Cold Case: Jack Winteringer and Richard Knight

“It’s definitely not like TV where murders are solved overnight, that you can do wonders with the smallest piece of evidence and get your results in 24 hours," said Commander Nicholas Treantafeles of the  while discussing local cold cases. “It just doesn’t happen.”

Since the John Wayne Gacy case was reopened earlier this year, and , Des Plaines police have not  been directly involved, as no new local connection has yet been found. But the recent turn of events reminded the department of their crucial role in the sensational saga, and brought to mind other cold cases in Des Plaines files.

Jack Winteringer, 67, and Richard Knight, 64, were found dead in their home in the 1800 block of Sycamore Street sometime between the afternoon of July 21, 1998, when they were last seen by neighbors, and about 11:30 a.m. on July 22, Treantafeles said.

Treantafeles, who began his law enforcement career as a patrolman in 1983, and became a detective in 1998, had been serving in his new role for about six months when the crime occurred. He said he was not a lead investigator on the case, but he did perform a few small tasks, along with about a dozen other personnel.

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The new detective helped canvass the neighborhood and complete interviews with neighbors and employers. He said police ran into dead ends after a couple of people in discussions with them abruptly stopped cooperating with the investigation.

“We had a couple leads, and we started talking to a couple people, and they shut us down,” Treantafeles said. “’I got nothing to say.’ These people [could] change their minds, now 10 or 11 years later, and say, ‘Listen, I know exactly what happened, who did it, and this is what he was driving,’ and come forward.”

Winteringer and Knight were long-time friends that had lived together for several years, Treantafeles said. Their bodies were first discovered when a ComEd repairman, attempting to complete a service call, enlisted the help of a neighbor to contact the residents. Police found the back door to the residence unlocked.

The victims were in the front living room, and it appeared they had died from gunshot wounds, Treantafeles said.

All the fingerprints that were recovered and processed came back as belonging to the victims or people that were ruled out as suspects, Treantafeles said. Nothing of evidentiary value was located.

Treantafeles said the Gacy case is a reminder to him that there is always a chance that a cold case can be solved. Sometimes people will come forward after time has passed because they no longer fear someone, or that person has moved away, he said.

“How many times you read about how a guy who came forward after 30 years and say, ‘I had to get this off my chest?’” Treantafeles said. “That’s how a lot of times the way these cold cases are cracked, by people finally coming forward, for whatever reason—they do it though. I wish that would happen here.”

Anyone that has information about this case can contact Des Plaines police Commander Nicholas Treantafeles in investigations at (847) 391-5400.

Anonymous tips may be given by calling Crime Stoppers at (847) 699-7867 or by texting through .

Tipsters can send a text to CRIMES (274637), and begin the message with "ICARE" so the system recognizes it as information for Des Plaines and Park Ridge police departments. The sender will receive a message back from a third-party vendor with an anonymous identification number in alphanumeric code. All subsequent messages between the tipster and police go through the system the same way.

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