Patricia Columbo II

Patricia Columbo arrested for murder in 1976

For some reason, an article I posted about Patricia Columbo back in June (Bad Decisions and Ruined Lives) has elicited some rather sharp responses from those who obviously still loathe Patricia all these many years later.

Here's a sample from someone named Janis Shipley:

1. You need to do a little more homework. You have painted a picture of an impressionable girl who was a victim. She was far from a victim & was actually the stronger personality of the duo. She was & probably still is a habitual liar & until very recently never even took responsibility for what she had done. I repeat.....your synopsis is all wrong. You sincerely need to do more research & write this again. BTW...she will never get out on parole unless she lives to be 100!!! And might I remind you that she stabbed her 13 year old brother 87 times with a pair of scissors. Nobody coerced her to do that. She made that evil decision all on her own!!!!

Who's Patricia Columbo? She was a young Italian-Irish diva who murdered her parents and her 13-year-old brother in 1976 with the help of her much older boyfriend, a man named Frank Deluca. Columbo became romantically involved with Deluca while she worked as a waitress in a restaurant near the Walgreens drug store that Deluca managed. 

When Deluca met and seduced Columbo, he was married man with five kids. He also had a history of philandering and he was especially fond of young girls such as Columbo who could easily be conned by older, suave hustlers like himself. When he turned on his charm, Columbo fell in love with him. But for Deluca, all he wanted was sex. 

Certainly, Columbo wasn't an angel. She was snotty, loud, arrogant, promiscuous and rebellious. She had trouble with authority and she knew how to manipulate people to get what she wanted. And when she didn't get it, she became quite nasty. 

When she met Deluca, she saw Frank as her ticket to ride from her strict, authoritarian parents who kept her on a very short leash. For Deluca, Columbo was just another piece of tush to satisfy his ravenous libido. And so, Columbo needed Deluca a lot more than he needed her.

That was until Frank's wife found out about her husband's latest affair. When she subsequently served Frank with divorce papers, he knew that he was facing a financial disaster in alimony and child support payments. 

And so, in Patricia, he found his answer to his financial problems. They would kill her family and she would collect the family inheritance. And then they would get married. And then? An then Patricia would likely go the way of Drew Peterson's fourth wife Stacy and never be heard from or seen again. And then Frank would get the inheritance and solve his financial problems and he would be free to find himself more young, gullible girls he could seduce.

Columbo and Deluca subsequently murdered her family, intending to make it look like a mob hit. But it was a brutal, amateur job unbecoming of a professional hit and they were eventually caught. Patty had tried to hire outsiders to do the job with offers of money and sex, but she failed. And so, she and Frank did it themselves. Ironically, unbeknownst to her and Frank, her parents had cut her out of the family will because of her relationship with Deluca.

The rest is history. Both Columbo and Deluca have been in prison for nearly 40 years. Both have been eligible for parole several times and both have been rejected. They're unlikely to get out until they're dead. 

When I wrote my original article on Columbo back in June, I had no intention of painting her as an innocent victim of an older, conniving sexual predator, although you could certainly make a strong case for that. Columbo was a bad girl who met a bad person and together they committed a heinous crime that still haunts many people all these many years later. And it should. 

But she's not the same person she was 40 years ago, although some people aren't convinced. She's grown up in prison and she's found the Lord Jesus Christ. I know; a lot of people claim to find Jesus Christ in prison, only to fall back into their old ways when they gain their freedom. But I think Patty's conversion is genuine and not phony.

Should she be paroled? I think so. But why? Number one; she's changed. Number two; she poses no threat to anyone. And besides; there are many people a lot more deserving of a jail cell these days than Patricia Columbo. But reality tells us that she's unlikely to ever be free again.

For those who are unforgiving and continue to condemn Patricia for what she did a long time ago, you're advised to read these words written by the apostle John: "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them." (1 John 2:9-11)

No matter what evil someone has committed, we must be willing to forgive them. That doesn't absolve them of their wrongdoing. They must be punished for their crimes. But if they truly repent and confess their sins to Christ, and devote their lives to serving Him, He'll forgive them. And they'll inherit eternal life. Even Patricia Columbo. 

Bad Decisions and Ruined Lives

Patricia Columbo: Then

Patricia Columbo: Now

It's been almost 40 years since Patricia Columbo lived outside the walls of a prison. On May 4, 1976, she and her fiance, a man named Frank Deluca, murdered her parents Frank and Mary along with her brother Michael in their home in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. And on May 15, 1976, they were arrested for the brutal crimes.

Why did they do it? Columbo's parents, while not ultra-rich, had ample financial resources that Deluca believed Patricia could inherit if her parents died. In order to make that happen, they cooked up a scheme to murder Patricia's parents and make it look like a mob hit. Why did they murder Patricia's 13-year-old brother? To cut him out of the inheritance.

Patricia was only 20 years-old at the time of the murders. Her fiance was much older at 37. How did they meet? Patricia worked as a waitress in a restaurant near a Walgreens Pharmacy that Deluca managed. When Deluca visited the restaurant, he became physically-attracted to the then 16-year-old waitress and he seduced her.

At that time, Deluca was a married man with five children. He also liked sex and he enjoyed seducing impressionable young girls such as Columbo to satisfy his gargantuan libido. Evidently, Deluca's wife was aware of her husband's philandering and she threatened to divorce him unless he stopped cheating on her. When she discovered that her husband was having an affair with Patricia, she kicked him out of the house and filed for a divorce.

That's when Deluca proposed marriage to Patricia. Patricia's father, an overly protective parent with an Italian temper, hated Deluca because Deluca was a married man whom he knew wasn't in love with his daughter and was merely using her for sex. In fact, he confronted Deluca on one occassion with a shotgun and threatened to kill him before he shammed the gun into Deluca's mouth, shattering some of his teeth.

Why did Deluca propose marriage to the much younger Columbo? It's not hard to figure out. Deluca was faced with the prospect of paying child support and alimony for his five kids and soon to be ex-wife. That was a frightening scenario for someone who didn't have a lot of money. And so, marriage to Patricia and the murder of her parents became Deluca's solution to try and get his hands on the Columbo inheritance.

Fortunately, for Patricia, they didn't get away with it or she would've undoubtedly suffered the same fate that Drew Peterson's third and fourth wives (Kathleen Savio, Stacey Peterson) suffered. Deluca would've killed her and then taken the inheritance money. That's why he wanted to marry her.

Patricia herself wasn't an angel. Though intelligent, she was rebellious and she caused her parents a lot of grief. She likely saw Deluca as a ticket to her freedom from strict, domineering parents. And she willingly went along with Deluca's murderous plans. What led to her arrest? Besides the forensic evidence that tied her and Deluca to the crimes, she showed practically no remorse for her family's fate during interviews with the police following her arrest on May 15, 1976. And she's been behind bars ever since then.

What's the point of all this? I wrote to Patricia and sent her some of our website and weblog material. She responded with a kind and thoughtful letter, explaining that she had accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior while in prison. Here's some of what she wrote: "I am a born-again Christian and I am very honored to be one of four (women) on our prison praise and worship team that ministers to these women on the maximum security unit and our favorite; the new arrivals to the prison. It is any opportunity to make contact with the women when they are scared and broken."

Certainly, there are some folks who still believe to this day that Columbo's nothing but a con artist who'll say anything to fool people. One of those people is Lake County, Ill. Undersheriff Ray Rose who was Elk Grove's Deputy Chief of Police in 1976 when Columbo and Deluca committed the murders. Rose was one of the first investigators to arrive at the horrific crime scene and it's still etched in his mind.

Rose also serves on a 12-member Illinois Prisoner Review Board that is tasked every four years with determining whether Columbo should be granted parole. In Rose's opinion, that should never happen: "When you see people who've been murdered, what makes this so grisly is that it's an entire family. When you think about that … you can't forget. It's like we're speaking on behalf of the family because they're not here to talk for themselves."
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-02/news/ct-x-n-columbo-parole-20110302_1_frank-columbo-patricia-columbo-mary-columbo

I can understand where Rose is coming from. When you see the bodies of three human beings who were mutilated like animals, you never forget that. It haunts you forever. And it will haunt Rose until he takes his final breath. And as long as he's able to, he'll recommend that Columbo never be allowed to go free.

I believe that Columbo should be paroled. She's not the same person she was in 1976. She's changed. In 1976, she was a gullible and rebellious young lady who was charmed by a despicable person who used her--first for sex and then for murder. She's paid dearly for that. She made a terrible decision that ruined her life and destroyed her family. And I think she'll be the first to admit that.

And I think that there are people who are more deserving of her prison cell these days than her. And so, I think she needs to be allowed to live the remainder of her life outside of those prison walls in Lincoln, Illinois.

Concerning forgiveness, for everyone--even a murderer--who comes to Christ in repentance and truly confesses their sins in contriteness, God says this: "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." (Hebrews 8:12)

The Harder They Fall

Jimmy Swaggart

It's been 27 years since the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart brought scorn and ridicule upon himself when he was caught in the company of a prostitute. Swaggart was a fiery, charismatic preacher who was one of top-tier ministers in the Assemblies of God Church (AOG) for several decades.

That was until he got caught in the company of a prostitute in 1988. He was subsequently suspended by the AOG, but not before he offered his famous tearful apology in front of his stunned congregation and a TV audience. At the time, Swaggart's confession seemed genuine. 

He looked and sounded like a broken man who had sinned against God and heaven. In fact, this is what he said during his apology: "I have sinned against You, my Lord, and I would ask that Your Precious Blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God's forgetfulness, not to be remembered against me anymore."

Swaggart's fall was truly stunning. He became a laughingstock to those who believe all church ministers are hypocrites. To add insult to injury, Swaggart was the man who had accused fellow AOG minister Marvin Gorman of sexual immorality in 1986. After Gorman admitted his sexual sins, he was defrocked and his career as an AOG minister was over. 

Now, the table was turned on Swaggart, and there were rumors that Gorman had his son and son-in-law get the goods on Swaggart by trailing him to his fateful rendezvous with a hooker at a motel in New Orleans.

Whether Gorman was the man who pulled the proverbial curtains on Swaggart is debatable. What isn't debatable is the fact that three years later, Swaggart got caught in the company of another prostitute, this time in Indio, California. Swaggart was caught by the police when he drove his car over to the wrong side of a street to proposition a hooker named Rosemary Garcia. When Garcia was asked to describe her conversation with the reverend, she replied: "He asked me for sex. I mean, that's why he stopped me. That's what I do. I'm a prostitute."

After the second incident, Swaggart was anything but contrite. There were no televised tearful apologies and no pleas to God for forgiveness. He told anyone who asked about the Indio incident that it was none of their business. And then he reportedly stepped down from his church to seek help for his overactive libido.

I'm told that Swaggart's a much different man today than the man he was nearly 30 years ago. Though he's now 80, he retains that charismatic fire-in-the-belly style of preaching that made him one of the most recognizable faces in the Christian church until his fall. I hope that he's changed because his faith and biblical knowledge are extraordinary.

However, the damage that he inflicted upon the church and the name of Jesus Christ doesn't easily go away. True Christians are required to forgive those who've sinned against them and the church. And Swaggart's been forgiven. I also believe that Swaggart's sincere these days when he admits that what he did was wrong. 

But there are those who will inevitably point to Swaggart or Jim Bakker or David Loveless or other ministers who embarrassed themselves and their churches by getting caught in sexual sin. That's the real damage. While sexual sin prevails throughout the world, it's toxic when it surfaces in the church. And it's become one of the main reasons why so many people view the church so skeptically these days.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul warned the early Christians to avoid sexual sin like it was a deadly plague. Here's what he wrote: "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." (1 Corinthians 6:18-20)

Surely, Jimmy Swaggart knows that verse today. Surely, he knew that verse 30 years ago. He knew it well enough to expose Marvin Gorman's sins. Unfortunately, he didn't apply that to his own life. Though he does now, is the church better off for that? I certainly hope so.