1979 Inverness murder case may be resolved without retrial, attorney says
A former Inverness woman facing retrial after her 2016 murder conviction was overturned by the Illinois Appellate Court may have her case resolved short of another trial, according to her attorney.
Jacquelyn Greco, 73, was convicted in October 2016 of the 1979 murder of her husband Carl Gaimari, 34, who was fatally shot with his own gun in the couple's Inverness home. Last summer, the appellate court set aside Greco's conviction and ordered a new trial.
During a hearing Wednesday, Assistant Cook County Public Defender Caroline Glennon told the court she was in negotiations with Cook County prosecutors to "resolve the matter short of a trial."
Greco told authorities that on the day of her husband's murder 41 years ago two masked men entered the home, tied her and three of her four children up, locked them in a master bedroom closet and waited for Gaimari to return from his job with the Chicago Board of Trade. The couple's 15-year-old daughter, who was away from home at the time, returned to discover her mother and siblings in the closet. Moments later, the couple's 13-year-old daughter discovered Gaimari's body in the basement.
Prosecutors claimed greed motivated Greco and her lover, whom she married months after her husband's murder. Authorities say that man arranged the home invasion and murder but was never charged. The gunmen were never identified, and authorities say the investigation remains open.
The case went cold until Inverness police received permission from Greco's older sister, Elsie Fry, to tape a 2013 phone conversation between the siblings during which prosecutors say Greco implicated herself in Gaimari's death.
Defense attorneys say Greco didn't want her husband killed. They pointed to the conversation played for jurors during the first trial in which Greco told Fry: "Your testimony is enough to put me away. You're my sister but you're a witness against me ... That's enough to put me away. Not that I killed him, but I knew."
In their appeal, Greco's attorneys say the original trial court erred in not instructing jurors on the defense theory that Greco had "withdrawn from the plan to kill her husband."
The appellate court agreed, stating, "A defendant in a criminal case is entitled to have the jury instructed on any legally recognized defense theory which has some foundation in the evidence, however tenuous."
Greco next appears in court on Jan. 25.