Patty Columbo: Murders, Trial, and Parole Denials

Patty Columbo, whose full name is Patricia Columbo, is the Illinois woman convicted in 1977 of murdering her father, mother, and thirteen-year-old brother at the family’s Elk Grove Village home on May 4, 1976. She and her boyfriend Frank DeLuca were each sentenced to 200 to 300 years in prison. DeLuca died behind bars in 2023 at age 84. Columbo, now 69, remains at Logan Correctional Center, where the Illinois Prisoner Review Board unanimously denied her most recent parole bid in March 2026.¹

The Relationship at the Center of the Case

Columbo met Frank DeLuca when she was sixteen and he was thirty-four. He managed the Walgreens pharmacy where she worked. They began a sexual relationship while DeLuca was still married with five children, and in 1974, at eighteen, Columbo moved into the home he shared with his family. She and DeLuca later took an apartment together in Lombard, Illinois.²

Her parents were openly hostile to the relationship. In August 1975, Frank Columbo Sr. struck DeLuca in the mouth with the butt of a rifle, knocking out teeth. During police questioning after her arrest, Columbo admitted the relationship with DeLuca was the “source of her problems with her parents” and said she both feared and hated them.³

A Failed Murder-For-Hire

Months before the killings, Columbo tried to hire two men, Roman Sobczynski and Lanyon “Lannie” Mitchell, to kill her family. She gave Mitchell Polaroid photographs of the victims, a handwritten dossier of personal information about each family member, and a hand-drawn diagram of the Columbo home. She told him he could enter through patio doors she would leave unlocked, and she promised payment from her parents’ estate along with sexual favors.³ Mary Columbo’s sister, Carolyn Tygrett, later told investigators that after one of Patricia’s visits, Mary had found the patio doors left unlocked.⁴

When it became clear neither man would carry out the killings, Columbo and DeLuca decided to do it themselves. Lead investigator Raymond Rose later told parole hearings that Columbo spent about eight months planning the murders and manipulated DeLuca into taking part by falsely telling him her father intended to have them both killed.⁵

The Killings on Brantwood Avenue

On the night of May 4, 1976, Columbo and DeLuca entered the family home on Brantwood Avenue in Elk Grove Village. DeLuca shot all three victims. Each was also bludgeoned and stabbed. According to Rose’s testimony at later parole hearings, thirteen-year-old Michael was stabbed eighty-seven times with scissors and shot once in the head. Mary Columbo, 50, was bludgeoned with a vase, shot between the eyes, and had her throat slit. Frank Columbo Sr., 52, was beaten with a bowling trophy, stabbed in the throat and chest, and shot four times.⁵

Afterward, the pair ransacked the home and stole the victims’ vehicles, abandoning them in high-crime areas to make the killings look like a gang-related home invasion.²

How Police Caught Them

The bodies were not found for three days. A Chicago police report about a vandalized red Ford Thunderbird registered to Frank Columbo led an Elk Grove Village officer to the family’s residence on May 7, 1976. The officer found the mailbox overflowing, newspapers piled at the front door, and the front door ajar with no sign of forced entry.⁶

The case broke on May 14, when Mitchell came forward and told police about Columbo’s solicitation, handing over the photographs, dossier, and diagram she had given him. Investigators executed a search warrant at the Lombard apartment the next morning and seized More brand cigarettes matching those found at the crime scene and in the victims’ Oldsmobile, a notebook tablet that appeared to match the paper used for the family dossier, and an address book containing a phone number Mitchell frequented.³

Columbo was arrested on May 15, 1976, on charges of conspiracy, solicitation, and murder. DeLuca was charged about two months later.⁶ In a later jailhouse interview, Columbo described what she called a “vision” of the crime scene, placing her father on the living room floor, her mother in the hallway, and her brother in the bedroom. She said she saw “scissors with blood on it” and told investigators, “I’m afraid that I was there and did it.”³

Trial, Sentence, and Appeal

Cook County Judge R. Eugene Pincham presided over a monthlong 1977 jury trial. Columbo and DeLuca were convicted on three counts of murder and one count of solicitation, with the conspiracy charges merged into the murder convictions. Pincham sentenced Columbo to 200 to 300 years for the murders and a concurrent 20 to 50 years for solicitation. DeLuca received 200 to 300 years for the murders and a concurrent 10 to 50 years for solicitation.⁴

The Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, affirmed the convictions on June 24, 1983, rejecting all eight of the defendants’ arguments, including challenges to a denied severance motion, the admission of physical evidence and Columbo’s statements, and the separate solicitation sentences.³

Pincham later made clear he believed neither defendant should ever be freed. At a 1993 Chicago Bar Association panel, he said releasing either “would minimize the seriousness of the crime” and added that Columbo should have pleaded insanity: “Anybody who kills her mother, father and baby brother has got to be crazy.”⁷

Why She Keeps Getting Parole Hearings

Because the killings happened before a 1978 change in Illinois sentencing law, Columbo and DeLuca received indeterminate sentences. Under the prior law, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board serves as the paroling authority for such prisoners and must periodically consider them for release.⁸ The board schedules a new hearing every one to five years after a denial and weighs factors including the nature of the crime, disciplinary history, victim and family statements, and post-release plans.⁹

Columbo has appeared before the board repeatedly since 1984. Raymond Rose, the lead investigator, has attended every hearing to testify against her release, using a slideshow of crime-scene photographs. Former Elk Grove Village Police Chief Stephen Schmidt, who protected the original crime scene, has joined him for years.¹⁰ No more than two board members have ever voted to grant her parole. At a May 2014 hearing, the board voted 12 to 2 to deny release, citing the concern that parole “would deprecate the seriousness of the offense and promote disrespect for the law.”²

The 2024 Hearing

Attorney Jed Stone represented Columbo at her November 2024 hearing. He argued she had been sexually abused between the ages of seven and twelve by a family friend and then groomed, sexually exploited, and trafficked by DeLuca as a teenager. Calling the case “one of the great misunderstood cases of my career,” he pointed to her education, work with prison literacy programs, and role as a peer trauma counselor. Rose responded that Columbo had never admitted complicity or shown remorse and that recent defense strategies amounted to “making Patty a victim. Patty is not a victim.” The board denied parole by a vote of 8 to 2.⁵

The March 2026 Hearing

At Columbo’s most recent hearing on March 26, 2026, roughly seventy representatives from anti-violence groups, ministries, and prisoner assistance organizations attended in support of her release. Her attorney said she had taken responsibility for “many aspects of this case” and acknowledged planning the murders, though Columbo maintained she does not recall the specific events of the day itself. Rose told the board that “Patricia Columbo’s desire to be released is not greater than the safety and peace of mind of the public.” Mark Tygrett, a cousin of the victims, testified: “Please don’t ever release her. She doesn’t deserve to be in society.” A representative from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office formally opposed release. The board voted unanimously to deny parole.¹

Her Record Inside Prison

Columbo has been incarcerated since May 1976. She was originally held at Dwight Correctional Center and moved to Logan Correctional Center after Dwight closed. As of her most recent parole records, she is classified as minimum security and a low escape risk with an “A grade” conduct rating. She has accumulated about twenty disciplinary tickets over the decades, none involving violence; her last two were in 2004 and 2006 for minor infractions.²

She earned three associate degrees from Joliet Junior College in 1981 and a bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University in 1991. She holds fourteen training certificates and volunteered as a reading and math tutor with Literacy Volunteers of America from 1990 to 2006. More recently, she has worked as a special needs aide on a mental health unit and as a peer trauma counselor.² Rose and Schmidt have acknowledged these accomplishments but maintain they do not outweigh the crimes.⁶

DeLuca’s Death and an Alleged Prison Plot

Frank DeLuca died in prison in 2023 at age 84, having served more than forty-six years of his sentence.¹¹ According to testimony from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office at a 2014 parole hearing, DeLuca and his wife conspired during his incarceration to have two key witnesses against them murdered, reportedly paying another inmate $6,000 to carry out the killings. The targeted witnesses were not named in public records, and available documents do not indicate whether separate charges resulted.²

Rose, now well into retirement, has said he expects Columbo to be released one day. “I think one day she probably will get out. Unfortunately,” he told reporters. Schmidt has committed to returning with him for every future hearing “to do it all over again and make sure she doesn’t get out.”⁶

1
Daily Herald. State Panel Unanimously Denies Parole for Convicted Killer Patricia Columbo
2
Illinois Prisoner Review Board. En Banc Minutes
3
CaseMine. People v. Columbo
4
vLex. People v. Columbo
5
Daily Herald. Patty Is Not a Victim: Patricia Columbo Again Denied Parole for 1976 Elk Grove Murders
6
Daily Herald. Fear Rippled Through the Community: 50 Years Later, Columbo Murders Still Haunt Elk Grove
7
Chicago Tribune. Prosecutor Buyer vs. Judge Builder
8
Illinois General Assembly. 730 ILCS 5/3-3-1
9
Illinois Legal Aid Online. Parole and Other Forms of Release From Prison
10
Daily Herald. Retiring Police Officer Fights Against Parole for Columbo Killers
11
Chicago Sun-Times. State Panel Unanimously Denies Parole for Convicted Killer Patricia Columbo