Steven zirko trial

Family members said they often referred to Zirko as "the animal" because of his physical and verbal abuse of Lacey and their two children. Lacey's son from a previous marriage, Raymond, 22, said he was satisfied with the sentence. Before sentencing, Zirko proclaimed his innocence. By Brian Cox and Special to the Tribune. Zirko wore a black tuxedo, white tie and white rose attached to a lapel. But the couple never got a marriage license, Lacey's family said.

They said Zirko and Lacey got into a furious fight the night of the wedding. Police reports filed even after the couple permanently separated in December outline angry tirades in which Zirko allegedly "punched her in the stomach with a closed fist" and called family members to say he was "going to demolish her face.

Police encouraged Lacey on several occasions to press charges against Zirko. But in some instances she told them she just wanted officers to warn him to leave her alone. Then, early last year, Zirko allegedly approached his chiropractor, Chad C. Larson, about problems he was having with Lacey. Last fall, Larson contacted Palatine police, who told him to hide a tape recorder in his office while Zirko was there.

But a video camera Larson stored in a gym bag only recorded muffled sounds of a meeting. Steven Greenberg, the chiropractor's attorney, said Palatine police blew the case by relying so heavily on Larson instead of using an undercover officer to pose as a hit man, which could have led to an arrest. Police said they pursued the case diligently. The facts of our investigation will be revealed at the trial," Palatine Police Cmdr. Mike Seebacher said.

Prosecutors believe that on Dec. The traveling piano man tried to recruit a hit man at his anger-management class, prosecutors say. When that fell through, they allege, Steven L. Zirko carried out the savage murders himself. A jury in Skokie is expected to begin hearing evidence Monday in one of the stranger Cook County murder cases in recent memory. Zirko -- a former cruise line pianist -- is accused in the Dec. Attorneys finished picking a jury Thursday.