Family members of Holly Staker, the 11-year-old baby-sitter murdered in August 1992, have hired one of Chicago’s powerhouse law firms to represent them in what is expected to be a wrongful death lawsuit against Lake County.
The firm of Corboy & Demetrio has been looking into the circumstances that led to the conviction last November of Juan Rivera, 21, in the slaying of the girl in a Waukegan apartment. One of the firm’s partners, Philip Corboy, is one of the most renowned personal injury lawyers in the country.
Investigators for the firm are known to be seeking information on the county’s use of electronic leg monitors since 1986 in which suspects waiting trial on “non-violent” charges are sometimes confined to their homes under house arrest instead of being jailed.
However, media reports before and during the Rivera trial disclosed that the county’s leg-monitoring equipment is outdated and prone to failure.
Holly’s mother, Nancy Kalinoski, declined to comment Thursday about the family’s arrangement with the law firm, but if a lawsuit is filed alleging the county bears some responsibility for Holly’s death because its leg-monitoring system didn’t work, Lake County State’s Atty. Michael Waller would be in an awkward legal position.
During the Rivera trial, county prosecutors themselves trashed the monitoring equipment, saying Rivera could have easily slipped off his monitor, murdered Holly and returned to his home undetected.
Waller said Thursday that if the county is named in a lawsuit related to Holly’s murder, his office would hire outside legal counsel because of its prior criticism of leg monitors, and in light of the close working relationship prosecutors had developed with some members of Holly’s family during the trial.
Fire and ice: Arctic temperatures and high winds made this a week Lake County firefighters won’t soon forget.
In a series of late-night blazes, firefighters in Waukegan, North Chicago and Zion battled the weather as vigorously as the flames.
Some of the fires took more than eight hours to contain, and firefighters were forced to work in temperatures that dipped to 20 below zero. It was so cold that firefighters themselves often were encased in ice.
But a coat of ice isn’t necessarily a bad thing, said Waukegan Fire Chief Chuck Perkey.
“The ice protects the firefighters from the wind and insulates them, reflecting the body heat inward,” Perkey said.
The key to avoiding cold-weather casualties, the fire chief said, is to keep firefighters moving, rotating them from their positions into a warm area at least once an hour. Perkey said he also provides firefighters with dry gloves and, when possible, fireproof raincoats and pants.
Frigid temperatures can also be a danger after firefighters warm up, authorities said. If their clothing is moist, it can quickly freeze when they return to battle the blaze.
Perkey said that during cold weather, he uses the fire department bus as a warming center. In the near future, he plans to stock dry clothing on the bus so firefighters can go out for another round of work in dry garments.
Waukegan’s fire squad battled an overnight blaze Saturday that leveled the Michigan Inn, 219 Greenwood Ave., and a house fire Monday morning at 225 May St.
North Chicago firefighters, meanwhile, doused an overnight blaze Wednesday that destroyed Fat Charlie’s tavern, 805 10th St., while Zion’s fire department fought back-to-back house fires Tuesday night.
