Rolling Meadows Cops Throw in Towel, Give Up Search For Serial Killer’s Victim in Joliet House: Source

JOLIET, IL — After searching the crawlspace of a not-very-large Joliet house for nearly a full week in hopes of locating the victim of a 1970s serial killer, the Rolling Meadows police have given up, a police source said.

The search of the house on Barber Lane for the remains of Michael Mansfield ended without the missing man’s recovery, the source said.

Mansfield vanished on New Year’s Eve 1975. A classmate from Lincoln College, Russell Smrekar, reportedly confessed on his deathbed to killing Mansfield.

At the time of his death, Smrekar, a former Joliet resident, was in prison for killing a Lincoln couple in 1976. He also reportedly confessed, just before he died, to killing a second Lincoln woman whose body was never found.

A family who lived in the house from 1974 until about five years ago was related to Smrekar. Smrekar’s mother and the mother living in the house on Barber Lane were cousins. A local man who grew up in the house and had just turned 7 years old when Mansfield disappeared declined to comment on the search of his childhood home.

When Mansfield vanished, he was supposed to testify against Smrekar, who had been accused of stealing from other students in their dorm.

Months later, Smrekar got caught stealing steaks from a Kroger supermarket in Lincoln. The manager of the Kroger, Jay Fry, was a witness for the prosecution. He was the other man Smrekar killed. Smrekar also murdered Fry’s pregnant wife, Robin.

The other woman Smrekar reportedly confessed to killing, Ruth Martin, was also a witness in the theft case. She had merely happened to see Smrekar stealing.

True crime author Bonnie Thompson, who is the daughter of Roger Thompson, the prosecutor who tried Smrekar, said she has spent 20 years investigating Smrekar’s killings, as well as those committed in Lincoln in the summer of 1976 by a Charles Manson copycat named Michael Drabing. Drabing, 61, is still alive and serving a 100-year prison sentence.

Thompson said a Rolling Meadows detective reached out to her in 2006 and, in an attempt to assist, she wrote a detailed letter instructing them to search the Barber Lane house — and gave the police her reasons why. Among those reasons, she said, was the husband and wife living there “were the ones who provided Russell with an alibi for the Fry murders.”

The couple claimed Smrekar was at their home in Joliet watching “Bonnie and Clyde” when the Frys were getting killed in Lincoln, Thompson said.

“They lied and they got caught lying,” Thompson said. “That tells you about their credibility, and they have none.”

Thompson said she still does not know why the Rolling Meadows police, whom she called “incompetent,” disregarded her tip for so long.

“For 11 years they ignored it, and (Rolling Meadows) is what, 43 miles away?” she said.

The Rolling Meadows police have refused to release reports on the Mansfield investigation. Rolling Meadows police Cmdr. Thomas Gadomski has failed to return numerous calls about the search in Joliet. Gadomski also failed to respond when asked about Thompson’s assessment that his department is incompetent, or to say whether he believes a more competent department might have cracked the Mansfield case.

Russell Smrekar | image via Illinois Department of Corrections