'I can still smell that crime scene': Ray Rose recalls 50-year career
Editor's note: In his 50-year law enforcement career, Ray Rose has been a cop in Elk Grove Village and Franklin Park, and Mundelein police chief, before retiring as the Lake County undersheriff. He's worked two of the suburbs' most notorious crimes: the 1976 Patty Columbo murders of her parents and brother, and the 2015 staged death of Fox Lake Lt. Joe Gliniewicz. Rose also was involved with one of our biggest tragedies: the 1979 crash of Flight 191, which took 273 lives. In a 90-minute interview with staff writer Lee Filas, Rose speaks candidly about those events.
Filas: Of the Columbo and Gliniewicz cases, which one had the most impact on you and why?
Rose: They were two different kinds of events. But when you look at the Patty Columbo case, it had a tremendous impact on me both personally and professionally because of some of what happened with that case.
There was so much time involved in that case and so much time spent away from family, because everything we do in this profession centers on both professional pieces and personal pieces.
So, putting that case together and working the Columbo case, and the impact of having witnessed the crime scene of a whole family that had been mutilated, that had been executed - that was just a horrendous, horrendous event. Especially dealing with the murder and mutilation of a 13-year-old boy that had been not only shot but stabbed 87 times, that really takes a toll on you and really has an impact on you.
Even to this day, when I look at these crime scene photos, I can still smell that crime scene. I still have that sense of what it was like to walk into that environment. I ended up missing a lot of my family for that year because my kids would be in bed by the time I got home and I would leave before they got up to go to school.
Filas: What convinced you Gliniewicz took his own life?
Rose: The coroner's office described this as an execution-style murder where he (Gliniewicz) was on his knees, he was shot from above, and that's how the bullet got behind the vest. So, when the coroner's office makes this initial observation that this was an execution-style murder, everything was consistent with that. He had mud on his knees, he had mud on the toes of his boots, the bullet went behind the vest from a downward motion; the trajectory of the bullet was consistent with that.
He had put out a description of people (when Gliniewicz radioed in a report of three suspicious men), and we were able to find people on video. ... But, he had been involved with the state Explorers competition, and we received information there were scenarios that he put on with Explorers (a youth police group) where he took them out in the field and went through these scenarios.
This scene was an exact replica that the Explorers had been put through and had gone through with him at one of their state competitions. So when you start looking at where this was and with everything that was happening ... that was the support we needed, the piece we needed in place. Because, we realized it could be done.
Filas: What convinced you Patty Columbo and Frank DeLuca did it?
Rose: With that case, it was a bit different because I had contact with her previously. I had arrested her for stealing checks and credit cards, and when she bonded out from that event, she threatened to kill her father in front of the police station as we walked her out the door.
During the interviews with her, all of the information she was providing was putting us on a path away from her and away from DeLuca. And then our finding ... the two hitmen (who were contacted but didn't commit the murders), talking with them, and then recovering evidence from them. Because they had been provided a dossier of the family's movements. He had been provided photographs of them. He was provided all of what they do, their hobbies. And Patty had brought them ... through the house and showing them what doors she was going to leave open to make sure they could get through the house.
So there were a lot of things that were circumstantial evidence but made things clearer. What really, really became significant that showed us we had the right people was when the appellate court ... published an unprecedented 187-page decision upholding the convictions on these two. They went through the entire case and every piece of evidence, line by line.
Filas: Describe another case that will always stick with you.
Rose: All of this stuff has an impact on you, and I know traditionally those in law enforcement are not supposed to be affected by this, and I'm happy to say that that's changed and now when those traumatic events happen, there is counseling that law enforcement is mandated to go through.
But when 273 people lost their lives in a plane crash in a field right off Route 72 in unincorporated Elk Grove … that will always stay with me.
When you look at that plane crash, with the exceptions of about two people, everyone had been cut in half by the seat belts. The two people who weren't cut in half were a stewardess standing at the back of the plane, and a baby who was in the arms of the mother.
So, they picked up these body parts and took them to a hangar American Airlines converted into a temporary morgue. ... They set up stations to try and identify people, and the thing I remember that stands out in my mind about that, they had caskets in this hangar that were stacked from floor up into the air, I mean, not all the way to the top of the hangar but 20 or 30 high.
So, the whole environment just reeked of, smelled like, and visualized how horrific that plane crash was - and just emulated death.
3 life-changing cases
Columbo murders:
Ray Rose was lead investigator in the 1976 murders of Frank and Mary Columbo and 13-year-old son Michael in their Elk Grove Village house. Daughter Patty Columbo and her lover Frank DeLuca were each sentenced to more than 200 years in prison for the grisly murders.
Gliniewicz staged death:
Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joe Gliniewicz was found shot to death Sept. 1, 2015, in a swamp in Fox Lake. A two-month investigation determined Gliniewicz staged the crime scene to appear he’d been shot in the line of duty but killed himself to cover up financial embezzlement from a youth Explorer group. Rose was Lake County undersheriff at the time and was involved in the investigation.
Flight 191:
The American Airlines jet had just left O’Hare International Airport bound for Los Angeles on May 25, 1979, when its left engine fell off, causing the plane to roll and plummet to the ground. The crash killed all 271 aboard and two people on the ground, one of the worst disasters in aviation history. Rose was an Elk Grove Village police officer and was one of the first responders to the scene.