In August of 1993, Tricia Pacaccio was murdered in a brutal stabbing outside of her home in Glenview Illinois (Glynn, 2011). Despite the crowd of potential witnesses gathered in the cul-de-sac for a neighbor's pool party, no one reported seeing anything out of the ordinary the night of Pacaccio's murder (Smith, 2016). The police struggled to ascertain a motive as there were no signs of a sexual assault or robbery; the investigation moved onto known associates of the victim. The victim's friends, however, were uncooperative and provided no new leads. Only limited evidence was gleaned from the scene including Pacaccio's keychain, fingernail clippings, and a man's shoe print; upon further analysis, it was determined that the shoe print belonged to Pacaccio's father (Smith, 2016). The fingernail clippings, however, contained traces of foreign DNA but, given the relatively primitive testing methods, the results yielded nothing of use (Smith, 2011). …show more content…
Gargiulo had previously been a suspect because of his peculiar behavior following the murder, as well as his reputation for having a short-fuse and an especially violent temper (Smith, 2011). At the time, however, the prosecutor the evidence was not substantial enough to warrant prosecution. There were also claims of procedural complications during the collection and testing of the DNA which would be detrimental to the case (Longhini, 2012). The Pacaccio family blame the Cook County investigators and prosecutors for "dropping the ball" on the case by not following leads on the suspect, Gargiulo, and for not prosecuting after the DNA match (Glynn,