Criminal Charges Filed Against Former Gemini Giant Owner

WILMINGTON — Legal problems for the owner of Wilmington's shuttered Launching Pad restaurant continue as the Will County State's Attorney's Office of Jim Glasgow is taking action, with help from the Wilmington Police Department.

This week, Will County prosecutors charged Holly Higgins Barker, the former of owner of the world-famous Gemini Giant, a Route 66 tourist icon, with crimes of harassment by telephone and a second offense, disorderly conduct.

The criminal complaint indicates that on June 20, Barker used her telephone for the purpose of threatening injury to one of her 37-year-old female neighbors in Wilmington.

The second charge alleges that Barker knowingly threatened harm in such an unreasonable manner as to alarm or disturb another and to provoke a breach of the peace.

Will County court records indicate that Barker was sent a summons to appear at the Will County Courthouse on Wednesday for her two criminal charges as well as an order of protection that was taken out against her by the same victim, but Barker was a no-show at the courthouse.

The summons may have been sent to Barker's property in New Lenox in the 1400 block of Creekside Court, according to the court files.

According to the order of protection stalking petition taken out by the 37-year-old Wilmington woman, on June 19, "Holly put a sign up on my fence stating I was a raccoon satanic vampire living next door."

A Wilmington Police Department report is cited in the court record.

Then, the next day, Barker was at it again, according to the petition.

"Holly posted on Facebook stating, 'I'm going to fillet the vampire bitch like a mother f****** carp and throw the (corpse) on the road for Wilmington to pick up, or if you're not interested there are tons of vultures. You have maybe 48 hours.'

"I have the video present with me as evidence," the victim wrote in court papers.

The Wilmington victim lives in the 100 block of North East Street, which is near Barker's house in Wilmington in the 800 block of East Baltimore Street, right by the shuttered Launching Pad restaurant that Barker chose not to sell to the Joliet Area Historical Museum earlier this year.

Instead, Barker only sold off the Gemini Giant. The Giant has been taken to Atlanta, Illinois, where it is undergoing restoration work in hopes of being given a new permanent home in Wilmington at the South Island Park along the Kankakee River National Trail.

Related Joliet Patch coverage in 2024:

• Gemini Giant Will Be Moved To Safe Location: GoFundMe Vows
• Destruction Of Launching Pad Underway, Police Cite Owner: 12 Photos
• Launching Pad: Joliet's Museum Would Buy It, But Only At This Price