Start date finally set for trial in 2004 double slaying

February 2, 2009.

The family of Mary Lacey and her mother Margaret Ballog have waited for that day since authorities found the women dead in Lacey's Glenview home nearly four years ago.

The date marks the scheduled start of the trial for Steven Zirko, Lacey's former boyfriend and father of two of her children, who was charged in 2005 with the murders of Lacey and Ballog. Both women had been shot. Lacey was stabbed as well, according to police.

Glenview police arrested Zirko two days after the bodies were discovered Dec. 13, 2004, on charges of solicitation to commit murder and solicitation for murder-for-hire. Those charges stemmed from an incident earlier that year in which prosecutors say Zirko enlisted a Palatine chiropractor to help him find someone to kill Lacey. Prosecutors say Lacey had been a victim of domestic abuse at Zirko's hands and had filed numerous orders of protection against him.

In February 2005, Glenview police charged Zirko with first-degree murder. He has been held without bail in Cook County Jail ever since but prosecutors say he has not been idle. They claim that last year, he tried to enlist another inmate to provide him with an alibi.

Prosecutors estimate the trial could last three weeks or longer. Zirko faces the death penalty if convicted.