A serial killer prowling the suburbs? Here’s the truth behind viral posts
Did you hear about the serial killer on the loose in your neighborhood?
According to social media posts, the “heartless and very dangerous” Jeffrey Thomas is knocking on doors, pretending to be homeless, starving and in need of help. He stabbed a single mom in front of her kids, leaving her for dead, then carjacked a 75-year-old woman at the grocery store, taking off in her van, the posts read.
The breathless warning — mug shot of the killer included — would be so very terrifying if it weren’t so very fake.
Neighborhood and marketplace social media groups across the country are being flooded with the bogus BOLO, including in Hanover Park, where it was posted last Friday in a garage sale Facebook group.
It wasn’t long before police there received numerous online messages and phone calls about the ominous reports, Deputy Chief Victor DiVito told us this week.
It’s not clear exactly who’s behind the hoax or why, but versions of the post have appeared in groups from Pennsylvania to Washington state and Wisconsin to Louisiana.
“It’s instilling fear, obviously, nationwide,” DiVito said.
And it could instill (or install) something even worse. Though it was lacking from the Hanover Park post, DiVito said such posts may include links promising more information but, if clicked, “could lead to you being hacked or something of that nature.”
The Better Business Bureau has also warned that they can be used in bait-and-switch scams.
“You want to help, so you share the post on your own profile,” the organization warned in November. “After you share the post, the scammer changes the original post to a deceptive rental ad, a sales pitch or a link to a survey that ‘guarantees’ a cash prize. Now, your friends think you have recommended that content.”
It should go without saying, but DiVito points out that if there really were a serial killer wreaking havoc in the community, you’d almost certainly hear about it from law enforcement before a Facebook page dedicated to garage sales.
“This is a good reminder to be mindful of what you post on social media, and do a little research before you blindly share something,” he added.
The real story
While the messages are fake, the accompanying mug shot is that of a real — but deceased — serial killer.
John Arthur Getreu was convicted of three murders during his lifetime. The first was in 1964, when at just 19 years old he was found guilty of killing a 15-year-old girl at an Army base in West Germany.
After serving a 10-year sentence, he came to the United States where authorities say he landed in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1970s and murdered two women with ties to Stanford University.
Those crimes remained unsolved until 2018, when forensic genealogists identified Getreu as a suspect. In 2021, he was convicted of the 1974 murder of Janet Ann Taylor, the daughter of a legendary Stanford football coach and athletic director, and sentenced to life in prison.
Two years later, Getreu pleaded guilty to killing Stanford graduate Marie Perlov near the school’s Palo Alto campus and received a sentence of seven years to life.
That sentence came to a quick end five months later when Getreu, then 79 years old, died behind bars in September 2023.
Trial and error
A Schaumburg woman found guilty of shooting her boyfriend in the neck had her conviction reversed this month because the judge deciding her case did some out-of-court experimenting with the gun she used.
A state appellate court panel threw out the aggravated battery conviction and 9-year sentence given to Nicole Brown for the Feb. 25, 2023 shooting, ruling that the judge’s ex parte testing violated her right to a fair trial.
Brown, 43, was charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery after authorities said she shot her boyfriend during an argument at her home. Although the victim survived, he was in a coma for three weeks, had to relearn how to walk and now has a limp, according to court documents.
When she went on trial before Cook County Judge Joseph M. Cataldo, Brown didn’t deny shooting the victim, but testified the gun fired accidentally.
That’s when Cataldo decided to do some sleuthing on his own, according to court documents. After testimony ended, Cataldo called a recess and went to his chambers to review the evidence. When he returned, he found Brown guilty of aggravated battery, but not attempted murder.
In explaining why he rejected Brown’s defense, Cataldo described testing the gun himself and deciding it couldn’t have fired the way she described it.
“The only way for it to budge is if you touch and pull the trigger,” he said, according to the appellate ruling. “And (Brown) made that clear that she did not do that. So, I do not believe the gun was fired at (the victim) as (Brown) testified.”
In its unanimous decision tossing the conviction, the appellate court ruled that the judge’s test was reversible error because he considered evidence that was not presented in court or subject to cross-examination by the defense.
“We find that the trial court violated defendant’s right to due process by finding her guilty based on its improper experimentation with the revolver,” Justice Rena Marie Van Tine wrote.
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