State panel unanimously denies parole for convicted killer Patricia Columbo
“Please don't ever release her. She doesn't deserve to be in society.”
Mark Tygrett made that plea Thursday to Illinois Prisoner Review Board members weighing parole for his cousin, Patricia Columbo, who was convicted of killing her parents and younger brother nearly 50 years ago in their Elk Grove Village home.
Board members agreed, unanimously denying the 69-year-old's bid for release.
Columbo was sentenced to 200 to 300 years in prison for the May 4, 1976, murders of her father Frank Columbo, 52, mother Mary, 50, and 13-year-old brother, Michael. Her co-defendant and boyfriend, Frank DeLuca, was sentenced to 300 years and died behind bars in 2023 at age 84.
Lead investigator and former Elk Grove deputy police chief Raymond J. Rose testified in opposition to Columbo's release Thursday, as he’s done at every one of her parole hearings since 1984. Tygrett and a representative from the Cook County State's Attorney’s Office also opposed Columbo's release.
Rose described the gruesome crime scene: each victim shot in the head; Michael stabbed 87 times with a pair of scissors; Mary bludgeoned with “her throat slit ear to ear”; Frank shot multiple times, stabbed in the throat and bludgeoned with a bowling trophy.
Authorities cited her parents' opposition to her relationship with DeLuca, a married father of five, as the motive for the murders, which Rose said the then 19-year-old Columbo planned for eight months.
She first attempted to hire hitmen, providing photos of the victims, a dossier of their activities and a diagram of the house. When that failed, she convinced the then-37-year-old DeLuca to participate in the murders by falsely claiming her father was a mafia member who intended to have the couple murdered.
Rose, who later served as Lake County undersheriff and Mundelein police chief, said Columbo has shown no remorse for her crimes.
“Patricia Columbo's desire to be released is not greater than the safety and peace of mind of the public,” he told the board. “Let's stop revictimizing the family and revictimizing the entire community.”
Columbo's attorney noted the approximately 70 representatives from anti-violence groups, ministries and prisoner assistance organizations who attended the hearing on her client's behalf.
She said Columbo — who survived childhood sexual abuse only to be groomed and abused by DeLuca — has taken responsibility for “many aspects of this case” and acknowledged planning the murders, even though she does not recall what happened on the day they occurred.
Details have been contested over the decades, acknowledged the attorney, “but overall she's taken responsibility.”
“It's overwhelming and appreciated,” Columbo said Thursday in response to a question about the support she’s received. “It's a little hard to process. I didn't expect so much.”
As the hearing drew to a close, Tygrett described his family members. Frank was a happy man who treated people with respect. Auntie Mary was a “super sweet” southern belle who practically raised his mother. And Michael was his best friend.
If the death penalty was available back then, “Patty wouldn’t be here with us,” Tygrett said. “Make sure she stays where she belongs.”