It's heartbreaking,” Walker said. “Every single time, it's a feeling of, 'We're not doing enough to get the word out about baby safe haven laws.'”

<h3 class="leadin">40 years later

In August 1976, Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire - then a 23-year-old reporter on the late-night police beat - was summoned into the office of Mount Prospect Police Chief Ralph Doney and handed a photo of a teenage girl.

Barbara Glueckert had gone missing five days earlier while attending a rock concert with an unknown man near Huntley. Doney wanted a story about her in the next day's newspaper.

Nearly four decades after that first story, Barbara is still missing. Though long presumed dead - and her suspected murderer himself killed in a 2004 shootout with drug dealers - the search for Barbara's body goes on.

In Sunday's Daily Herald, Gire revisits Barbara's disappearance on its 40th anniversary and will share his recent conversations with her older brother, Bob, and her former friend, Mike Nelson, who became a Mount Prospect police detective and took on Barbara's case.

You can also see Dann discuss it on ABC 7 Eyewitness News about 8:45 a.m. Sunday.

<h3 class="leadin">We work for tips

While we have the help of a variety of Daily Herald reporters with their ears to the ground, we - like cops - rely a great deal on tipsters.

We've established a telephone tip line and an email address so you can point us toward what's interesting, whether it be a crime spree, a cop who's being honored or the latest scam. We can develop a story from a tip or we can attribute the info to you - just tell us your ground rules.

Look for details on how to reach us at the end of this column each week.

<h3 class="leadin">

'He was asking for it'

Jose Camacho admits stabbing, choking and then drowning drinking partner Flavio Venancio before leaving him dead 15 years ago in a retention pond near Schaumburg's Metra station.

But the 28-year-old victim sort of had it coming, Camacho claims.

A state appeals court, however, isn't buying it. In a 19-page unanimous decision handed down this month, judges affirmed the Hanover Park man's conviction and 32-year prison sentence for first-degree murder in the May 24, 2001, slaying. The court ruled the Cook County judge who presided over the trial was right when he decided jurors shouldn't consider whether Camacho was “provoked” into the fatal attack.

How was he provoked? Camacho said Venancio caused him to wreck his car and then insulted his driving skills and manliness.

Camacho fled to Mexico after the slaying but was captured and extradited to Cook County in 2012. Jurors found him guilty after trial in 2013.

<h3 class="leadin">IRS doesn't take iTunes

Why would anyone think he could pay an IRS bill with iTunes gift cards?

A Geneva man reported July 20 that someone claiming to be an IRS agent called him and said if he didn't pay a $2,500 tax bill, the “sheriff's department” was going to arrest him. The caller told him to buy iTunes gift cards and call back with the card's account numbers and security codes.

The 26-year-old bought the cards but became suspicious and did not call back.

The IRS and local police have said it before and will say it again: The IRS does not call people. It communicates only by mail. And it doesn't take payment in gift cards.

But common sense can sometimes go out the window when someone says they're going to arrest you. “People get scared,” said Geneva police Cmdr. Julie Nash.

<h3 class="leadin">Back to school

Kids are back to school this week, which means police are back to ticketing drivers who speed through school zones and blow past stopped school buses.

“We are reminding our motoring public to be more aware during their travels and follow the rules of the road as another school year begins,” said Capt. Brian Windle, commander of Illinois State Police District 2 in Elgin.

Got a tip? Have a question? Please email Charles Keeshan and Susan Sarkauskas at copsandcrime@dailyherald.com, or call our tip line at (847) 427-4483.