Andrew Zinke for McHenry County Sheriff, Really???

Zinke for Sheriff? It’s a preposterous idea but it will happen in less we do something about it.

Just like the original investigator, George Hendle, he started my father’s investigation as a Lieutenant. He now currently resides in the position of undersheriff for McHenry County. He hopes to be just like George Hendle, who climbed the ranks all the way to Sheriff of McHenry County.

It makes me sick to my stomach that George Hendle became Sheriff. It’s extremely difficult with all the facts that are before us to say anything less than the man was very corrupt. I’ve linked him to the Chicago Outfit through the Outfit’s attorney Adam Bourgeois. Yet he made it to the very top as McHenry counties chief law enforcement officer. Andrew Zinke is on the fast track of doing exactly the same. There is a difference between the two and we should make note of that.

George Hendle was connected. It is truly hard to imagine how investigator who is investigating a murder would even consider testifying on behalf of the murderer in another murder trial. Let’s keep in mind that he had the knowledge that Larry Neumann was already convicted of a triple murder. Then he was subpoenaed to testify on behalf of a gangster that is glorified in our pop culture, Tony Spilotro. I am not sure if he actually testified in Tony’s trial but I do know that Tony’s lawyer subpoenaed him. I don’t know if Andrew Zinke has any connections to the Chicago Outfit or not, I have no reason to think so. However, I do know how he treats victims and interacts with the public.

My first opportunity to see what he was about is when Holly and I did our interview with Carol Marin and Channel 5 News Chicago. The Sheriff’s office told Channel 5 that they were going to make arrests right away. So we waited for the interview to air. Carol Marin wanted to make sure that the Sheriff’s office had an opportunity to make a statement. Zinke set the milestones and failed to meet them once, twice, three times, and so on and so on. It was only until the segment aired in late December, a 12th hour statement was made. If I recall correctly, Zinke did not make the statement but the former Undersheriff Lowery did.

I could not believe that Channel 5 News is calling and you are jerking them around. It made no sense to me why you would act like you had something to hide with the top journalist in the Chicagoland area. It was not smart when one of your goals should have been to gain the trust and creditability of the victims and the community.

As this thing dragged on, it was apparent that I was going to have to start making contact with Zinke to stay on top of the case. I was treated like it was my fault that my dad was gunned down and his predecessors tried to cover up the killer’s tracks. He treated me as I was unappreciative of the Department efforts and mistrust of them was unwarranted. At first, I rarely called and even so, he would not return my calls. I established a pattern of broken communications with Zinke and called the media. I had to use the weight of NBC News and the Chicago Sun Times to get a return phone call about the status of my father’s murder case. He earned himself further scrutiny by the Scharff and Freeman family for further failure to meet his own milestones and continual acts of mistrust. Never any new information. Vague references to DNA tests etc, but no real understanding of what they were testing. I decided that I needed to call once a week to find out what was going on. He kept me personally in the dark for a little while and then passed me to one of his detectives. I started to lay into this detective for not having any new information. I recall that I was starting to build up my rapid fire moment and he must have sensed it too. He told me that he could not tell me anything new without Zinke’s approval. I wanted to go off on that detective but that would have been the wrong thing to do. If that detective felt like I did go off on him in any way, I am very sorry for that.  I could not get any information on case that involved mostly dead people. Were they afraid that I was going to tell a dead Larry Neumann that they were investigating him for my father’s murder? Who’s side did they think that I was on?

The icing on the cake was the Letter of Notification. The Letter of Notification may have been a summary of the investigation or the conclusion of the investigation, I wasn’t sure what it was (and I still don’t). I did receive it via email from Andrew Zinke more or less stating that my mother’s copy was in the mail but he wanted to make sure that I got the electronic copy right away. I did appreciate the expediting of the information but I had no idea what it means. Was my father’s case closed, was it still open, or was this some kind of status update. I didn’t know. I really thought I had a problem when my buddy Denny Griffin didn’t know either and he’s a retired cop. Maybe Zinke forgot that I was still just a novice at solving double murders. Zinke never passes up the opportunity to allow good judgment to slide on by. What world was he coming from where he thought that he could summarize to the families the conclusion of the murder of their loved ones by email and a word doc.

So now we have this Letter of Notification that nobody understands what it means but the content of the letter we fully understood. Everything in that Letter of Notification was everything I already knew before the investigation even it started except for one thing. Oh yeah, Debbie Neumann, the woman that is responsible for the murder of my father accuses him of rape. Again Andrew Zinke’s good judgment which continually escapes him, told them the best way to handle this piece information was to shoot it to me via email. I can tell you personally no matter how ludicrous a statement like that is, when you read something like that about your loved one, your heart will skip a beat. He put that in the mail to my mother with no further explanation. I can’t help to think how contrived that communication was. The repeating of everything I already knew from the book CULLOTTA that was published two years earlier. And the one piece of new information that I get out of this nine-month investigation, your daddy is a rapist. I think that was his way of telling me to slow my role down, you might uncover things you don’t want to know. (If that was a goal of his, he failed that too).

Now let’s discuss what was left out of the Letter of Notification. He left out that George Hendle was subpoenaed to testify on Tony Spilotro’s behalf in a burglary trial. He also left out that the FBI started an investigation of George Hendle because of handling of this double murder and for being subpoenaed to testify in Tony Spilotro’s case. He also left out that Cordell Pearson, the head of Las Vegas Metro Intelligence Division, was told by George Hendle that he was going to clear everything up with Glenn as the murder suspect and pursue Larry Neumann instead. He left out that may Neumann was questioned but only as a witness and in his statement he more or less implicated himself. George Hendle told the world through newspapers and interviews that Glenn did it. He had three lie detector test that proved it. He would never let Glenn out of his sights, because he failed a lie detector test three times. The first lie detector test, was inconclusive. It was given in too short a timeframe from learning that his girlfriend was killed. The second lie detector test, shown Glenn to be deceptive. The third lie detector test, proved him to be truthful. I don’t do too much police math but I would still expect that does not equal to three failed lie detector test. He also did not mention that any and all reports of when George Hendle and Ted Floro went to visit Frank Cullotta to be debriefed on the murder of my father was missing. That was not the only thing that was missing. In interview with Tommy Amato conducted with the Outfit’s attorney present, Adam Bourgeois, was also missing, completely gone. Now he did mention that he had spoken to a Michael “Mickey” Marcello. He did not identify who he was, but I know who he was. That was Mickey the Jukebox Guy. When I was a kid he gave me a full size arcade machine to put in my room. However that is not the most interesting thing about Mickey. The most interesting thing about Mickey, is that he is the half brother to the Chicago Outfit’s boss, James Marcello. I personally would have took the time to ask Mickey if he possibly knew of any crooked cops in McHenry County back in the 80s.

My family had turned in at least one gun and possibly up to three to the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department. I believe one or two guns were recovered at the crime scene and I know for fact, that a couple days later my mom turned in her gun to George Hendle as he requested. I called Andrew Zinke and asked if I could get the guns back. He told me that he was unaware of any guns and would review the crime photos. Later, he told me that he had reviewed the crime photos but he couldn’t find them. They were not on any inventory sheets, so he was completely unaware of them. He was correct that they were not on any inventory sheets, and I still haven’t seen all the crime photos, but I read at least eight witness statements where the investigative officer back in the 80s was showing witnesses my father’s gun recovered from the crime scene. I can only assume that he was either lazy, or derelict in reviewing this case, or the man flat out lied to me.

So, McHenry County this is what you get to look forward to if you allow Andrew Zinke to become your Sheriff in 2014. Not to worry though, should your family fall on tragedy you can count on me. I’ll be by you and your family’s side. However, if tragedy does fall on you or your family, I do ask that it is done in some kind of an interesting way. You know, a loved one killed by a mobster, or bazaar shoot out, attack by the Loch Ness monster, something good. Think of it as a requirement. My contacts in the media they need to write stories. If we can’t get the media involved, why would Andrew Zinke ever call us back?