Months before an Illinois police officer staged his suicide to make it seem like he died in the line of duty, subjecting his community to an expensive and fruitless manhunt, he apparently sought a hit man to kill a village administrator he feared would expose him as a thief, a detective told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Det. Chris Covelli said Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz sent a text in April asking a woman to set up a meeting with a "high ranking gang member to put a hit on the village manager."

Gliniewicz sent another message in May saying he had thought of "planting things," which made more sense after investigators found small packages of cocaine in Gliniewicz's desk after he died, Covelli said.

The drugs were "not linked to any case that we could find," raising the possibility that the lieutenant sought to frame the manager, Anne Marrin, as a drug criminal before she could expose him as an embezzler, the detective said.

"We never found any explanation why those drugs were in his desk at the police station," Covelli said.

Gliniewicz sent the texts after Marrin, the village's first professional administrator, began auditing Fox Lake's finances, including the Police Explorers program that authorities now say the lieutenant had been stealing from for seven years.

Marrin told reporters Thursday that she believed all her dealings with Gliniewicz were cordial and never had any sense that he was angry with her. She said she didn't learn about the plots against her until after Gliniewicz's death.

"It's very unsettling. My concern is my family. It's quite unbelievable and almost surreal," she said, adding that police have assured her that she is safe.

Often called "G.I. Joe," Gliniewicz was a well-known figure in the bedroom community of 10,000 people 50 miles north of Chicago. His death on Sept. 1, moments after he radioed that he was chasing three suspicious men, prompted an intense manhunt involving hundreds of officers, and raised fears of cop-killers on the loose.

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Two months later, authorities announced that he in fact killed himself to cover up his theft of thousands of dollars from a youth program. Now authorities also are investigating his wife, Melodie, and son D.J., an official said Thursday. (AP)





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