Defendant's daughter testifies for prosecution in Inverness cold case
Returning from school about 2:40 p.m. April 30, 1979, Becky Wyckel sensed something amiss at her Inverness home.
"I knew something was wrong when I walked through the back door," testified Wyckel, who testified for the prosecution Tuesday as her mother Jacquelyn Greco's murder trial entered its second day.
Jacquelyn Greco is charged with the 1979 death of Carl Gaimari, her husband and Wyckel's father. Prosecutors say greed motivated Greco, 69, and her lover to arrange the death of Gaimari, a 34-year-old commodities trader at the Chicago Board of Trade.
The then-15-year-old Fremd High School sophomore noticed some open drawers and cabinets. Calling out for her mom and siblings, Wyckel started down the stairs to the basement where she noticed her father sitting on a couch.
She assumed her parents had had a fight and her mother was somewhere in the neighborhood until she heard her mother calling from the master bedroom. Wyckel found Greco locked in a closet, her hands tied, along with Wyckel's siblings, ages 13, 5 and 2.
Wyckel testified Greco asked, "Where's your father?" Her 13-year-old sister went to the basement, where she discovered her father had been shot six times in the chest, which Wyckel had not been able to see.
According to prosecutors, Greco claimed two masked, armed gunmen entered the Turkey Trail Road home earlier that day, locked her and the children in a closet, then rifled through the couple's belongings.
Prosecutors say the gunmen accosted Gaimari when he returned from work and ushered him to the basement, where they shot him to death. The two men have never been identified.
The case remained cold until 2013 when Greco implicated herself in her husband's murder during a phone conversation with her sister, Elsie Fry, who also testified against her.
Under cross examination from Cook County assistant public defender Julie Koehler, Wyckel repeatedly stated she could not recall what she said to police at the time.
She also admitted she has little contact with Greco, who married Sam Greco on Aug. 10, 1979, less than four months after Gaimari's murder.
Steve Klemen, former co-owner of Pacific Trading Company, where Gaimari worked as an independent trader, testified Greco came to the office before 9:30 a.m. May 1, 1979, asking about her husband's financial accounts and seeking money for expenses.
Klemen, who described Gaimari as an "average trader, not making great amounts of money," said he did not allow Greco to access her husband's accounts because he was unsure if he could legally do so.
Gaimari's attorney, Howard Cohen, testified Gaimari's estate totaled $623,535 at the time of his death, not including the Inverness home.
Testimony continues today.