Prosecutors Secure Conviction in Inverness Cold Case

A Michigan woman who plotted the murder of her commodities broker husband in the couple’s northwest suburban home in 1979 has been found guilty of the crime following a long-term cold case investigation and prosecution, according to the Office of Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.

Jacquelyn Greco, 69, of Crystal Falls, Michigan, was convicted of murder for devising a plan to have her husband killed in their luxurious Inverness home in a scheme to collect his money and inheritance.  Carl Gaimari, 34, a commodities broker at the Chicago Board of Trade, was shot multiple times after returning to his home from work.  The couple had been married in 1963 and lived with their four children when the murder occurred.

According to prosecutors, Greco planned and staged a home invasion with others on April 30, 1979 while she was at the home with three of the couple’s four children.  At the time, two unidentified males entered the residence and announced a robbery and ordered Greco and the three children, (ages 13, 5, and 2 at the time) into a bedroom, tied them up and locked them in a closet.  Before they closed the closet door, the offenders took a box from the top shelf of the closet that contained two handguns owned by Gaimari.

Later that afternoon, Gaimari returned to his home where the offenders were waiting and ambushed him as he entered the house.  His body was discovered by the couple’s 13-year-old daughter. Gaimari had been shot multiple times in the torso area.

The two firearms that had been removed from the closet were recovered near the victim’s body and forensic tests later confirmed that the shots that killed Gaimari had been fired from the weapons.   At the time of Gaimari’s murder, Greco was involved in an extra-marital affair. Within one week of the murder, Greco’s boyfriend moved into the defendant’s house and the new couple was married within three months.  Greco later inherited Gaimari’s estate, estimated to be valued at more than $500,000.

The case had remained unsolved until it was re-opened in 2012 by the Inverness Police Department and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Cold Case Unit.

During the re-investigation, investigators learned that approximately one year before the murder that Greco had approached a witness and told the witness that she wanted to “get rid” of Gaimari.  Greco also told another witness that she had a plan to kill Gaimari and that she intended to stage a home invasion during which Gaimari would be killed.

Investigators also identified and located an additional witness who said that Greco had made threatening remarks to her in 1996 telling the woman to “stay out of my business or I’ll have you killed like my husband.”

Greco was found guilty after a week-long jury trial at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building in Rolling Meadows.  She faces 20 to 40 years in prison when she is sentenced on Dec. 19, 2016.

State’s Attorney Alvarez thanked Assistant State’s Attorneys Ethan Holland, Maria McCarthy and Matthew Thrun as well as the Inverness Police Department for their dedicated work on the case.