Documents Show Officer on Scene Suspected Gliniewicz Committed Suicide

FOX LAKE, IL - At least one officer who first responded to the scene where Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz was found shot dead in Fox Lake on Sept. 1 suspected the veteran officer had committed suicide, the Daily Herald reports.

New documents released detail the initial investigation into Gliniewicz’s death and contain multiple interviews with three patrol officers and Sgt. Dawn Deservi and Lt. Mark Schinder. The officers were initially called out to help Gliniewicz after the lieutenant said he was investigating three suspicious individuals in a swampy area east of Honing Road, according to the newspaper.

The officers heard the gunshot and responded to where Gliniewciz’s body was found.

One officer insinuated the death could be a suicide because of the position of Gliniewicz’s hand, but Deservi, a trained paramedic, said that was the normal way the hands and fingers lie when someone has died, the newspaper reported.

In follow-up interviews, Deservi and Schinder said they did not think Glinieiwicz would commit suicide with Deservi going on to state that Gliniewicz was “too vain of an individual” and added that if “he missed and caused himself to be paralyzed, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself in that condition,” according to the Daily Herald. Both said Gliniewicz was not liked by other officers or Fox Lake administration and that he spent more time with the Explorers program than on police duties.

Immediately following Gliniewicz’s death, a massive manhunt was conducted that spanned several days. Gliniewicz was lauded as a hero for weeks, fund-raisers were held for his family and his funeral and 18-mile funeral procession was attended by thousands.

Then, in early November, news broke that Gliniewicz had killed himself and staged it as a murder after village administrators began to ask questions his handling of money within the Fox Lake Explorers program, which he ran. A further investigation revealed the 30-year veteran of the Fox Lake Police Department had stolen thousands of dollars from the program and used it for personal expenses.

Read more about the recent documents released by authorities in the Daily Herald article.